Cat's Cradle

Series · 3 books · 1992

By Andrew Cartmel, Marc Platt

Books in series

Doctor Who

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible

1992

'You’re on your own, Ace.' The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears. Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process. Lost voyagers drawn forward from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins. The strands of time are tangled in a cat’s cradle of dimensions. Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future. But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.

Doctor Who

Cat's Cradle: Warhead

1992

The place is Earth. The time is the near future - all too near. Industrial development has accelerated out of all control, spawning dangerous new technologies and laying the planet to waste. While the inner cities collapse in guerrilla warfare, a dark age of superstition dawns. As destruction of the environment reaches the point of no return, multinational corporations and super-rich individuals unite in a last desperate effort - not to save humankind, but to buy themselves immortality in a poisoned world. If Earth is to survive, somebody has to stop them. From London to New York to Turkey, Ace follows the Doctor as he prepares, finally, to strike back.

Cats Cradle

Witch Mark

1992

'Spare no sympathy for those creatures. They were witches, they deserved to die.' A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes. A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapered horn. In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tir na n-Og, the besieged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons. The TARDIS’s link with the Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.

Authors

Marc Platt is a British writer. He is most known for his work with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. After studying catering at a technical college, Platt worked first for Trust House Forte, and then in administration for the BBC. He wrote the Doctor Who serial Ghost Light based on two proposals, one of which later became the novel Lungbarrow. That novel was greatly anticipated by fans as it was the culmination of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan", revealing details of the Doctor's background and family. After the original series' cancellation Platt wrote the script for the audio Doctor Who drama Spare Parts. The script was the inspiration for the 2006 Doctor Who television story "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel", for which Platt received a screen credit and a fee. He lives in London.