Conundrum (Doctor Who)

Doctor Who book
Conundrum
Series	Virgin New Adventures
Release number	22
Featuring	Seventh Doctor Ace, Bernice
Writer	Steve Lyons
Publisher	Virgin Books
ISBN	ISBN 0-426-20408-5
Release date	January 1994
Preceded by	The Left-Handed Hummingbird
Followed by	No Future

Conundrum is an original novel written by Steve Lyons and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice. A prelude to the novel, also penned by Lyons, appeared in Doctor Who Magazine #208. This novel is the fourth book in the "Alternate Universe cycle" which continues until No Future.

As with all Doctor Who spin-off media, its relationship to the televised serials is open to interpretation.

Plot

What seems to be a simple murder investigation in a quiet English village becomes something far more deadly for the Seventh Doctor and his companions when the inhabitants begin to exhibit superhero abilities...

Continuity

• Conundrum features the Land of Fiction first seen in the 1968 television serial The Mind Robber. Lyons' later New Adventure Head Games is a sequel to this novel and also relates to the Land of Fiction.

• This novel is effectively written in the first person by Jason, the Master of the Land of Fiction. This enables metafictional concepts; for instance, he grows frustrated that he finds it impossible to read the Doctor's mind, a reference to the New Adventures guideline that the books should not show what the Doctor is thinking.

• This novel features the second occasion in which the Doctor manages to repair the TARDIS's chameleon circuit, the previous occasion being the Sixth Doctor story Attack of the Cybermen.

External links

• Conundrum Prelude
• Conundrum at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Cloister Library - Conundrum
• Conundrum at The TARDIS Library

Reviews

• Conundrum reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Conundrum reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide