Recap / Doctor Who New Adventures The Dying Days

The first (and last) Virgin New Adventures featuring the Eighth Doctor and the sixth one featuring the Ice Warriors.

The final book in the Doctor Who New Adventures, due to the license changing hands; the first book of the Eighth Doctor Adventures was published a couple of months later.

Tropes:

• Adaptational Sexuality: Ralph Cornish from "The Ambassadors of Death" is mentioned to have a boyfriend "for no other reason than that’s the sort of thing we used to do in the Virgin books."
• Badass Boast: "I am the man that gives monsters nightmares. The Daleks call me the Bringer of Darkness. I am the Eighth Man Bound. I am the Champion of Life and Time. I'm the guy with two hearts. I make History better. I am the Doctor."
• Celebrity Paradox: Benny Summerfield sees Richard Dawkins and his wife at the National Space Museum. Richard Dawkins' wife at the time was the actress Lalla Ward, who co-starred in Doctor Who in the 1970s as the Doctor's companion Romana.
• Continuity Cavalcade:
  • Many, many references to the events of past novels and the UNIT era, even by NA standards.
  • The Doctor's Badass Boast at the climax references things that have been said about the Doctor in earlier works including the short story "Continuity Errors", the novels Christmas on a Rational Planet and Love and War, and the 1996 TV movie.
• Did They or Didn't They?: In the epilogue, Bernice tells the Doctor that before he leaves there is something she needs to do. She "grabbed the lapels of his frock coat, kissed him square on the mouth and pushed him down hard onto the bed" ... and then the book ends, leaving it to the reader's imagination how matters progressed from there.
  • For what it's worth, "Benny's Story" from Big Finish's The Company of Friends release (a four-pack of Eighth Doctor stories set in different continuities) would have Benny recap this moment in her opening monologue as she and the Doctor "shaking hands" in case you were wondering what the Big Finish crew thought happens.
• Engineered Public Confession: The Doctor pulls off one of these on the alien warlord who has taken over Britain and declared himself King. After tricking him into breathing in helium, the Doctor then displays the whole conversation as a giant hologram in the sky with the villain's (squeaky) rant broadcast all over the world.
  The Doctor: I think you've just made your abdication speech, your Majesty.
• Doppelgänger Crossover: There's a cameo appearance by Dr Hoyt from Medics ... who was played by Tom Baker.
• Hero on Hiatus: For about half of the book the Eighth Doctor is mistakenly thought dead, leaving Bernice Summerfield to become the main hero - establishing her as a main character in preparation for the launch of her own spin-off series.
• Invisible President: It's set in 1997, but at the time of publication (1996) both the American and British national elections were being contested, thus meaning that the identities of both the President and the Prime Minister are deliberately kept vague.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • At one point, a couple of characters are overheard discussing the final instalment of an unnamed science fiction franchise, remarking that it was an opportunity for the writers to step outside the cage of Status Quo Is God. In particular, one of them remarks that it means the main characters no longer have Contractual Immortality invoked — and shortly afterward, the Doctor is apparently killed.
  • The National Space Museum scene includes Richard Branson (the founder of Virgin) arguing with Alan Yentob (at the time, Director-General of the BBC). We aren't told what about.
• Mythology Gag: Donneby's is the rocket manufacturer that Ian failed an interview with in the Alternate Continuity of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure With the Daleks.
• Never Found the Body: The Doctor's apparent death occurs in circumstances so obviously fatal that everyone is convinced he must be killed but also that it's not safe for anybody to go back and actually find the body to confirm it.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Lord Edward Greyhaven is meant to be 'played' by Ian Richardson and clearly takes basis from Richardson's most famous role, Francis Urquhart, the main character from political drama "House of Cards".
• Promoted to Scapegoat: In a fashion similar to "Yes Minister" the book goes into detail on the Great Offices of State and says how "The Home Secretary was the man who had to deal with every child murderer, escaped prisoner, dangerous dog, inner-city riot, drug dealer, illegal immigrant, terrorist, car accident, rapist and cracked pavement in Britain." As a result the Party and people will blame them whenever things goes wrong, the book saying anyone who wanted to be Home Secretary was an idiot. David Staines fits this well.
• Rank Up: In one of the novel's "it's the last one, anything can happen" moments, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart finally gets his promotion to General.
• Shout-Out:
  • The party at the National Space Museum includes, as well as various real celebrities, Lady Creighton-Ward, Geoffrey Hoyt, Dame Emma Knight, and the Old Woman from the "Hunt the Old Woman" skits on The Saturday Night Armistice.
  • As in "Remembrance of the Daleks", Quatermass is implied to exist in the Whoniverse, without quite naming him (just "..ermass" and a reference to British Rocket Group.
  • Lex Christian is named after the working title for Dan Dare. His unfortunate fellow astronauts Albert Fitzwilliam and Madeline Goodfellow are Digby and Professor Peabody, respecively.
  • IIF (International Irradiated Fuels) is from Edge of Darkness. The nuclear waste dump they're building on the Moon is meant to be the one that will send it out of orbit in Space: 1999, which Parkin says is cheekily linking what he considers to be the best and worst shows of all time.
• Textual Celebrity Resemblance: Benny is briefly mistaken for Emma Thompson, Paul Cornell's own fantasy casting.
• A True Story in My Universe: Who Killed Kennedy was published in-universe as I Killed Kennedy. The intelligence services didn't bother banning it because, while James Stevens had built a fairly accurate portrayal of UNIT, it looked like an absurd conspiracy theory.

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