Iceberg (novel)

Iceberg is the eighteenth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series, and was published in 1993. It was written by David Banks. It features the Seventh Doctor. This novel takes place at the same time as Birthright, with the events of both novels occurring concurrently for the Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield.

Publisher's summary[]

"Depends on how you define alien," the Doctor said simply. "They were human once."

In 2006 the world is about to be overwhelmed by a disaster that might destroy human civilisation: the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field. Deep in an Antarctic base, the FLIPback team is frantically devising a system to reverse the change in polarity.

Above them, the SS Elysium carries its jet-set passengers on the ultimate cruise. On board is Ruby Duvall, a journalist sent to record the FLIPback moment. Instead she finds a man called the Doctor, who is locked out of the strange green box he says is merely a part of his time machine. And she finds old enemies of the Doctor: silver giants at work beneath the ice.

Plot[]

to be added

Characters[]

• Seventh Doctor
• Ruby Duvall
• General Pamela Cutler
• Cyber-Controller
• Joe Adler
• Jude Black
• Gary Venning
• Bono Brooks
• Whitehead
• Ben
• Dave Hilliard
• Diana Milton
• Leslie Laughland
• Michael Brack
• Nike Palmer
• Philip Duvall
• Lord Stanley Straker
• Captain Trench

Worldbuilding[]

The Doctor[]

• The Doctor is inspired to walk barefoot through the TARDIS to the Jade Pagoda. He ends up in snowdrifts without his shoes.
• He borrows a multi-coloured coat from Ruby. It reminds him of a coat he wore in a previous incarnation.
• He is approaching 1000 years old. At the time his first incarnation regenerated, he was 450.
• He once spoke with the psychologist Alfred Adler, which helped him to understand part of Cyber psychology.

Cybermen[]

• The Cyber Co-ordinator conducts a "mobility experiment": installing its brain into a suitable body, it becomes the first Cyber-Controller. The Co-ordinator is ten thousand years old.
• Different factions of Cybermen have different strengths and weaknesses. The CyberMondans were susceptible to radiation. The Cybermen here are in their prime and are not affected by gold, but they will be later, after the Cyber-Wars when they begin to lose track of reality.
• The Cybermen possess a history computer: according to their records, the First Invasion of Earth occurred in the 1970s while the Second Invasion happened in 1986.

Individuals[]

• General Pamela Cutler is the only female general in the armed forces of the United States of America.
• Pamela is the daughter of General Cutler, whom the First Doctor had encountered when facing the Cybermen at Snowcap in December 1986. Furthermore, she is the sister of Zeus V pilot Terry Cutler, who became a born-again Christian following his near fatal space mission and founded an anti-terrorist Christian organisation called the Freedom Foundation.

Earth[]

• The Earth's population is approaching 8 billion.
• "The plague" is a name for all diseases across the planet, a product of the changing environment.
• The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in April 1986. 80,000 people died of cancer as a result of the disaster.
• Mondas was not granted status as the tenth planet in the solar system. In 1994, the planet Cassius was discovered and earned that status.

Music[]

• SlapRap is a style of music.
• In the early 1970s, the song "Ruby Tuesday" is playing on the transistor radio.

Technology[]

• There are transistor radios made by International Electromatics.

Pop culture[]

• A production of The Wizard of Oz is being performed on the S.S. Elysium.

Notes[]

• The events of this novel runs parallel with those of the novel Birthright.
• Author David Banks was an actor in the TV series, having played Cybermen on several occasions. Although not the first Doctor Who actor to write a novel (Ian Marter wrote novelisations and the original work Harry Sullivan's War previously), he was the only past Doctor Who actor to contribute a work to the New Adventures line.
• A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 204.
• Like Transit this novel also includes language more profane than had previously appeared in Doctor Who television stories.
• In the preface, Banks notes the book follows the Cyberman chronology he established in his reference book Cybermen.
• An unabridged audiobook of the story was recorded by David Banks for the RNIB in 2004. It is only available to the registered blind.

Continuity[]

• This novel occurs concurrently with PROSE: Birthright. The opening chapters run concurrently with TV: The Invasion and The Tenth Planet.
• Ruby Duvall reappears in PROSE: Happy Endings.
• Upon waking up, the Doctor mistakes Ruby for Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart. (PROSE: Transit)
• The FLIPback device is meant to aid the deteriorating environment of Earth, which is approaching the point of no return in the (early) 21st century. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Warhead)
• Ruby details the Cottingley fairy photos, which Torchwood would later investigate. (TV: Small Worlds)
• Ruby learned of the Cybermen from Isobel Watkins, whose photographs of them were subsequently derided as fakes in the official cover-up. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
• The Doctor vaguely remembers materialising at a cricket match and associates the memory with the Daleks but cannot remember why. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
• In The Crash of the Elysium and associated tie-in stories, the Eleventh Doctor encountered another historical vessel of the same name.

Cover gallery[]

External links[]

• Prelude to Iceberg as published in DWM #204
• Iceberg at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Iceberg at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Iceberg
• Beyond the Book: Iceberg by Paul Scoones (Article) - TSV 37