'The Target Storybook' Edited by Steve Cole

We’re all stories in the end...

In this exciting collection you’ll find all-new stories spinning off from some of your favourite Doctor Who moments across the history of the series.

Discover what happened next, what went on before, and what occurred off-screen in an inventive selection of sequels, side-trips, foreshadowings and first-hand accounts – and look forward too, with a brand new adventure for the Thirteenth Doctor.

Each story expands in thrilling ways upon aspects of Doctor Who’s enduring legend. With contributions from show luminaries past and present – including Colin Baker, Matthew Waterhouse, Vinay Patel, Joy Wilkinson and Terrance Dicks – The Target Storybook is a once-in-a-lifetime tour around the wonders of the Whoniverse.

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'Gatecrashers' by Joy Wilkinson

The Doctor lands the TARDIS inside an enclosed Pizza-Porter parlour, where a Gornt worker, Iz, lies dead. Deciding to investigate the ‘locked room’ murder, the Doctor uses the location codes on Iz’s teleporter to send Yaz and Ryan to the girl’s home, while she and Graham take the TARDIS to the mall of New Port City. Outside the mall, the Doctor and Graham find a city smashed by the teleport signals that send the populace whizzing from one sealed-off section to another, the hastily-repaired houses protected by makeshift force-fields. Finding Iz’s enclosed room full of imaginative drawings, Yaz and Ryan use a one-off code on the teleporter to view the site of a party Iz had visited. Returning to the pizza parlour, the Doctor and Graham find a note from their friends, but are unable to follow with the teleport code. Using the TARDIS to track the party to the local power plant, the Doctor and Graham set off on a handy scooter, avoiding the teleport superhighways in their path as they go. Yaz and Ryan are captured by the city’s Mayor, who has been luring people to his parties to steal their brains’ imagination-boosting sperantium, using it to power his city and keep the Gornt ‘safe’ inside their enclosed rooms. After explaining how Iz was mortally wounded trying to escape, the Mayor attempts to drains Yaz and Ryan’s brains; luckily for them the Doctor and Graham burst in, interrupting the official’s plan. When the Mayor tries to escape the Doctor sonics his teleporter’s codes, inadvertently transporting the Mayor inside the Pizza-Porter’s oven. The Doctor destroys the power plant and helps free the Gornt populace from their prisons, enabling them to go anywhere their imaginations will send them…

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan

*Time-placing: this takes place immediately after 'The Witchfinders'

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'Journey Out of Terror' by Simon Guerrier

Escaping from the Daleks, the Doctor, Ian and Barbara accidentally leave Vicki behind. Believing the haunted house they just left was a place of the mind - unaware it was actually a funfair - the Doctor uses the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits to transport them to a fictional world. Finding themselves the subject of a comic strip in a handy book, the trio read how they will find Vicki in the future. Emerging from the TARDIS into a large conical spaceship, they meet young Julia Jett and her dog, Bunny; Julia explains that she is attempting to fix a broken television satellite, its faulty transmissions having put the entire population of Earth to sleep. The TARDIS crew help Julia to repair the satellite, then invite her to join them; but the girl is not real, just a figment of their imagination created by the fictional realm as a replacement for Vicki. With Julia now self-aware, the travellers leave her to return to a re-awoken world below, now made real by her own imagination. Having returned to the real universe, the Doctor and his friends decide to steal the Daleks’ time-ship and rescue Vicki…

Notes:
*Featuring the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara

*Time-placing: this takes place during 'The Chase' part 4

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'Save Yourself' by Terrance Dicks

Captured by the Time Lords and awaiting the outcome of his trial, the Doctor is approached by a High Chancellor from the Celestial Intervention Agency, who offers him his freedom in exchange for taking part in a covert mission. The Doctor agrees, and is despatched to the planet Karn in his TARDIS, which has been modified with a remote control. On the desolate planet the Doctor finds a small army of mercenaries working for the renegade War Chief, who survived his apparent execution by the Time Lords, and now plans revenge by destroying the Sacred Flame of the Sisterhood of Karn. Aware of the Flame’s importance to Time Lord healing and regeneration, the Doctor struggles with the War Chief, who falls to his doom in the fires below. His mission a success, the Doctor is recalled to his home planet; but instead of his freedom the Doctor is given a memory wipe – the Time Lords have sent him on missions before this, each time wiping his memory and then sending him out again… and again… and again…

Notes:
*Featuring the Second Doctor

*Time-placing: this story takes place between 'The War Games' and 'Spearhead from Space'. The Doctor notes how battered the TARDIS console has become, so he has obviously been sent on many missions by the Time Lords

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'The Clean Air Act' by Matthew Sweet

Returning from a scientific conference at Tarminster University, the Doctor and Jo discover a number of people lying in the gardens of a housing estate in Oak Green: all have inexplicably choked to death, except for a young girl named Sally Hesketh, who sits among them unharmed. The Doctor and UNIT are unable to determine the cause of death, although Sally’s parents appear to know more than they let on. Life in the village resumes – until a second incident occurs a few days later, and more of the Heskeths’ neighbours asphyxiate. Realising that the air around the Heskeths’ house has been drained away, the Doctor confronts Sally’s parents; in response Mrs Heskith turns into a fibrous, vegetable creature, which attacks the Doctor and joins its mind with his. Through their connection, the Doctor learns how Mrs Heskith ate an alien plant that her husband found in Papua New Guinea; the alien parasite has been draining off Earth’s air through a space tunnel, using it to replenish its own dying world. Struggling against the creature, the Doctor is able to cut it off at the roots using the folding metal frame of a sun-lounger. With the alien threat destroyed, UNIT closes down the village, attributing the incident to toxic paint cans buried during the war…

Notes:
*Featuring the Third Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton

*Time-placing: the Doctor appears to still be Earth-bound, and the Master is still on the loose, so I am choosing to place this prior to 'The Daemons'

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'Punting' by Susie Day

While punting in Cambridge the Doctor and Romana are attacked by a time scoop; their attempt to escape backfires, and they become trapped inside a warping field within the Time Vortex. As the two friends try using a section of the scoop to free themselves, they see glimpses of the Doctor’s other selves in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. Unfortunately, the Doctor and Romana’s meddling corrupts time, but luckily for them the infection is quickly dealt with by Vortex-dwelling creatures call Mederi. Once events on Gallifrey have reached a conclusion, the Doctor and Romana are returned to their proper time and place on Earth.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and the Second Romana

*Time-placing: this takes place during 'The Five Doctors'

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'The Dark River' by Matthew Waterhouse

While using the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor, Tegan and Richard Mace, Adric and Nyssa accidentally travel forward in time to America’s Deep South. Adric tries to save an escaped slave from his master, but is shot in the process, and both are left for dead. After Adric’s enhanced recuperative powers have ensured his swift recovery, he insists they help the slave, James, to get to safety. Together they embark on a trip down the Mississippi River on a stolen raft. After a few day’s progress, the raft is passed by a steamboat carrying the TARDIS on its lower deck; to Adric and Nyssa’s dismay increases the boat’s boiler overheats - the vessel explodes, killing all aboard and sending the TARDIS sinking into the river’s depths. Later, Adric, Nyssa and James are surprised to see a group of men pull the TARDIS from the water and place it on a cart; entranced like zombies, the men capture the trio and take them and their cargo to a large clapboard house. Adric, Nyssa and James meet a thickset man named Doc Ashberry, who claims to know the Doctor from the Time Lord Academy. Doc’s initial hospitality soon gives way to his true intent: his house is his broken TARDIS, and after being stranded for fifty years he wants to swap it for the Doctor’s TARDIS so he can regain his freedom. Nyssa flatly refuses, but Adric offers to recharge Doc’s ship with energy from their TARDIS. Once his ship’s power has been restored, Doc agrees to James’ request to travel with him, and together they depart in his TARDIS. Inside their TARDIS, Adric and Nyssa work on getting back to the Doctor and Tegan…

Notes:
*Featuring the Adric and Nyssa

*Time-placing: this story occurs during 'The Visitation' part 4

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'Interstitial Insecurity' by Colin Baker

