The last three reads were some of my all-time favorites, but they aren’t exactly the cheeriest of novels, what with the relentless focus on death and suffering and theology. I figure we can all use a break, something fun and lighthearted. Something wherein the Whoniverse crosses over the Douglas Adams universe. (Yes, Adams deserves his own universe! How dare you suggest otherwise?)
Shada was originally created as a Doctor Who screenplay, written by Adams but not completely produced nor aired on account of a strike. Much later, it was released as an audio play and also novelised by Gareth Roberts. These two versions contradict each other, naturally, and it’s actually a fair bit more complicated than that. Check out the wiki for all the various releases and remixes and rereleases. Don’t even bother asking about canon.
At any rate, it turns out that my favorite character from the Dirk Gently novels wasn’t originally created for those books at all. He was, in fact, a Time Lord calling himself Chronotis.
It may – though it almost certainly will not – come as a surprise to discover that the police box that Chris Parsons saw in Professor Chronotis’s rooms was not a police box at all. It was in fact a TARDIS, a machine that could travel anywhere in space and time, and its humble battered wooden blue shell housed a vast, futuristic interior. Chris was also very wrong to think back to his childhood trips to London because this TARDIS was not a product of Metropolitan Police technology. It may – though it almost certainly will not – come as a terrible shock that this TARDIS was not from Earth at all but in fact originated on the distant planet Gallifrey, home of the awesomely powerful society of the Time Lords. And it could – though this would really be pushing it – elicit gasps of awe to learn that this TARDIS was the current occupancy, if not exactly the property, of that mysterious traveller in time and space the Doctor, a renegade Time Lord who had shunned the static and futile life on Gallifrey and set off many hundreds of years ago to explore the infinite universe.
Surprisingly enough, this book manages to somehow come off sounding much like a Dirk Gently novel, while also staying true to the spirit of the Fourth Doctor. Honestly, I would not have thought that possible until just this week.
h/t Fortress of Geekitude Secret Secular Hideout
