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The Who Adventures: The Art and History of Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who Fiction
In 1989 Doctor Who on television came to an end. There were to be no more travels in space and time. But the moment had been prepared for, and Virgin Publishing, then the licence-holders for BBC-authorised fiction, stepped into the breach.
This is the story of Virgin Publishing’s New Adventures range of Doctor Who novels. Picking up where the television series stopped, and presenting the new and further adventures of the seventh Doctor and his companion Ace, the books crossed space and time, introducing new companions like archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, and reuniting the Doctor with many old adversaries like the Ice Warriors and the Cybermen.
Noted researcher and historian David J Howe chronicles the origins of the books, speaking to all the major players in their development, and charts their critical reception as well as presenting a plethora of artwork, sketches and other imagery associated with the range. Also included are Virgin’s range of Missing Adventures, original novels featuring the first six Doctors, plus other Doctor Who fiction published by Virgin in the same time period. It’s the ultimate guide to the Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges of books, which saw several authors, including Russell T Davies, Ben Aaronovitch and Mark Gatiss publishing early works of original fiction!
Profusely illustrated with all the covers, plus rare and unseen sketches and unused concepts and ideas, The Who Adventures is the definitive guide to a range of books which enjoyed phenomenal success in the first half of the ’90s, and which kick-started the careers of several authors and artists who have since gone on to immense success.
A follow-up to the critically-acclaimed and best-selling The Target Book!
This is the story of Virgin Publishing’s New Adventures range of Doctor Who novels. Picking up where the television series stopped, and presenting the new and further adventures of the seventh Doctor and his companion Ace, the books crossed space and time, introducing new companions like archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, and reuniting the Doctor with many old adversaries like the Ice Warriors and the Cybermen.
Noted researcher and historian David J Howe chronicles the origins of the books, speaking to all the major players in their development, and charts their critical reception as well as presenting a plethora of artwork, sketches and other imagery associated with the range. Also included are Virgin’s range of Missing Adventures, original novels featuring the first six Doctors, plus other Doctor Who fiction published by Virgin in the same time period. It’s the ultimate guide to the Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges of books, which saw several authors, including Russell T Davies, Ben Aaronovitch and Mark Gatiss publishing early works of original fiction!
Profusely illustrated with all the covers, plus rare and unseen sketches and unused concepts and ideas, The Who Adventures is the definitive guide to a range of books which enjoyed phenomenal success in the first half of the ’90s, and which kick-started the careers of several authors and artists who have since gone on to immense success.
A follow-up to the critically-acclaimed and best-selling The Target Book!
- GenresDoctor WhoNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
First published December 17, 2021
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32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 24, 2023
3.5
This is a colourful, if slightly selective celebration of an under-appreciated era of Doctor Who.
After the show went off the air in 1989 a series of novels sprung up at Virgin Publishing, heralding a (somewhat) more adult approach to storytelling in the Whoniverse: the New Adventures. Past Doctor stories followed in the Missing Adventures, and short story collections (the Decalogs) came along too. When the BBC finally revoked the Doctor Who license from Virgin - effectively killing it off again in one form - the New Adventures carried on, sans Doctor but with lots more of the range’s brightest companion, Bernice Summerfield. All told, the Virgin books had plenty of impact on the show as it exists today. They were often very good, too.
As you can tell from the above, The Who Adventures has a fairly wide remit. David J Howe focuses on the New Adventures, and goes to impressive lengths to highlight the authors as well as the artists, the art (of which there was a lot) and plenty of early and aborted cover drafts. There is a lot of input from the main editors of these ranges, Peter Darvill-Evans and Rebecca Levene, giving a rounded impression of Virgin’s publishing history, its ups and (sadly very noteworthy) downs.
Where I think the book falls down is in covering the novels themselves. Even with the focus mostly on the NAs (as they’re known for ease) there’s scant room for the actual content. Some books are important to the overall “story” of this company and warrant a bit of coverage, some get glossed over. Most get a line or two of critical reception - usually the same couple of contemporary reviewers. There’s a bit about how the success of Ben Aaronovitch’s The Also People caused issues with writing his next novel, but there isn’t much about that novel itself, or *why* it was a success. Once we get into Missing Adventures it’s inevitably even more of a whistle stop tour, and the bit about the Bernice books is all but an art gallery with a book list at the front.