Put on trial by the Time Lords and in a state of shock from seeing Peri’s death, the Doctor is allowed access to the Matrix to prepare his defence. Inside the virtual world containing the sum knowledge and experience of the Time Lords the Doctor meets his ‘Helper’, a wheelchair-bound young girl named Anosia. Exhausted from scanning through so many of his future adventures, the Doctor takes a tea break with Anosia; she in turn shows him an adventure that will help prove his innocence: an incident aboard the Starship Hyperion III. When the Doctor challenges her choice, Anosia explains that the Time Lords have already chosen this adventure as his evidence, and have made several incriminating edits, including the removal of the Doctor planting an herbarium with Vervoid seeds modified to assure a benign continuation of their species. Knowing this will ensure the Doctor is found guilty of genocide, Anosia promises to transfer the original recording into the trial. The Doctor returns to the courtroom, his time spent inside the Matrix wiped from his memory. Meanwhile, the Valeyard pays another visit to Anosia: after breaking his promise to free her from the Matrix, the villain stops the upload of the recording that will exonerate the Doctor…

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor

*Time-placing: this story clearly takes place between 'The Trial of a Time Lord' episodes 8 and 9. However, the Doctor mentions Charlotte Pollard - but he hasn't met her yet. Perhaps one of the future adventures he has just witnessed was with her?

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'The Slyther of Shoreditch' by Mike Tucker

While engaged in his machinations during what the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group terms ‘The Shoreditch Incident’, the Doctor meets an old Time Lord ‘acquaintance’; the man warns of a counter-strike by the Daleks, a campaign named Pa-Jass Vortan that heralds the start of a Time War. When the Time Lord also warns that the Daleks are using a bio-mechanised Slyther to track something important to the war, the Doctor becomes concerned for the Hand of Omega device he is hiding. Enlisting the Time Lord’s unwilling aid in tracking down the Slyther, the Doctor borrows a hearse and some clothes from the undertaker looking after the Hand’s casket; he and the Time Lord then lure the Slyther to an electricity substation, where they manage to electrocute the creature. As the Time Lord departs with the Slyther’s charred remains, he warns the Doctor of the oncoming storm of the Time War…

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor

*Time-placing: this story occurs during 'Remembrance of the Daleks' part 2

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'We Can't Stop What's Coming' by Steve Cole

When the TARDIS is drawn to a planet riddled with time distortion, the Doctor and Fitz set off to investigate, while Trix chooses to remain in the ship. When the Doctor and Fitz are captured by Neanderthals and put in their larder, the Doctor notices the creatures are tagged by DNA markers. Meanwhile, Trix meets a group of alien accountants who have been sent on a mission to the planet, testing out a variety of new weapons on the cave-people. Enlisting the combatants’ help, Trix rescues the Doctor and Fitz. Learning that the accountants’ employers have created a testing range on the planet, the Doctor demands an end to the slaughter. As several of the accountants collapse and start fading in and out of existence, the Doctor checks their DNA markers and realises they have killed their own ancestors, creating a paradox. After a robot appears and teleports the bodies away, the Doctor deduces the accountants have been deliberately set up as part of a plan to weaponize their anomalous bodies - the perfect weapons for use in a time war. Using the TARDIS, the Doctor returns the surviving Neanderthal to her proper time and place, then takes the accountants’ leader to somewhere safe to live out the rest of her life in hiding. The Doctor then pays a visit to the Company head office – only to find the boardroom has been destroyed and the board members murdered...

Notes:
*Featuring the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Trix

*Time-placing: this takes place towards the end of the BBC's Eighth Doctor novels

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'Decoy' by George Mann

Rassilon’s plan to lure the Daleks into a trap by using an armada of unwitting Time Lords led by an Auton clone of the Doctor draws the fury of the real War Doctor. After programming his duplicate to send the Time Lord armada retreating from the Dalek fleet, the Doctor sends another Auton duplicate to berate Rassilon, while he steals weaponry from the Time Lord armoury. Having seeded the atmospheres of a system of gas giants with proximity mines, the Doctor lures the Daleks into his trap – and as his enemies’ ships trip the mines, the Doctor escapes the ensuing conflagration in his TARDIS…

Notes:
*Featuring the War Doctor

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'Grounded' by Una McCormack

When conspiracy-theorist Clive gets a tip-off about an alien from his UFO-obsessed friend Terry, he takes his son Ben with him to investigate. Searching the local rec they are surprised to find a real alien: a small creature named Faylt, left stranded on Earth when its fellows departed without it. Using Terry’s jury-rigged equipment, the gang detect a signal from the alien’s ship, as the crew search for their missing crewmember. After helping reunite Faylt with his crew, Clive and Ben return home with Terry for tea – but then Terry uses another home-made piece of tech to wipe his friends’ memories of recent events… Sometime later, after his father was killed in an incident at a shopping centre, Ben receives a visit from Terry, who restores the boy’s memories of the rec. Ben goes on to write about his experience, and becomes very good at writing stories...

Notes:
*Featuring Clive

*Could Terry be a future incarnation of the Doctor? The description and illustration don't match the Ninth Doctor, so maybe...

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'Turning of the Tide' by Jenny T Colgan

Two years have passed since Bad Wolf Bay, and Rose is pregnant and living with the Meta-Crisis Doctor, now named ‘Corin’. Their peace is broken when they meet a robot worm, which warns of an attack by water-stealing Cask Men. After locating the pirates’ massive spaceship hiding in the fog with the help of some lighthouses, Corin and Rose take a boat out to a sea and board the cloud-like spaceship; inside they meet the Cask Men, who ignore their pleas and dump the duo in the ocean. Commandeering another boat, Corin and Rose are caught up in the Cask Men’s scoop, and brought aboard their cloud ship’s dimensionally-expanding, hold along with hundreds of boats, including a naval warship. Leaving Rose with the warship’s sailors, Corin gains access to the Cask Men’s control room and shoots the commander in the foot while the worm reverses the ship’s controls. As the stolen water and boats plummet into the French Channel below, the Cask Men’s ship implodes. Luckily Corin escapes the invaders’ destruction, and with the worm in tow, he reaches the warship’s medical bay just as Rose gives birth to their child…

Notes:
*Featuring Corin and Rose

*Time-placing: this story conflicts with 'The Siege of Big Ben' and 'Flight into Hull' - unless Jackie doesn’t like calling the Meta-Crisis Doctor ‘Corin’? (Seriously, Corin?!?)

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'Citation Needed' by Jacqueline Rayner

The Encyclopaedia Gallifreya owned by the Doctor becomes self-aware. After years of recording its owner’s adventures the bottled ‘book’ is attacked by the Ux, working for Stenza Tzim-Sha. The Encyclopaedia tries to get the Doctor and her friends to help, but is mistaken for a bottle of Tizer, and its contents are consumed at a picnic.

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan

*Time-placing: this takes place prior to 'The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos'

*Although the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors are mentioned by the book, they do do not actually take part in the story

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	'Pain Management' by Beverly Sanford

The Doctor takes his friends to see the band Rusty Cage play at Diamond Park Arena, San Francisco in 1994. The Doctor joins the band on stage, but ends up hospitalised when his stage dive goes wrong. Learning that the hospital staff are struggling with a flu outbreak, Missy decides to win brownie points by finding a cure; she sneaks off, kidnaps a matron and starts work - but her ‘cure’ only succeeds in imbuing Matron Wanda with electrical energy, driving her insane. The Matron breaks free and turns all the infected patients into living zombies that in turn spread her ‘cure’, quickly creating an army. After Bill uses the PA system to distract the zombies with Rusty Cage’s music, the Doctor recovers in time to see Missy push Wanda off the hospital roof. Without the Matron’s influence the patients recover, with no recollection of recent events. But the Doctor is disappointed in Missy’s method of solving the problem…

Notes:
*Featuring the Twelfth Doctor, Bill, Nardole and Missy

*Time-placing: this story takes place prior to 'World Enough and Time'

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	'Letters from the Front' by Vinay Patel

Prem sends letters to his family, recounting his time fighting in the War, the death of his brother, and his eventual demob. Elsewhere, Thijarian assassin Hunter Ityoj diligently completes its assignments, only to learn that its homeworld has been destroyed.

Notes:
*Featuring Prem

*Time-placing: this Doctorless story sets up the events of 'Demons of the Punjab'

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Publication Date:
October 2019

Notes:
*Published by Penguin for BBC Books