History Literature / EighthDoctorAdventures

* BriefAccentImitation: Fitz and Trix both make a bit of a habit of it, although Trix sometimes takes it to unsettling excess. Even Sabbath gets in on the fun. In ''The Domino Effect'', he puts on a fake UpperClassTwit accent just to be sarcastic,[[note]]which must require a pretty good grasp of the distinction between regular upper class and twitlike upper class, since he did go to [[{{Oxbridge}} Cambridge]]...[[/note]] and in ''The Last Resort'' he does an odd accent for no reason at all:

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: ''Endgame'' seems to mostly use it as an excuse for gratuitous InfoDump. ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen'' features Creator/NoelCoward. Oh, and ''The Domino Effect'' reintroduces an AlternateUniverse version of a previously seen HistoricalDomainCharacter, to fairly sad and touching effect, and then [[spoiler:more or less [[ShootTheShaggyDog Shoots The Shaggy Dog]] at the end]].

* LastMinuteHookup: [[spoiler:Fitz and Trix get together at the beginning of ''The Gallifrey Chronicles''. But the rest of the book focuses heavily on their relationship, so it's not an {{egregious}} case of this.]]

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: ''Endgame'' seems to mostly use it as an excuse for gratuitous InfoDump. ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen'' features NoelCoward. Oh, and ''The Domino Effect'' reintroduces an AlternateUniverse version of a previously seen HistoricalDomainCharacter, to fairly sad and touching effect, and then [[spoiler:more or less [[ShootTheShaggyDog Shoots The Shaggy Dog]] at the end]].

* TheAllegedCar: The Doctor's Trabant in ''Father Time''. He brought it all the way from EastGermany to England! Nobody knows why...

* LadyDrunk: The Doctor's mum, again. She also [[DiscoDan never really left the 1920s]]. She's basically a ShoutOut to Creator/BetteMidler's Delores Delago, so she's implicitly a WhiteDwarfStarlet. Oh, and she's a mermaid.

* LadyDrunk: The Doctor's mum, again. She also [[DiscoDan never really left the 1920s]]. She's basically a ShoutOut to Bette Midler's Delores Delago, so she's implicitly a WhiteDwarfStarlet. Oh, and she's a mermaid.

* ChildrenRaiseYou: Where do all these little blond Time Moppets come from, anyway? [[spoiler:The Doctor seems to be too ObliviousToLove for the matchmaking element of the trope to really work out. In Anji's case, Chloe seems to [[GenreSavvy actually realize]] that as the adopted daughter of a slightly lonely and troubled businesswoman, she's supposed to help her find a love interest, so she wanders off and gets escorted home by an eligible bachelor who Anji ends up engaged to.]]

* GeniusDitz: Oh, ''Eight''.
* GenreSavvy: Most of the characters have their moments.

* TrenchcoatBrigade: Fitz. Being GenreSavvy, he seems to know it, too. He smokes, wears a leather coat most of the time and a trench coat some of the time, swears more than basically anyone he knows, has PermaStubble (because he's bad at shaving), and is a lower-middle-class Londoner and a [[GuileHero Guile]] {{Sidekick}}. He's also basically quite sweet and sensitive, but most characters, upon first meeting him, distrust him.

* NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel: Anji has clearly had it up to here with people who want to know about [[SimSimSalabim the wonders of the mysterious Orient]]. In VictorianBritain, conforming to social expectations by wearing a sari seems to help, but she has some hangups about her heritage and doesn't like it. And Fitz's lower-middle-class accent is also a bit of a problem.

* AdaptationalSexuality: This series marked the first time that the Doctor was not portrayed as asexual, which very much carried over to ''WebAnimation/ScreamOfTheShalka'' and, shortly afterwards, to the television series proper.

* AdaptationalSexuality: This series marked the first time that the Doctor was not portrayed as straight, which very much carried over to ''WebAnimation/ScreamOfTheShalka'' and, shortly afterwards, to the television series proper.

## The "Earth Arc", following the Doctor's derailing of the war, he spends a century literally WalkingTheEarth (but [[CreatorProvincialism mostly Britain]])

** The Doctor is repeatedly compared to a cat, possibly because CatsHaveNineLives, or some sort of allusion to the ability of a cat to land on its feet, or because cats are [[CatsAreMagic mysterious]] and [[CuteKitten cuddly]] at the same time. He's represented by a stray cat in ''Seeing I'' and [[GoingNative goes native]] among the tigers in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''. In ''[=EarthWorld=]'', Anji tries to decide which animal from ''Disney/TheJungleBook'' he reminds her of, and after initially thinking of and then dismissing the tiger, can't decide between the snake, the bear, and the panther, but is quite sure Fitz is the orangutan.[[note]]This initially seems like she's making fun of Fitz because he's a, [[{{Pun}} ahem]], ButtMonkey, but note that this takes place in the book when he finally starts to come to terms with being an ArtificialHuman, and the orangutan wants to be human.[[/note]]

** In "Frontier Worlds," Compassion says that she and Fitz are like the Doctor's pets. She compares herself to a cat, which thinks "My owner loves me and feeds me and takes care of me so I must be god." Fitz, she says, is a dog, thinking "My owner loves me and feeds me and takes care of me, so he must be god."

** Subverted in ''Escape Velocity''; the fanboy ''dies'', and his long-suffering girlfriend, who finds all that sci-fi stuff silly and prefers Creator/JaneAusten, starts traveling in the TARDIS against her will.

* AsleepForDays: In ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', the Doctor sleeps for a week after losing one of his hearts.

* BadBlackBarf: A symptom of the Doctor's illness in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street''. As his condition worsens, [[MonochromaticEyes his eyes turn black]] too.

** FlashbackNightmare: In ''Camera Obscura'', the Doctor falls asleep on a train and brings the reader up to speed on one of the salient points of the story arc.

* BearHug: In ''Halflife'':
-->And with that, the Doctor bounded over and gave Fitz a huge, rib-cracking hug, lifting him clear off the ground.

* ThisBedOfRoses: The Doctor, Fitz, and Anji are staying at Scarlette's brothel for most of ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', and the young ladies working there help them to save the world from extradimensional apes and whatnot.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: [[spoiler: Karl Sadeghi]] in ''Year of Intelligent Tigers'', [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman big]] [[KickTheDog time]].

* BloodFromTheMouth: In ''The Book of the Still'', this happens to Fitz. He gets better, though.

* BrideAndSwitch: In ''The Book of the Still'', [[HoYay between Fitz and the Doctor]]. [[spoiler:Well, it never really happened; it's actually a virtual reality world where the Doctor is a CardCarryingVillain trying to [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe force some poor girl into marriage]], but gets a DisguisedInDrag Fitz instead. It's a sort of LotusEaterMachine for Fitz, since he gets to be a swashbuckling hero... wearing a FairytaleWeddingDress and marrying the Doctor isn't actually stated to be part of the appeal for him, but one never knows.]]

* BringMyBrownPants:
** In ''The Ancestor Cell'', [[SpaceshipGirl humanoid TARDIS]] Compassion seriously malfunctions, crashlands in a horrible spooky place, and spits out everything inside her, including the Doctor and Fitz, who admits to farting with terror:
--->'''The Doctor''': "[...]There's a stench of decay here."\\
"Sorry." Fitz smiled and wafted with his hands. "That would be me. Well, I was very frightened."
** Fitz also once either pissed himself or came very close when trying to rescue the Doctor from the living personification of FutureMeScaresMe, or possibly just the Doctor's own paradoxical and terrifying future self, in what he describes as a "surrealist hell". True to this trope, he was quite happy about the fact he was too soaked for anyone to notice.

* CantHoldHisLiquor: In ''Camera Obscura'', Sabbath gives Fitz and Anji brandy, and Fitz falls asleep/passes out after one glass. Which is odd, because [[DependingOnTheWriter he usually seems to have an above-average tolerance for alcohol]]; he once drank a whole bottle of wine and remained capable of walking, talking, and assisting in the Doctor's IndyPloy. Maybe he was just tired, poor dear.

* CatFolk: The tigers in the novel ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''. They're just intelligent tigers who have BizarreAlienBiology, lay eggs, and have two opposable thumbs on each paw.

* ComplimentFishing: ''Vanishing Point'' features a scene where a [[UglyCute deformed-but-still-attractive]] [[TheIngenue Ingenue]] has a heart-to-heart with Fitz. He accuses her of doing this, but she seems to genuinely mean what she's saying about herself:
-->'No one would wish to. I am deformed. I am ugly.'\\
'Are you fishing, here, by any chance?'\\
She laughed at him. 'Fishing?'\\
'For compliments, I mean,' Fitz said. 'Look, Vettul, if it helps, you're not ugly... I mean, you're...' He felt himself growing flustered.
* CreativeSterility: In ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'', this comes up regarding the Doctor. He complains of being like "an idiot savant" because while he's amazing at playing instruments, particularly the violin, he cannot improvise or come up with any of his own material. This is part of an overarching subplot/motif of his being not quite human.
* CreatorProvincialism: Taken to extremes with the end of the Earth Arc. ''Escape Velocity'' author Colin Brake seemed to bend over backwards to make sure the Doctor didn't actually have to go to America to get to "St. Louis."

* {{Deconstruction}}: ''The Crooked World'' is a deconstruction of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''-esque cartoons as the Doctor lands in a cartoon world and begins to influence its inhabitants' behaviors towards naturalism.
* DeliveryStork: One of the cartoon tropes played with in ''The Crooked World''.

* DisguisedInDrag: In ''The Book of the Still'', Fitz is in a sort of LotusEaterMachine [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs On Drugs]], whose creators are trying to come up with an interesting adventure scenario for him. He ends up marrying an evil, lecherous version of the Doctor, disguised in a [[PimpedOutDress Pimped Out Wedding Dress]] as Evil!Doctor's unwilling bride, then having a swordfight, rescuing his GirlOfTheWeek, and flying around with a jetpack, still in the dress.

* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler:Karl Sadeghi at the end of ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheYearOfIntelligentTigers The Year of Intelligent Tigers]]''. A week after committing mass murder on their fellows, Karl is fielding requests from tigers to join his orchestra. The Doctor's reaction, on the other hand, seems far more proportionate.]]

* ExpendableClone: Particularly evident in ''The Last Resort'', where [[spoiler:almost everyone gets [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap extremely prone to dying]], just because almost everyone suddenly has all these doppelgangers. Or else can teleport and therefore safely make fun of everyone else's mortality rate.]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Romana, and to a lesser extent Original!Fitz in The Ancestor Cell. Some fans were annoyed by the former, and a bit confused by the latter.

* FictionalDocument: ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', in a way, is one, since it's supposedly a piece of nonfiction involving the Doctor. And it also [[ScrapbookStory contains]] a number of ''other'' fictional documents, which end up showing that the Doctor [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs writes like he's on something]] and Sabbath has a stenographer who, stranjly, can't spell. {{Fictional Document}}s play major roles in the plot of ''Time Zero'' and ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen''.

* ForgetsToEat: The Doctor has a bit of a habit of this. Mostly when he's {{angst}}ing, but also when he's [[ForScience doing science]]. Fitz once brought three meals a day to his door when he was locked away angsting. For four days. They all went uneaten. Somewhat justified by the fact that as a Time Lord he apparently needs to eat less than a normal human being. In ''Camera Obscura'', while he's already under the weather for several other reasons, Anji has to remind him to eat:
-->‘Do you want some food? You haven’t eaten in days.’\\
‘That’s right,’ he said wonderingly, as if she’d made a point that hadn’t occurred to him. ‘You know, I bet that’s one reason I feel so bad.’
* ForTheEvulz: Fitz's description of his behavior while [[spoiler:in a failed LotusEaterMachine]] in ''The Slow Empire'' (although what he [[FelonyMisdemeanor describes as "evil"]] never got worse than oblique references to [[CountryMatters "something in the key of C"]] which [[SirSwearsALot even he]] wouldn't usually say, [[{{Jerkass}} hurtful remarks]], and trying to [[RockersSmashGuitars smash his guitar]] [[InstrumentOfMurder on his bandmates]] before they managed to restrain him).
--> [‘I]t was like, “I’m an evil person and I’m going to do this evil thing because I’m evil, and now I’m going to go and do something else evil over there.” You know what I mean?’

* FunetikAksent: Often used when Fitz is doing a BriefAccentImitation. And in ''The Book of the Still'', he gets a bit self-conscious about how unsophisticated he is, and his third person narration mentions, "you can take the boy out of Norrrrf Laaanden, but you couldn’t take the Norrrrf Laaanden out of the boy", which is pretty clearly a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] exaggeration. And, yes, that's funetikspeak for "North London". Otherwise, generally averted.
* FutureImperfect: The theme park on New Jupiter, ''[=EarthWorld=]'', is filled with this. It's meant to put different eras of Earth history on display. [[HilarityEnsues Their research needs a little work.]]

* GenreShift: ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'' reads like a historical non-fiction work instead of the usual style. Therein lies the heart of its LoveItOrHateIt status.

* GoodThingYouCanHeal: In ''Camera Obscura'', one of the regular cast is rendered effectively immortal, and inevitably suffers a series of otherwise-lethal injuries over the course of the plot.

* HeroicBSOD: A couple.
** After [[spoiler: having to destroy Gallifrey (for the first time)]], the Doctor went through one that took a hundred years on Earth to recover from.
** In ''[=EarthWorld=]'', Fitz has a truly massive one, about the fact he's a clone of the original Fitz Kreiner that's been "improved" by the TARDIS. It's worth noting it took him over ten books to finally have his meltdown over this. He must be very good at denial.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Surprisingly rare; they all seem to be concentrated between two adjacent books; ''The Turing Test'' and ''Endgame''. The latter seems to mostly use it as an excuse for gratuitous InfoDump. ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen'' features NoelCoward. Oh, and ''The Domino Effect'' reintroduces an AlternateUniverse version of a previously seen HistoricalDomainCharacter, to fairly sad and touching effect, and then [[spoiler:more or less [[ShootTheShaggyDog Shoots The Shaggy Dog]] at the end]].
* HomoeroticDream: Played with in ''Half Life''. Fitz dreams he and the Doctor are naked and back to back, and the Doctor reassures him it doesn't necessarily mean anything about his sexuality. However, any hint of eroticism is quickly lost when they start melding together. It turns out to be a sort of manifestation of the FreakyFriday thing they're about to go through.

* HyperspaceArsenal: Actually justified in ''Time Zero''. [[BagOfHolding Clothes that are bigger on the inside]] are useful for more than just super-effective Spanx. Although they are [[MundaneUtility useful]] for that, too.

* IgnoreTheFanservice: In ''Camera Obscura'', the first chapter concerns Sabbath meeting his MoralityPet ''du jour''. She's a [[CuteAndPsycho violent]], [[BrokenBird troubled]], [[TheOphelia crazy teenage girl]]. Being used to men sexually harassing her, she decides to ShowSomeLeg to get him interested, as she's in a BedlamHouse and would like to leave. He ignores what she's doing until she gets bored of it. When she suggests that he might have prurient motives for hiring her, he's neither startled nor interested by it. By the end of the book, it's implied that they're having some sort of chaste love affair.

* IncrediblyLamePun: Fitz and the Doctor are both occasionally guilty of these, and, probably unsurprisingly, Fitz's name makes him a bit of a PhraseCatcher for bad puns. He even mentions a [[StealthPun reasonably subtle]] one his mum made once in ''Frontier Worlds''.

* IntelligentGerbil:
** The tigers in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''. They're intended as a thematic parallel to the Doctor's apparent-but-sometimes-misleading similarity to [[HumanAlien another Earth species]].
** The inhabitants of Dogworld in ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen''. This time it's apparently just because it's the kind of novel where arbitrarily weird stuff happens.
* IShallTauntYou: The Doctor does this a lot, but in ''Camera Obscura'' he goes all out in one scene, mostly just to get back at Sabbath for making his life very, very difficult. He does all kinds of intentional FoeYay things (complete with innuendo-laden references to Sabbath [[OrganTheft stealing his heart]]), hides a whoopee cushion in his sofa, flops on his desk like a cat while Sabbath is looking at something, folds his papers up into [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]], sings to him, etc. Do not piss off the Doctor, or he'll teach you how it's done.
* ItMakesSenseInContext: For many stories, the authors seemed to have taken a twisted glee in just honestly summarising the premise of each novel in the blurb. This being ''Series/DoctorWho'', the results are...[[MindScrew unique]]. For example, ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'' starts with:
-->''The weather is going to hell. The tigers are coming to town. And the Doctor has taken his violin and vanished.''

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: ''Camera Obscura'' had an appearance of William the Bloody Awful Poet, which was the nickname Spike from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had as a human.

* LikeBrotherAndSister: In ''[=EarthWorld=]'', Anji considers the Doctor to be like a ''sister'' to her.

* MadwomanInTheAttic: In ''Vanishing Point'', this trope is reconstructed with a woman keeping a number of deformed and disabled people away from society. But in a bit of a twist, she's quite nice to them, treating them almost like family, and refers to them affectionately as "mooncalves". The story takes place in a Dystopia where they wouldn't be safe anywhere else.
* TheManTheyCouldntHang: Juliette, from ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', is an unusually young example; [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior she's only thirteen]]. It's implied she'd [[BungledSuicide attempted]] to hang [[DrivenToSuicide herself]], but not only did she not do it properly, [[InterruptedSuicide the Doctor showed up to rescue her]].
* MarshmallowHell: Lightly implied in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street''; Katya, whose buxomness is one of her defining characteristics, bids farewell to Fitz in such an affectionate manner he nearly suffocates.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** In ''The Tomorrow Windows'', Prubert Gastridge is a [[Creator/BrianBlessed large, bearded, bellowing actor best known for playing]] [[Film/FlashGordon1980 Vargo, the King of the Buzzardmen]].
** ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen'' has No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of Creator/JRRTolkien, Creator/CSLewis, Creator/GeorgeLucas, and Creator/RayHarryhausen. (And the actual Creator/NoelCoward.)

* OldNewBorrowedAndBlue: In ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', the Doctor has to get married because it'll somehow save the world from extradimensional baboons. Fitz mentions it's too bad they can't bring the TARDIS into the chapel, because it would count as all four.

* OnlyAFleshWound: Mentioned by name by the Doctor in ''Frontier Worlds'', about, not very surprisingly, being shot in the shoulder. Of course, it's his mild HealingFactor that makes the wound so easy to shrug off, not just [[ArtisticLicenseBiology a writer leaning too heavily on artistic license]].
* PlayingPictionary: In ''Camera Obscura'', everyone who sees the Doctor's attempted map of a London neighborhood wonders about the round shapes he's drawn. Fitz tries to guess what they might be ("trees", "gardens", or "duck ponds") until Anji gets annoyed and sarcastically suggests they're "gigantic pools of jam". It's never explained what they were actually meant to be.

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Anji in particular makes a lot of references other characters don't get. In ''Camera Obscura'', she insults Sabbath with a pun on "phat"/"fat", causing him to "[stare] at her in complete incomprehension." In ''History 101'', she sings a snippet of "Mulder and Scully" by Catatonia, which neither Fitz nor the Doctor has apparently heard.

* PsychicSurgery: In ''The Book of the Still'', the Doctor is rendered BrainwashedAndCrazy by a device that's been inserted into his brain. Fitz is shortly thereafter rendered conveniently [[IntangibleMan intangible]] ([[NoodlePeople among other things]]), and the Doctor instructs him to remove the device for him. Fitz is then somewhat perturbed to find his hand covered in slime, and the Doctor thanks him "for not taking a bigger handful". Some vague version of this also happens to the Doctor in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', although the details/explanation are concealed by the semi-LemonyNarrator who basically admits he/she doesn't know exactly what happened.

* RightOnQueue: In ''The Book of the Still'', Anji spends more or less an hour, although it apparently feels more like sixty years, queuing to visit the Doctor in jail. It annoys her that being English has made her so good at queuing that she can't bring herself to complain about it.
* RogerRabbitEffect: ''The Crooked World'', wherein the [=TARDIS=] lands on a cartoon planet. The cover suggests that the normal characters have been cartoonified, but they never remark on any such thing, suggesting they haven't been.

* SexDressed: Gets Fitz in trouble in ''Vanishing Point''.

* ShoutOut: In ''Camera Obscura'', a group of circus freaks exhibit [[Literature/SherlockHolmes "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"]]. It also seems that the Doctor [[TrueCompanions and company]] are subletting their flat from Literature/SherlockHolmes, which Sabbath lampshades in typical [[EnigmaticMinion enigmatic]] fashion. Also, in the same book, Sabbath uses the pseudonym "G.K. Thursday", a reference to Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/TheManWhoWasThursday'', which, given his [[DayOfTheWeekName name]], size, and [[{{Ubermensch}} Nietzschean]] [[NietzscheWannabe pretensions]], is a stunningly appropriate reference. [[spoiler:Also, ''The Man Who Was Thursday'' is about a mysterious council of seven men; there's a council of eight extradimensional beings who [[TheManBehindTheMan boss Sabbath around]]. Coincidence? Yeah, maybe.]]

* SpeechImpediment: Karl Sadeghi, in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'', has a slight stutter.

* StarvingArtist: Averted in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''; Hitchemus has a system in place whereby all musicians get enough money to get by. It's not very much, but starving isn't an issue.
* StealthHiBye: It's a bit of a bad habit for the Doctor. Aside from him, this trope is apparently easier the less probable it seems. The narrator constantly belabors the point that Sabbath is ''holy crap so huge'', especially when he employs improbable sneaking abilities to suddenly show up while you're not looking. Even aside from when he could teleport in ''The Last Resort''. And in ''Vanishing Point'', Fitz has a six-and-a-half-foot-tall DisabledLoveInterest with a congenitally malformed leg that causes her to hobble along slowly and noisily. But she gets around pretty well anyway, and Fitz notes her "uncanny" ability to "just appear".

* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: The Doctor, in ''Frontier Worlds''. He's impressively calm about the whole thing, except for when he ScreamsLikeALittleGirl just to be aggravating, especially considering the fact he's naked and facing a device that's supposed to bite out his heart.

* SwitchingPOV: Usually, the perspective is third person, but sometimes some or all of the characters use first person. In ''Parallel 59'', only Fitz uses first person because he's writing a {{diary}}. But even in third person, FirstPersonSmartass-type editorializing often comes through, even to the point of interjections. The Doctor's narration is surprisingly [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] at times. ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'' largely averts this, being mostly narrated by an unnamed historian, but uses ScrapbookStory to get some of the same effect.
* TalkingAnimal: The aforementioned intelligent tigers. There are also talking poodles.

* TheTeaser: The first chapter of any given book is generally something thrilling, spooky, and/or cryptic that won't make much sense until later, and the main protagonists usually don't appear in it. ''The Book of the Still'' lampshades this; the first chapter is titled "Obligatory Spectacular Opening". However, [[spoiler:it turns out at the end that, for once, it does feature a main character.]]

* TinyGuyHugeGirl: In ''Vanishing Point'', Fitz's GirlOfTheWeek is at least 6'6". It's never quite clear how tall ''he'' is, and he sometimes seems to feel he's {{egregious}}ly tall, but in this book he's implied to be shorter than the 5'8" Doctor. They're both skinny, though.

* TrappedInTVLand: ''The Crooked World'' sees the TARDIS crew trapped on a cartoon planet populated by thinly-veiled parodies of WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo, ''WesternAnimation/ThePerilsOfPenelopePitstop'', ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'', WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry, ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', and others. The Doctor's interference means that for the behavior of those parodies, RealityEnsues.

* TheUnsmile: From ''Camera Obscura'':
-->The station manager, a portly little man in wire rims, crept timidly from the office. ‘Everything all right, gentlemen?’ he asked, more hopefully than sternly.\\
Sabbath and the Doctor both beamed at him. The station master didn’t really find this a reassuring sight.

* VictorianNovelDisease: Mentioned in ''Camera Obscura'', in which the Doctor is suffering from having lost one of his hearts, making him pale and frail and [[{{Fainting}} prone to fainting]]. The book takes place in Victorian times and some people do assume he's consumptive.

* WagTheDirector: In-universe, the Doctor gets like this after he joins an orchestra as first violinist in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''. He is very gifted, but becomes a massive diva, eventually playing a solo over 100 bars long -- it was supposed to be ''24'' -- and only stopping when his violin strings break. The rest of the orchestra is ''not'' pleased. After being called out for his antics, he tells the conductor-composer that ''he'' doesn't understand the music because he's human. Then the Doctor throws the music sheets into the air, smashes his violin, and flounces off.

* WaxingLyrical:
** In ''Camera Obscura'', the Doctor quotes "All Along the Watchtower" while trying to escape a creepy EldritchLocation with Sabbath:
---> ‘“There must be some way out of here,’ said the [[TricksterArchetype joker]] to the [[OrganTheft thief]]”.’
** Sabbath has his own moment of doing this, for no particular reason at all: he's usually TheStoic, and he's from the 18th century. But he gets into an alarmingly perky and cheerful mood and starts quoting from ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''.
--->"‘Because,’ said Sabbath. ‘Because because because because because. Because of the wonderful things I does.’"
* WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut: Averted in ''The Crooked World''. The Doctor gets shot with a blunderbuss, and, seeing that the bleeding has already stopped, Fitz decides there's nothing to do except clean him up a bit. However, the Doctor does later attribute his speedy recovery to the fact the buckshot mysteriously dissolved.
* WeirdAside: Fitz sometimes casually brings up his DarkAndTroubledPast without fully realizing it's awkward, then tries to pass it off [[SadClown as a joke]]. Anji eventually stops giving a damn whether people in the future or the past understand her TurnOfTheMillennium [[ShoutOut references]], causing them to come across like this. And the Doctor has a tendency to namedrop improbably; in a modern-day setting, he might suddenly start talking about his dear old friend Creator/WilliamShakespeare. In ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'', Karl Sadeghi happens to mention his "surviving family", which might be an odd distinction to make if you've got about as many living family members as anyone else, implying he has a difficult backstory which [[CrypticBackgroundReference never really comes up]].

* WildChild: In ''The Crooked World'', set on a planet ruled by the tropes of children's cartoons, a baby is lost in a jungle, and the character who loses it reassures himself with the thought that it's bound to be raised by friendly wild animals.
* WildSamoan: Tula Lui, in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', is a teenage girl who's the last survivor from some Polynesian island, virtually never speaks, goes around killing people, and is the closest thing that 18th-century gentleman villain Sabbath has to a real friend. When he used to have a social life he'd bring her to parties because he apparently thought it was funny when she snarled at people.

* AlternateRealityEpisode: The Obverse, from ''The Blue Angel'', where the Doctor is a [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness mentally ill]] human with two hearts who has dreams about the events in the main universe, and his companions are [[{{Landlord}} his tenants]].

* AmbiguouslyGay: The alternate-reality human Doctor in ''The Blue Angel''. He's something of a SupremeChef, and certainly a very dedicated cook (he panics about having overcooked the potatoes). He's apparently interested in gardening and interior decorating, and listens to Bette Davis soundtracks. [[AllPsychologyIsFreudian Freud]] might find the fact that he's a MommasBoy to be rather significant. (A screenplay version which circulates online added some additional, and significantly more blatant, hints.) Most interestingly, in the [[TwoLinesNoWaiting parts taking place in the normal continuity]], he's referred to as a "fussy old confirmed bachelor", which is basically a euphemistic way of saying CampGay.

* BizarreHumanBiology: ''The Blue Angel'' features an AlternateRealityEpisode in which the Doctor is [[AmbiguouslyHuman theoretically human]]. He has two hearts, no navel, and an unusual aversion to the cold. It's probably related to the fact that [[HalfHumanHybrid his mother is a]] [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaid]].

* BrainyBaby: In ''The Blue Angel'', it's mentioned that among other abnormalities, the alternate AmbiguouslyHuman Doctor could speak as a newborn.

* CloneByConversion: The fate of [[spoiler:Kode]] in ''Interference'', as detailed above.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Happens to the Doctor for ''most'' of book one of ''Interference''.

* CouldntFindAPen: In ''Interference'', [[spoiler:the Doctor]] winds up using his own blood to [[RoomFullOfCrazy cover the floor of his cell with arcane mathematical formulae]].
* CreativeSterility:
** In ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'', this comes up regarding the Doctor. He complains of being like "an idiot savant" because while he's amazing at playing instruments, particularly the violin, he cannot improvise or come up with any of his own material. This is part of an overarching subplot/motif of his being not quite human.
** ''Interference'' includes a group of [[CloningBlues cloned people]] who are sterile and effectively {{asexual|ity}}.

* EndOfSeriesAwareness: In ''The Blue Angel'', the Doctor experiences [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall thinly disguised]] existential {{angst}} about the fact it's actually a bit late for that and the series is already over.

* FictionalDocument: ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', in a way, is one, since it's supposedly a piece of nonfiction involving the Doctor. And it also [[ScrapbookStory contains]] a number of ''other'' fictional documents, which end up showing that the Doctor [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs writes like he's on something]] and Sabbath has a stenographer who, stranjly, can't spell. {{Fictional Document}}s play major roles in the plot of ''Time Zero'' and ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen''. And there's one in ''The Blue Angel'' which is... significant for [[MindScrew some reason]].

* FunbagAirbag: Narrowly avoided by the alternate Doctor in ''The Blue Angel'', who almost jams his nose into someone's bosom while walking up stairs. Too bad he's AmbiguouslyGay and probably didn't enjoy it.

* GainaxEnding: Is the ending of ''The Blue Angel'' symbolic, or just a weird hallucination? And how much of it is real?

* HardHead: Lampshaded in ''Interference''.

* JewishMother: The Doctor's mother in ''The Blue Angel'' comes across as a little [[MyBelovedSmother controlling]], and has a thick [[TheOldCountry Eastern European]] accent, creating an impression of [[AmbiguouslyJewish Ambiguous Judaism]]. She also fusses a lot over his health, although since he's [[AmbiguouslyHuman technically human]] but has two hearts, you can't blame her.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: ''The Blue Angel'' has the Doctor start complaining about the SeriesHiatus. In-story, his concern is that, being lost in some tunnels, he's afraid his story is over, but it spills over into a MetaGuy-type ramble about stories. The story contains [[FourLinesAllWaiting three plotlines]]; one deals with an alternate Doctor who's an [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness insane]] human. He frequently refers to his "episodes", which are in fact psychotic episodes, the content of which is quite a bit like episodes of the TV series. The whole book is just very, very meta.
** In ''The Taking of Planet 5'', the Doctor provides an example that's similar to ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'''s "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday," alluding to the time slot in which the show aired when there was a show.

* MagicRealism: ''The Blue Angel''. The Doctor's mum is a mermaid, so she's confined to a wheelchair and he has to mow her lawn for her. His two hearts are just a strange birth defect which she worries about. Almost all the weirdness takes place ThroughTheEyesOfMadness. Fitz is theoretically sane, but has a conversation with a [[TalkingAnimal talking dog]], but [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]] he's just [[MushroomSamba extremely drunk]].

* MindScrew: '''''The Blue Angel'''''. Full stop.
** ''Interference'', the book right before it, has a truly bizarre FramingDevice and segments that suddenly become a screenplay just to be meta and confusing.
* MommasBoy: The alternate-reality human Doctor in ''The Blue Angel''.

* {{Necromantic}}: The part in ''Interference'' where [[spoiler:the Doctor turns Kode back into Fitz could be seen this way. Good job talking a teenage kid into suicide so you could be reunited with your friend, Doctor.]] Considering the fact he fibs to Sam about it, he obviously knew it was wrong, but he did it anyway.

* ParodyEpisode: ''The Blue Angel'' is [[FourLinesAllWaiting in part]] [[FandomRivalry a parody of]] ''Franchise/StarTrek''.

* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: In book two of ''Interference''. Kode asks, ‘[[SurroundedByIdiots Why are you people all so]] ''[[SurroundedByIdiots stupid]]''?’, and the Doctor realizes who Kode actually is because it's very similar to the first thing he ever heard [[spoiler:Fitz]] say.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: ''The Blue Angel'' is a less-disturbing variant than most: the AlternateUniverse human Doctor has already been diagnosed as mentally ill, generally doesn't take his delusions too seriously, and generally stays on his meds, so it seems that he's unlikely to become too terribly confused. However, it does render the story very confusing, especially as some of the things he has delusions of certainly seem to be actually happening in one of the story's [[FourLinesAllWaiting other plotlines]], and the reader really can't tell if the story contains MagicalRealism or the Doctor simply hallucinates that his mother is a mermaid, one of his friends has a talking dog which tells his other friend that all realities and stories are equally real, and other strange things. It also creates the impression that perhaps the TV series is basically AllJustADream -- the Doctor just has delusions about Daleks and Cybermen and weird phallic monsters [[SpecialEffectsFailure made of cellophane]] and such.

* ArtInitiatesLife: ''Demontage''

* AsideGlance: Sam, in ''The Taint'', is so unimpressed with Fitz's flat that she forgets she's in a book.
--> Sam looked wryly to an imaginary camera.

** [[spoiler: The Master]] learns this the hard way when Susan [[spoiler: subjects him to major MindRape for killing her husband]] in ''Legacy of the Daleks''

* CityOfWeirdos: San Francisco is depicted as this in ''Unnatural History''. Dragons? Unicorns? Streets rearranging themselves? Nobody thinks much of it.

* ContinuityNod: Stacy and Ssard, companions of the Doctor from a relatively obscure line of comic strips in the Magazine/RadioTimes, feature in ''Placebo Effect.'' It's revealed in the story that the Doctor had those Radio Times adventures while Sam was dropped off somewhere, but returned for her before she knew he'd been gone.

* CurseCutShort: In ''Unnatural History'', a Faction Paradox member taunts the Doctor with a parody of a Gallifreyan rhyme:
-->"Sing the past to me, 'cause I'm the one who wrote the song\\
I made it up next week so all the words will come out wrong\\
The past won't keep you warm tonight, the future's blown to bits,\\
And everything that you believe is really full of --"\\
The door slammed behind him.

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: In ''Seeing I'', Sam has some new friends who meet the Doctor after she's had the chance to talk him up a bit, and this trope is nearly quoted verbatim. Based on the height of the actor who played him in the film, he's 5'8".

* EyeScream: ''Seeing I''. The ordinary implants needed to use INC technology are bad enough, but in OBFSC prison an invasive contact lens becomes the stuff of nightmares -- especially for [[spoiler:the Doctor]].

* GladToBeAliveSex: Fitz and [[spoiler:Sam]] in ''Unnatural History'', after witnessing a particularly gruesome murder.

** In ''Seeing I'', the Doctor has one that is absolutely '''epic'''.[[labelnote:*spoilers*]]While tracking down Sam, who'd been separated from the Doctor the last three books, the Doctor tracks her to a suspicious MegaCorp where she'd found employment as a data entry clerk under working conditions only a [[TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} shadowrunner]] could appreciate. After forging an identity to get into the building and examine their records, the Doctor is found out, captured, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment for industrial espionage. It's very much a LighterAndSofter prison, with organized activities, a library, music, and an understanding and sympathetic counselor who genuinely wants to help the Doctor with ''(what he sees as)'' his neuroses. Over [[TimeSkip 3 1/2 years (!!)]], the Doctor makes over a hundred escape attempts, thwarted every time. He starts to crack under the strain, turning his cell into a crayon picture RoomFullOfCrazy. He's not being mistreated in any way; they simply will. Not. Let. Him. Leave. For a man who can be anywhere and anywhen, this is like [[AndIMustScream total sensory deprivation]]. He only escapes after eventually learning that the prison had implanted a control device in [[EyeScream his eye]] that transmit everything he sees to prison security. After finally breaking out, being reunited with Sam, but then threatened with recapture by the [[TheCatCameBack very same counselor]] who promises that he'll be sent back to the same relatively nice prison to resume his "treatment", the Doctor snaps, screaming, ''begging'' not to be sent back, pleading for the terrible maximum security cell, torture, ''anywhere'' but there![[/labelnote]]

* HoldingBothSidesOfTheConversation: Fitz, in ''The Taint'', cleverly scares the two villains of the week away from Sam by hiding around a corner and putting on a number of voices to make it sound like he's ten guys who are all probably much tougher than he is himself and intent on clobbering said villains.

* IdenticalGrandson: In ''The Taint'', [[spoiler:Fitz's great-grandfather's ObliviouslyEvil twin]] is recognizably similar to Fitz himself: same long nose, straggly hair, and thin face and build. Fitz keeps finding him "infuriatingly familiar", and, unsettlingly, he has moments of acting like a PsychopathicManchild version of Fitz.

* NewspaperThinDisguise: Played with twice in ''Unnatural History''. In the first instance, Fitz doesn't seem to be attempting to hide, but came across as shady nonetheless. The second time he does it, this time actually trying to camouflage himself, he realizes that the newspaper is in Chinese, and, unluckily for him, while he does speak Chinese, he can't read it.

* PhantomZonePicture: ''Demontage'' features a device that can trap people in paintings; if they remain there too long, they're trapped permanently.

* ScaramangaSpecial: ''Demontage'' featured, as part of its Film/JamesBond pastiche, an assassin disguised as a wineglass salesman, whose sample glasses could be transformed into a knife and a single-shot gun -- neither of which would set off metal detectors.

* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Theoretically impossible, or, more accurately, just an ''extremely bad'' idea, so the Doctor has to keep reminding people not to even try it. In ''The Janus Conjunction'', [[spoiler:the Doctor manages it anyway.]]

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: The Doctor comments on the implications at the end of ''Dreamstone Moon''.
-->After a while, the Doctor realised that he'd just killed a man with the force of an argument.\\
It wasn't a very pleasant thought.

* TearsOfBlood: In ''Seeing I'', [[spoiler:the Doctor]] gets a mild case of this when the [[spoiler:surveillance device]] implanted in his left eye is activated.

* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: ''The Eight Doctors'' has a [[VerySpecialEpisode Very Special Subplot]] involving one of these.

* AuctionOfEvil: In, ''Alien Bodies'', agents of the most formidable powers in the galaxy gather at an auction to bid for the deadliest weapon ever created.

* CanonImmigrant: TheBrigadier's American counterpart, General Kramer, who appears in ''Vampire Science'' by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman, originated in one of Blum's fanworks.

* HighTimesFuture: In ''Alien Bodies'', Sam Jones, in the near future and surrounded by aliens, focuses on a cigarette packet as a "normal" thing. Then she notices it says "CLOUD NINE -- The original cannabis cigarette". As smoked by UNISYC troopers. When she mentions the one time she got stoned, the future soldier the cigarettes belong to replies "One time? Are you ''sure'' you're human?"

* TheMenInBlack: In ''Alien Bodies'', there are a number of men at {{Area 51}} who wear dark suits despite the heat, and dark glasses despite the fashion in the 2060s being for light-reactive contacts.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: ''Alien Bodies'' makes the Krotons a lot more intimidating. Just for starters, their leader arrives in [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains a Dalek ship he's hijacked]] -- along with the digested corpses of the original owners.

* {{Retcon}}: ''War of the Daleks'' tries this on "Remembrance of the Daleks". While the retcon doesn't get directly addressed again for a number of reasons, some later books explore what the personal impact of having your history rewritten would be for someone.

* BridalCarry: The Doctor [[HoYay to Fitz]] in ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresVanishingPoint Vanishing Point]]''.

* BridalCarry: The Doctor [[HoYay to Fitz]] in ''Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresVanishingPoint Vanishing Point]]''.

* BridalCarry: The Doctor [[HoYay to Fitz]] in ''Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresVanishingPoint Vanishing Point''.

** The Doctor, who, along rather the same lines, is stated to be bisexual in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of way -- Sam comments on how she's noticed him checking out both men and women. He also mentions having been "more than friends" with Alan Turing (yes, the real person), gets embarrassed when he accidentally says he "loved Shakespeare" rather than "loves Shakespeare", and has an unusually close relationship with another male character, and a SlashFic about the pairing received a thumbs-up from the author of that book. He also kisses and has implied but very obvious sex with a water nymph, and gets married to a brothel madame... and, like Fitz, he has some mild but evident camp tendencies. And the Doctor has actually kissed Fitz on the lips, on more than one occasion.

* ScarletFever: Scarlette is the name of the rather badass high-class madam in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street''.

* GeekPhysique: Fitz is described as looking like he's [[NoodlePeople made of pipecleaners]]. He's quite into SpeculativeFiction, particularly ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', and once dubbed a sea monster "[[CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]]", although his characterization generally isn't overtly geeky.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: ''The Blue Angel'' is a less-disturbing variant than most: the AlternateUniverse human Doctor has already been diagnosed as mentally ill, generally doesn't take his delusions too seriously, and generally stays on his meds, so it seems that he's unlikely to become too terribly confused. However, it does render the story very confusing, especially as some of the things he has delusions of certainly seem to be actually happening in one of the story's [[FourLinesAllWaiting other plotlines]], and the reader really can't tell if the story contains MagicalRealism or the Doctor simply hallucinates that his mother is a mermaid, one of his friends has a talking dog which tells his other friend that all realities and stories are equally real, and other strange things. It also creates the impression that perhaps the TV series is basically AllJustADream -- the Doctor just has delusions about Daleks and Cybermen and [[FreudWasRight weird phallic monsters]] [[SpecialEffectsFailure made of cellophane]] and such.

* NoHuggingNoKissing: Thrown right out the window. This book series was the first ''Series/DoctorWho'' franchise to show a romantic and rather sexual Doctor (after Eight's first BigDamnKiss in the TV movie). Aside from snogging his companions with some frequency, it's very strongly hinted that he dated Creator/AlanTuring.

** In ''The Tomorrow Windows'', Prubert Gastridge is a [[Creator/BrianBlessed large, bearded, bellowing actor best known for playing]] [[Film/FlashGordon Vargo, the King of the Buzzardmen]].

** In ''The Tomorrow Windows'', Prubert Gastridge is a large, bearded, bellowing actor best known for playing Vargo, the King of the Buzzardmen. [[Creator/BrianBlessed Ring any bells?]]
** ''Mad Dogs and Englishmen'' has No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of Creator/JRRTolkien, Creator/CSLewis, Creator/GeorgeLucas, and Creator/RayHarryhausen. (And the actual NoelCoward.)

** In ''The Tomorrow Windows'', Prubert Gastridge is a large, bearded, bellowing actor best known for playing Vargo, the King of the Buzzardmen. [[BrianBlessed Ring any bells?]]