This is admittedly nitpicking, because I don’t know how the book could do a better job without simply being a lot longer, and probably more expensive. But I can’t deny that, as a fan of the books, it felt like a degree of familiarity was assumed in place of really getting to grips with what they were like. (Still, other books are available that do focus more on that, such as Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story and Bookwyrm, both of which feature in the comprehensive - but still, of course, rather brief - appendices here.)
Overall, so long as you’re happy with a celebration that’s at least 50/50 about the books and about the art (and both *are* important), this should prove an interesting and useful addition to the Who library.
This is a colourful, if slightly selective celebration of an under-appreciated era of Doctor Who.
After the show went off the air in 1989 a series of novels sprung up at Virgin Publishing, heralding a (somewhat) more adult approach to storytelling in the Whoniverse: the New Adventures. Past Doctor stories followed in the Missing Adventures, and short story collections (the Decalogs) came along too. When the BBC finally revoked the Doctor Who license from Virgin - effectively killing it off again in one form - the New Adventures carried on, sans Doctor but with lots more of the range’s brightest companion, Bernice Summerfield. All told, the Virgin books had plenty of impact on the show as it exists today. They were often very good, too.
As you can tell from the above, The Who Adventures has a fairly wide remit. David J Howe focuses on the New Adventures, and goes to impressive lengths to highlight the authors as well as the artists, the art (of which there was a lot) and plenty of early and aborted cover drafts. There is a lot of input from the main editors of these ranges, Peter Darvill-Evans and Rebecca Levene, giving a rounded impression of Virgin’s publishing history, its ups and (sadly very noteworthy) downs.
Where I think the book falls down is in covering the novels themselves. Even with the focus mostly on the NAs (as they’re known for ease) there’s scant room for the actual content. Some books are important to the overall “story” of this company and warrant a bit of coverage, some get glossed over. Most get a line or two of critical reception - usually the same couple of contemporary reviewers. There’s a bit about how the success of Ben Aaronovitch’s The Also People caused issues with writing his next novel, but there isn’t much about that novel itself, or *why* it was a success. Once we get into Missing Adventures it’s inevitably even more of a whistle stop tour, and the bit about the Bernice books is all but an art gallery with a book list at the front.
This is admittedly nitpicking, because I don’t know how the book could do a better job without simply being a lot longer, and probably more expensive. But I can’t deny that, as a fan of the books, it felt like a degree of familiarity was assumed in place of really getting to grips with what they were like. (Still, other books are available that do focus more on that, such as Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story and Bookwyrm, both of which feature in the comprehensive - but still, of course, rather brief - appendices here.)
Overall, so long as you’re happy with a celebration that’s at least 50/50 about the books and about the art (and both *are* important), this should prove an interesting and useful addition to the Who library.
December 30, 2021
Excellent book, perfect for Doctor Who fans who were around in the era when the New Adventures books were the only source of new stories. Also great for anyone who is interested in a detailed look back at those years, filled with cover art, sketches, interviews and lots of context.
March 8, 2022
Part history of Virgin's New Adventures series, and part art book. For me it's the perfect reminder of just how good some of the fiction published during Doctor Who's television wilderness years was, and left me wanting to reread the series. I'm lucky enough to own about half the series, but reading the entire series is well-nigh impossible as most of the series has been out of print for almost a quarter of a century.
February 5, 2022
A comprehensive look at the line of novels that helped keep Doctor Who alive, and grow up, when the show was off the air during the "wilderness years" of the 1990s. Even if you're not a fan of the New Adventures books, this is an interesting look at a fascinating era.
November 20, 2024
It’s not gripping reading. It’s not. And that would be the reason for dropping it down to 4 stars. Do you read non-fiction? You know those blurbs on non-fiction books, that say some variation of “Loved it! This is a piece of history, but it reads just like a really great thriller - a captivating story, and all true!”. And then you read whatever book that is, and by gosh, it DOES have all the thrills, and drama, of a terrific novel.
