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Virgin New AdventuresThe Virgin New Adventures were a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which had been cancelled in 1989, continuing the story of the series from where the television programme had left off. The novels were published from 1991 to 1997, and all but the final book involve the seventh doctor, who had been played on television by Sylvester McCoy. Virgin had purchased the successful children's imprint Target Books in 1989, with Virgin's new fiction editor Peter Darvill-Evans taking over the range. Target's major output was novelisations of televised Doctor Who stories, and Darvill-Evans realised that there were few stories left to be novelised. He approached the BBC for permission to commission original stories written directly for print, but such a licence was initially refused. However, after the television series was cancelled at the end of 1989, Virgin were granted the licence to produce full-length original novels continuing the story from the point at which the series had concluded. The range, titled the New Adventures, was launched in 1991 with a series of four linked novels, beginning with Timewyrm: Genesys by John Peel, who had previously contributed to Target's successful range of novelisations. Of the other three initial authors, Terrance Dicks had been a regular contributor to both the television series itself and the major contributor to Target's book range; Nigel Robinson had been Darvill-Evans' predecessor as editor of the Target books; and Paul Cornell, although new to professional publishing, had been an active contribitor to the Doctor Who fanzine scene and was beginning a career as a television scriptwriter. The initial four Timewyrm books were a big success, and the range quickly became a regular monthly series. The novels were self-described as being "stories too broad and deep for the small screen," and to take Doctor Who into "previously unexplored realms of time and space". What this meant, in practice, was a shift towards more adult-oriented science fiction writing, and using the literary form to be able to play around with the standard conventions of the series. From the beginning, the novels were controversial for their use of sex, violence and bad language, although this was never as frequent or as extreme as most people seemed to believe, and over time fans began to accept the new direction as the series found its audience. Among the developments were a "hardening" of Ace, with a story arc that had her leave the Doctor for three years (from her perspective) and returning as an older and more cynical character, more morally ambiguous endings and the introduction of new companions, such as the eminent Archeologist Bernice Summerfield, and the Adjudicators Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester. Bernice, in particular, proved so popular that the character has gone on to be the star of her own successful range of novels and audio CDs. The novels were guided by the so-called Cartmel Masterplan, which was the backstory that Doctor Who story editor Andrew Cartmel had constructed for the television series when it was cancelled and never brought to fruition. Hints were therefore dropped about the "true" nature of the Seventh Doctor, which culminated in the penultimate novel in the Virgin series, Lungbarrow, written by Marc Platt. As well as introducing new characters the range also provided a showcase for new writing talent for the series. The most notable was Paul Cornell who wrote the most popular novel (according to the Doctor Who Magazine poll) Human Nature. Other writers from the TV series though also got their chance to take part to varying degrees of success, with one of the best received being The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch. Even Russell T. Davies, the man now in charge of the 2005 revival of the television series, contributed to the range with his novel Damaged Goods. Eventually, the novels became popular enough that not only did Virgin switch to a monthly publication schedule, it also put out another range, the Missing Adventures, which told stories of previous incarnations of the Doctor. Following the Doctor Who television movie in 1996 the BBC chose not to renew Virgin's licence to produce Doctor Who novels, choosing instead to publish their own line of original Doctor Who fiction. After 61 New Adventures and 33 Missing Adventures, Doctor Who fiction came to an end at Virgin with The Dying Days, their only Eighth Doctor novel. The New Adventures series continued with Bernice Summerfield as the lead character, with her taking up a job as professor of archaeology at the St Oscar's University on the planet of Dellah. The new line was written by many of the writers that had written for the New Adventures and continued to feature elements of both the Doctor Who New Adventures and - to a lesser extent - television continuity. Indeed, its concluding arc - the so-called "Gods arc", which sees an alien race with god-like powers devestating Dellah - ties in with concurrent events in the BBC Eighth Doctor Who line. The links between the NA "Dead Romance" and the two-volume Eighth Doctor novel "Interference" - all written by Lawrence Miles - are particularly close. Despite moving to the BBC, however, the writers (many who cut their teeth with the Virgin series) have attempted to maintain continuity with the Virgin range and many elements from this series have appeared in later Doctor Who stories. With Big Finish Productions acquiring the licence to produce both Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield audio plays and short fiction, the legacy of the Virgin novels continues. The audio plays The Shadow of the Scourge and The Dark Flame, for example, are both set within the universe of the Virgin novel line. Although the continuity of the audio plays and the BBC sponsored Eighth Doctor Adventures diverge sharply from each other, they both appear to maintain continuity with the Virgin series. By 2002, copyright in the books had reverted to the individual authors, and BBCi decided to take advantage of this by negotiating to make some of the most popular and sought-after of the now long out-of-print series available to read for free online as part of their Doctor Who website. These e-book versions have in some cases been slightly re-written by the original writers, and include such bonuses as illustrations and DVD commentary-style chapter-by-chapter notes by the authors. List of Virgin New Adventures Novels Featuring The Doctor: due to Aaronovitch's difficulty in completing the novel solo to deadline, it was delayed and co-written by Orman, eventually being published after The Dying Days. It is listed here in the position it occupies in the series' ongoing narrative continuity. Featuring Bernice Summerfield: The adventures of Bernice Summerfield continued in a series of novels and short story anthologies published by Big Finish Productions in 2000. See also External links
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