Book description
The survivors of a devastated future Earth lie in suspended animation
on a great satellite. When Earth is safe again, they will awaken. But
when the Doctor, Sarah and Harry arrive on the Terra Nova, they find
the systems have failed and the humans never woke.
The Wirrrn Queen has infiltrated the satellite, and laid her eggs
inside one of the sleepers. As the first of the humans wake, they face
an attack by the emerging Wirrrn.
But not everyone is what they seem, and the only way the Doctor can
discover the truth is by joining with the dead mind of the Wirrrn
Queen. The price of failure is the Doctor's death, and the end of humanity.
This novel is based on a Doctor Who story which was originally
broadcast from 25 January to 15 February 1975.
Featuring the Fourth Doctor as played by Tom Baker, and his
companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan
Ian Marter is best remembered by Doctor Who fans as the
actor who played the Fourth Doctor's companion Harry Sullivan. In
fact, his first role in Doctor Who came a couple of years earlier when
he played the character of Andrews in 'Carnival of Monsters'. Marter
worked with his friend Tom Baker on ideas for a possible Doctor Who
film, and together they developed a script. Though the film was never
made, Marter continued to write and novelised nine Doctor Who
adventures for Target books. Ian Marter died in 1986.
Robert Holmes, the original script writer of 'Ark in Space',
served with distinction in the army and also in the police before
becoming a journalist and television writer. Holmes went on to become
one of the Doctor Who's most prolific writers. He took over as
script sditor of Doctor Who in 1974 during one of the
programme's most successful periods at the start of the Fourth
Doctor's era, and established a background and society for the Time
Lords that has endured to this day. Robert Holmes wrote for many other
series including Doomwatch, Spy Trap, Dixon of Dock
Green, Blake's 7
and many others. Holmes died in 1986, while working on the
final episodes of the Doctor Who
story The Trial of a Time Lord.
