Virgin New Adventures

The Virgin New Adventures (NA series, or NAs) are a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. They continued the story of the Doctor from the point at which the television programme went into hiatus from television in 1989.^{[unreliable source?]}

From 1991 to 1997, all the books except the final one involved the Seventh Doctor, who was portrayed on television by Sylvester McCoy; the final book, The Dying Days, involved the Eighth Doctor, who was portrayed in the 1996 television film by Paul McGann. In further books published between 1997 and 1999, the New Adventures series focused on the character Bernice Summerfield and the Doctor did not appear.

Virgin had purchased the successful children's imprint Target Books in 1989, with Virgin's new fiction editor Peter Darvill-Evans taking over the range. Target's major output was novelisations of televised Doctor Who stories, and Darvill-Evans realised that there were few stories left to be novelised. He approached the BBC for permission to commission original stories written directly for print, but such a licence was initially refused. However, after the television series ended at the end of 1989, Virgin were granted the licence to produce full-length original novels continuing the story from the point at which the series had concluded.

The range, titled the New Adventures, was launched in 1991 with a series of four linked novels, beginning with Timewyrm: Genesys by John Peel, who had previously contributed to Target's successful range of novelisations. Of the other three initial authors, Terrance Dicks had been both a regular contributor to the television series itself and the major contributor to Target's book range; Nigel Robinson had been Darvill-Evans' predecessor as editor of the Target books; and Paul Cornell, although new to professional publishing, had been an active contributor to the Doctor Who fanzine scene and was beginning a career as a television scriptwriter.

The initial four Timewyrm books were successful, and the range quickly became a regular bi-monthly series. Starting with book #11, The Highest Science, in February 1993, Virgin switched to a monthly publication schedule. In July 1994, Virgin began a companion range of novels, the Missing Adventures, which told stories of previous incarnations of the Doctor.

Following the Doctor Who television movie in 1996 the BBC chose not to renew Virgin's licence to produce Doctor Who novels, choosing instead to publish their own line of original Doctor Who fiction. After 61 New Adventures and 33 Missing Adventures, Doctor Who fiction came to an end at Virgin with The Dying Days, their only Eighth Doctor novel. However, the final Doctor Who book actually published by Virgin was So Vile a Sin, featuring the Seventh Doctor; it had been scheduled for release several months before The Dying Days but was delayed due to difficulties with the manuscript.

The New Adventures series continued with Bernice Summerfield, one of the new companions introduced for the New Adventures, as the lead character, starting with her taking up a job as professor of archaeology at the St Oscar's University on the planet of Dellah.

A meeting was held at Virgin in mid-July 1996 with the New Adventures editorial team, Peter Darvill-Evans, Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone, and several regular writers for the series: Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts, Andy Lane, Lance Parkin and Justin Richards. This was to plan the basics of the Benny books. Parkin's The Dying Days as then tasked with getting the character of Benny to 2593.