This is not that. Virgin Books acquiring the licence to Doctor Who (no Daleks allowed), pumping out Doctor Who books for years (while hoping to start something that could sustain itself if they eventually lost the Doctor), and then inevitably losing the licence and going forward with their greatest creation, Bernice Summerfield…all this is not the stuff of riveting human drama, full of unexpected twists and turns. This was not like reading A Game of Spies, or even Paris in the Fifties, and certainly not Confederates in the Attic. This was more like reading The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in several ways…
But even when I say that, The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service WAS gripping. It does contain thrilling twists - well, I’m a bit nervy going to the word “thrilling” in describing the George Lazenby magic trick, and all that resulted from that…but the story of OHMSS, packaged up as a huge book loaded with every photo and fun fact you could ever want, conjures up one heck of a fascinating yarn of how one strange film dared to get made.
The Who Adventures is also an over-sized book wherein the photo inclusions almost overshadow the story jammed in among all the amazing optical knick-knacks. Both books are a niche-completist’s dream! Both books feature a main narrative that is continuously festooned with side-bars full of extras; I’m not gonna say my eyes didn’t glaze over just a little bit, every time I stopped for another artist, or author, or editor, mini-biography in Who Adventures. Probably the least gripping reading…with apologies to anyone whose life was more exciting and meaningful than it came across as, in a slightly dead side-bar.
But probably the most dramatic surprises on display, when it comes to anything that came along to shake up the routine of spraying out Dr Who books to fans at an ever-increasing rate, were: (a) So Vile a Sin missing its publication date (one of the worst books you could pick, to get published out of intended order), (b) Peter Darvill-Evans’s awkward exit from Virgin Books (I’m not sure we get anything like the full story), and, uh, what else? Um, the alternate Christmas on a Rational Planet cover? The cover they ultimately put forth is one of my favourites in the line, but I kind of like the wonky reject (NOT the YELLOW, though!!).
Of course, the most bizarre and compelling thing to read about - when not appreciating the true reason for the book: the photos, and book-cover representations without text obscuring any art - is Virgin Books opening the writing of the novels to, well, anyone. Fans were encouraged to send in manuscripts, proposals. Sure, there was a Slush Pile. But even it got picked through, from time to time…and hey voila!: Christmas on a Rational Planet. I’m not gonna spoil what little drama actually takes place during the churning out of scads of Doctor Who novels under increasingly rushed conditions, by listing the authors who got discovered after they submitted Who ideas to Virgin, and then went on to further success. Let’s just say, it was an astonishing, and rare, situation.
Years ago, I read somewhere that, in one critic’s assessment, if we were to compare what the BBC accomplished with their Eighth Doctor novels from 1997-2005 (after they took back control of the Doctor’s adventures, still while no series was on TV), up against what Virgin Books had done just before that, 1991-1996, with the Seventh Doctor, the BBC run is slightly more impressive than the Virgin novels era. I dunno. I may never know how I feel, because I’m unlikely to ever re-read both runs, in order, to make my judgement. I joined the ‘Wilderness Years’ Party (show off the air, novels filling in the gap for sixteen years) a tad late, in 1998. I had to play catch-up with all the Virgin entries, scouring the city…paying big money for the “frustrating eight” that had eluded me.
But somewhere along the line, the Seventh Doctor became my favourite Doctor of all time, taking over from the Second Doctor (not that surprising a switch). I don’t claim to be a Time Lord, but part of that switch was during a difficult period when I came to see things more as Seven, then Two. Putting away childish things?…maybe. I dunno. I became a different person; my favourite Doctor changed. There’s all that, and that story would probably be more gripping than anything in The Who Adventures…
But I know, too, that slowly but surely, the Seventh Doctor novels put out by Virgin were a key component in my burgeoning love of the Seventh Doctor. It was a blast revisiting my own personal regeneration, in one complete package.
This is not that. Virgin Books acquiring the licence to Doctor Who (no Daleks allowed), pumping out Doctor Who books for years (while hoping to start something that could sustain itself if they eventually lost the Doctor), and then inevitably losing the licence and going forward with their greatest creation, Bernice Summerfield…all this is not the stuff of riveting human drama, full of unexpected twists and turns. This was not like reading A Game of Spies, or even Paris in the Fifties, and certainly not Confederates in the Attic. This was more like reading The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in several ways…
But even when I say that, The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service WAS gripping. It does contain thrilling twists - well, I’m a bit nervy going to the word “thrilling” in describing the George Lazenby magic trick, and all that resulted from that…but the story of OHMSS, packaged up as a huge book loaded with every photo and fun fact you could ever want, conjures up one heck of a fascinating yarn of how one strange film dared to get made.
