Continuity
The book does not fit directly into the ongoing Doctor Who storyline that runs through the TV series and books. It is left to the reader to develop their own ideas how it relates to the series. The story appears to be written to a "what if" premise.
As part of this vein of ambiguity, it is not specified which incarnation of the Doctor, the main character of the series, is featured. Among the possible explanations for which incarnation of the Doctor is featured include a young First Doctor who has yet to leave Gallifrey, a future Doctor past the last known incarnation (at the time the book was written, the Eighth Doctor was the current incarnation) or the Other, who may or may not be the Doctor. A scene in which this Doctor sees himself with long hair, that mirrors a scene in Lance Parkin's latter novel Father Time where the normal Eighth Doctor sees himself with short hair in another reality, implies that this incarnation is certainly 'played' by Paul McGann. Parkin's own guide to Doctor Who chronology, AHistory contains a footnote stating that "fan consensus" places the novel on the reconstructed Gallifrey implied by the end of Parkin's The Gallifrey Chronicles (that is, between The Gallifrey Chronicles and "Rose").
The book's storyline features Omega, and includes many events and themes reflecting the two television stories featuring the renegade Time Lord, The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity. It also features a character called Hedin, as in Arc of Infinity and the character of Savar is mentioned in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Seeing I. The story also provides more information about the character of Patience, who may be the Doctor's wife, who Parkin introduced in the Virgin Missing Adventures novels Cold Fusion.
Other continuity references include the character of the Magistrate, who may be the Master, and the subplot featuring the leaders of the Sontaran and Rutan armies ending their centuries long-conflict after being locked in a TARDIS. There are also references to the fall of Time Lord civilisation which prefigures the novel The Ancestor Cell and the Time War of the new series. The Doctor's reaction to a prediction of this event also implies his role in destroying Gallifrey.
Read more about this topic: The Infinity Doctors
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Continuous eloquence wearies.... Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)