The Banquo Legacy
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Fitz Kreiner Compassion
Main enemy:	Catherine Harries Time Lords
Main setting:	England, 1798 Banquo Manor, 1898 Banquo Manor, 1968 University of Oxford, 1968 Three Sisters, 1968
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Andy Lane & Justin Richards
Release details
Release number:	35
Release date:	June 2000
Format:	Paperback Book, 276 Pages
ISBN 0-563-53808-2
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The Banquo Legacy was the thirty-fifth novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Andy Lane and Justin Richards. It concluded with a prelude to The Ancestor Cell, continuing the lead-up of previous novels. Banquo put two new characters in the leading roles and had them tell the story through first-person accounts. The Doctor was sidelined for a vast majority of the book.

Publisher’s Summary Edit

Banquo Manor — scene of a gruesome murder a hundred years ago. Now history is about to repeat itself.

1898 — the age of advancement, of electricity, of technology. Scientist Richard Harries is preparing to push the boundaries of science still further, into a new area: the science of the mind.

Pieced together at last from the accounts of solicitor John Hopkinson and Inspector Ian Stratford of Scotland Yard, the full story of Banquo Manor can now be told.

Or can it? Even Hopkinson and Stratford don’t know the truth about the mysterious Doctor Friedlander and his associate Herr Kreiner — noted forensic scientists from Germany who have come to witness the experiment.

And for the Doctor, time is literally running out. He knows that Compassion is dying. He’s aware that he has lost his own ability to regenerate. He’s worried by Fitz’s fake German accent. And he’s desperate to uncover the Time Lord agent who has him trapped.

Characters Edit

• The Eighth Doctor
• Fitz Kreiner
• Compassion
• Thomas Jeffries
• John Hopkinson
• Sowerden
• Gordon Seavers
• Susan Seymour
• Pamela
• Catherine Harries

Residents and staff of Banquo Manor Edit

• Sir George Wallace
• Robert Dodds
• Richard Harries
• Cuthbert Simpson
• Elizabeth Wallace
• Beryl Green

Police Edit

• Inspector Ian Stratford
• Sergeant Baker
• Inspector Hetton
• Chief Inspector Driscoll

References Edit

The Doctor Edit

• 19th century England is the Doctor's favourite time and place.
• He uses the alias Dr. Friedlander.
• He refers to Irving Braxiatel as "a colleague and occasional collaborator in adventures of the mind, the body and the soul".
• He states that "relatives are hard to keep track of".
• He tells Stratford he is qualified in many things, some not yet invented.
• He doesn't believe in luck.

Physics Edit

• Artron energy is present in humans at a low level.
• According to the Doctor, the Artron inhibitor "inhibits the block-transfer equations that make reconstitution and regeneration of the outer plasmic shell possible".

Books Edit

• The Necronomicon is among Harries' book collection.

Plays from the real world Edit

• Ian considers whether the situation is akin to that The Magistrate or The Second Mrs Tanqueray.

Earth locations Edit

• Gordon Seavers went to University of Oxford; Sowerden teaches there.
• Three Sisters is the nearest town to Banquo Manor.
• Ian Stratford took a taxi from Great Scotland Yard to Notting Hill.

Human organisations Edit

• The Eighth Doctor poses as a member of the Society for the propagation of the forensic sciences.

Foods and beverages from the real world Edit

• John and Beryl drink whisky.

Individuals Edit

• The Doctor states that Irving Braxiatel would have a field day in Harries' book collection.

People from the real world Edit

• John feels like he's trapped in an Arthur Pinero play.
• The Doctor states that the age of the gentleman scientist is over. "No more Galileos, Newtons or Faradays".
• Nikola Tesla allowed half a million volts to pass through his body and walked away unscathed.
• Among Harries' book collection is some poetry containing works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Books from the real world Edit

• Ian read Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey.
• The Doctor states that he provided Franz Hartmann with notes on premature burial for his book.
• Susan states that her climb down the chimney resembles The Water Babies.
• Coleridge's poem, Time, Real and Imaginary, is among Harries' book collection.

Notes Edit

• The Banquo Legacy is composed of The Record of Inspector Ian Stratford and The Account of John Hopkinson, the exceptions being the prologue and epilogue.
• The prologue contains a section of the book only concluded in the epilogue, with the the body of the book explaining it.

Continuity Edit

• Simpson is able to gain the "seed code" of Compassion’s randomiser from Susan Seymour, leading straight into PROSE: The Ancestor Cell.
• The Doctor mentions a friend nearly being killed by a giant rat. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
• The Doctor comments that he "once did something similar with a charge of distronic radiation on a Zygon ship in Scotland" when explaining Nikola Tesla's allowing half a million volts to pass through him. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)

External links Edit

• Detailed synopsis of The Banquo Legacy at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Banquo Legacy at The Whoniverse