The Who Adventures is also an over-sized book wherein the photo inclusions almost overshadow the story jammed in among all the amazing optical knick-knacks. Both books are a niche-completist’s dream! Both books feature a main narrative that is continuously festooned with side-bars full of extras; I’m not gonna say my eyes didn’t glaze over just a little bit, every time I stopped for another artist, or author, or editor, mini-biography in Who Adventures. Probably the least gripping reading…with apologies to anyone whose life was more exciting and meaningful than it came across as, in a slightly dead side-bar.
But probably the most dramatic surprises on display, when it comes to anything that came along to shake up the routine of spraying out Dr Who books to fans at an ever-increasing rate, were: (a) So Vile a Sin missing its publication date (one of the worst books you could pick, to get published out of intended order), (b) Peter Darvill-Evans’s awkward exit from Virgin Books (I’m not sure we get anything like the full story), and, uh, what else? Um, the alternate Christmas on a Rational Planet cover? The cover they ultimately put forth is one of my favourites in the line, but I kind of like the wonky reject (NOT the YELLOW, though!!).
Of course, the most bizarre and compelling thing to read about - when not appreciating the true reason for the book: the photos, and book-cover representations without text obscuring any art - is Virgin Books opening the writing of the novels to, well, anyone. Fans were encouraged to send in manuscripts, proposals. Sure, there was a Slush Pile. But even it got picked through, from time to time…and hey voila!: Christmas on a Rational Planet. I’m not gonna spoil what little drama actually takes place during the churning out of scads of Doctor Who novels under increasingly rushed conditions, by listing the authors who got discovered after they submitted Who ideas to Virgin, and then went on to further success. Let’s just say, it was an astonishing, and rare, situation.
Years ago, I read somewhere that, in one critic’s assessment, if we were to compare what the BBC accomplished with their Eighth Doctor novels from 1997-2005 (after they took back control of the Doctor’s adventures, still while no series was on TV), up against what Virgin Books had done just before that, 1991-1996, with the Seventh Doctor, the BBC run is slightly more impressive than the Virgin novels era. I dunno. I may never know how I feel, because I’m unlikely to ever re-read both runs, in order, to make my judgement. I joined the ‘Wilderness Years’ Party (show off the air, novels filling in the gap for sixteen years) a tad late, in 1998. I had to play catch-up with all the Virgin entries, scouring the city…paying big money for the “frustrating eight” that had eluded me.
But somewhere along the line, the Seventh Doctor became my favourite Doctor of all time, taking over from the Second Doctor (not that surprising a switch). I don’t claim to be a Time Lord, but part of that switch was during a difficult period when I came to see things more as Seven, then Two. Putting away childish things?…maybe. I dunno. I became a different person; my favourite Doctor changed. There’s all that, and that story would probably be more gripping than anything in The Who Adventures…
But I know, too, that slowly but surely, the Seventh Doctor novels put out by Virgin were a key component in my burgeoning love of the Seventh Doctor. It was a blast revisiting my own personal regeneration, in one complete package.
February 9, 2024
An excellent guide to the output of Virgin Publishing’s New Adventures, for anyone interested in the history of Doctor Who during the dark years following the show’s cancellation in the 1980s. Contains also brief biographies of many of the contributors to the book series, both authors and artists, including many who are now household names, as a result of their involvement in the programme since its 2005 relaunch.
September 19, 2023
Stunning book containing an extraordinary level of behind-the-scenes detail. It's absolutely packed with illustrations, including alternate drafts and material you won't see anywhere else. And the text — the story, if you like — is fascinating. David J Howe's books about Doctor Who tend to be definitive, and this one is no exception.
December 1, 2023
The painstaking history of a publishing enterprise whose workings will be of limited interest to most readers. Howe includes lengthy biographical notes on everyone concerned. Diligently researched but for the most part textual deadweight cluttering and detracting from the coffee-table art component.
May 10, 2025
A very nice, comprehensive guide to the VNAs. Clear photos of all the covers and really interesting to learn the full context of this series from conception stage right up to when BF took the reins to Bernice Summerfield. Highly recommended to anyone who liked the VNA books.
March 25, 2022
A wonderfully informative book on the legacy of the Virgin Doctor Who books that kept the fandom going during the cancellation and gave us an expanded universe of Who!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews