'Adventures in Lockdown'

"Remember you will get through this. And things will be alright. Even if they look uncertain. Even if you’re worried. Darkness never prevails." – The Doctor

While staying home was a vital safety measure in 2020, the freedom of the TARDIS remained a dream that drew many - allowing them to roam the cosmos in search of distraction, reassurance and adventure. Now some of the finest TV ‘Doctor Who’ writers come together with gifted illustrators in this very special short story collection in support of BBC Children in Need.

Current and former showrunners - Chris Chibnall Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat - present exciting adventures for the Doctor conceived in confinement, alongside brand new fiction from Neil Gaiman, Mark Gatiss and Vinay Patel. Also featuring work from Chris Riddell, Joy Wilkinson, Paul Cornell, Sonia Leong, Sophie Cowdrey, Mike Collins and many more, ‘Adventures in Lockdown’ is a book for any ‘Doctor Who’ fan in your life, stories that will send your heart spinning wildly through time and space...

Clive's Note: ‘Adventures in Lockdown’ collects the stories that were previously released on the BBC website during the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown; these have their own entries in my guide, and are available here:

‘A Message from the Doctor’
‘Things She Thought While Falling’
‘Rory’s Story’
‘The Simple Things’
‘Press Play’
‘The Shadow Passes’
‘Shadow of a Doubt’
‘Shadow in the Mirror’
‘The Secret of Novice Hame’

There are four other stories, ‘The Terror of the Umpty Ums’, ‘Rose: The Sequel’, ‘Doctor Who and the Time War’ and ‘Listen’, which I am not covering as they are non-canonical

Also included are three new stories:

'One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes' by Neil Gaiman

The piratical renegade Time Lord known as the Corsair fulfils a life debt to the Doctor, stealing the long-lost stellar manipulator called the Hand of Omega from the Imperial Edifice of Infinite Steps in the City Obsidian. Chased by armed guards, the Corsair muses that she will probably be the one to steal the stellar manipulator from Omega in the first place. As their pursuers close in, the thief and her parrot are saved by the levitating device, which flies them to the safety of the Corsair’s TARDIS, disguised as a sloop called The Esperanza. The Corsair sets course to deliver the Hand to one of the Doctor’s earlier selves, who is about to steal a TARDIS in his own escape from Gallifrey…

Notes:
*Featuring the Corsair, and the First Doctor

*Time-placing: Before the First and Susan leave Gallifrey

*It is the Thirteenth Doctor who sends the Corsair on her mission

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'The Tourist' by Vinay Patel

After an incident with a biker gang, a tour guide vacancy in Gloucester is filled by a normal man named George – or is he..?

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor

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'Fellow Traveller' by Mark Gatiss

Fifty years after the defeat of the Dalek’s invasion of Earth, Susan meets a mysterious woman while on her journey across England. Over sandwiches in an abandoned farmhouse, Susan explains that she is travelling to the Bedford mines to face old ghosts. When she wakes the next morning, the traveller shows her the rusted remains of a Dalek, and provides a big stick so that Susan can work out her anger. Afterwards, Susan tells the traveller that she is glad her grandfather came back to see her…

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor and Susan

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Publication Date:
November 2020

Notes:
*A BBC Books publication