History Literature / EighthDoctorAdventures

* PopCulturedBadass: Almost everyone. Fitz has been known to reference Creator/HPLovecraft, Film/JamesBond, ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', and ''Franchise/StarTrek'', and he's very into music, particularly from TheFifties and TheSixties. He also has a CutSong (yes, you didn't think that happened in books) that just listed a bunch of ItWasHisSled moments, designed to [[TakeThatAudience irritate people who skipped to the end of the last book]]. The Doctor apparently likes ''ComicBook/XMen'' and ''{{Transformers}}'', not to mention a scene where he [[WaxingLyrical starts quoting "All Along the Watchtower"]]. Anji makes some odd reference in almost every book, and seems to have given up on caring whether some FishOutOfTemporalWater gets it. And even Sabbath makes a [[NotSoAboveItAll rather hilarious]] reference to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' in ''The Infinity Race''.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'' opens up a number of plot threads which never get resolved [[spoiler:(especially Trix's criminal record and whoever Fitz is talking about in that song)]], and {{lampshade}}s the fact it's not going to bother telling you a damn thing about how Anji is doing with Chloe.

* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Subverted by Fitz and the Doctor. The Doctor seems like the "sensitive type" whereas Fitz is more of an average bloke, but the Doctor is actually TheStoic and Fitz is much more open about his feelings. ''Fear Itself'' overtly juxtaposes their outward demeanors in this department: they're trying to mingle and get to know people on a spaceship, so the Doctor ends up [[WineIsClassy sipping wine]] and waltzing at a fancy party while Fitz drinks beer and hangs out with blue-collar types and dances to more rock-type-music. And then it's followed by some ActionHero heroics by the Doctor and Fitz fussing over his [[RealMenGetShot resulting injuries]] like a [[TeamMom mother hen]].

* ACupAngst: Trix [=MacMillan=]. Her breasts aren't big enough for her to have what you'd call cleavage. This only seems to bother her when she's feeling especially self-conscious, though.

* BigDamnKiss: The Doctor gets a few with his companions. Fitz is very surprised when the Doctor snogs him; (dark) Sam actually puts some effort into the seduction, which involves a sensual massage and a very happily purring Eight being her, quote, "back-rub slut".

* CantLiveWithThemCantLiveWithoutThem: Anji, toward Fitz. She once fantasized about [[ArmorPiercingSlap hitting him with a chair]], and is often annoyed by his [[FishOutOfTemporalWater old-fashioned opinions and mannerisms]]. However, he's sort of her [[TheNotLoveInterest Not Love Interest]], whom she cares about just as much as she would about a love interest;[[note]]They don't have much {{UST}}, and it's all on his part.[[/note]] she's just as grief-stricken, if not ''more'', over his apparent impending [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom doom]] as she was about the death of her boyfriend of five years. His opinion of her, however, seems to be less conflicted.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: Fitz ends up [[ReplacementGoldfish replaced]] [[CloningBlues with a clone]]; the Doctor gets TraumaInducedAmnesia and spends about a hundred years WalkingTheEarth. If you've read this far down the page, YouShouldKnowThisAlready. But it's about the journey, not the destination!

* ArcWords: The word 'interference' crops up quite often. Obviously, in the book ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresInterferenceBookOne Interference]]'' it's taken UpToEleven, but the word floats around quite a bit, especially in the books leading up to ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheShadowsOfAvalon The Shadows of Avalon]]'' and ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheAncestorCell The Ancestor Cell]]''. This is somewhat notable because, if one watches the Classic Series, particularly the Tom Baker era, 'interference' pops up a bit as well, though probably in that case unintentionally.

* HighTimesFuture: Humorously played with 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?"

* InnocentBigot: Invoked in the alternate timeline depicted in ''The Domino Effect'', as the world has evolved into a far more isolated culture due to the lack of computers and associated advances in communications, with the result that most people see nothing wrong with talking about the Asian Anji as though she isn’t right in front of them or telling her that she’ll have to go to another compartment in a train because people won’t like her smell. Anji soon resigns herself to the treatment until they can regain the TARDIS and leave this timeline.

* [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Hoist By Their Own Petard]]: In ''Anachrophobia'', the Doctor [[spoiler:defeats the Clock-Faced People after he is infected by one of them, allowing him to use their ability to manipulate time to go back into his own past and set a trap that will allow him to stop them in his present without actually changing history]].

* SpotOfTea: In one of the novels, there's a part where the TARDIS has been lost and Fitz is reminiscing about how they used to drink tea together when they did have the TARDIS. He goes on at quite some length about their little rituals and favorite types of tea.

* EverythingsBetterWithCows:
** One of the novels reveals that the TARDIS has a cow, which is implied to provide their supply of milk.
** Another one takes place on an alien planet where the local fauna is much like that of Earth, except the cows are disconcertingly enormous:
--->''What I Learned in Outer Space'' by Anji Kapoor – impressive pause – They have bigger cows.

* NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel: Anji has clearly had it up to here with people who want to know about [[SimSimSalabim the wonders of the mysterious Orient]]. In UsefulNotes/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.

* 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.

* BadDreams: Happens to both Fitz and the Doctor.
** NightmareSequence: Fitz has a particularly unsettling one about his late mum at one point.

* HeartTrauma: The Doctor loses one of his hearts. Long story short, it's not much fun for him.

* BiTheWay:
** Fitz. He doesn't seem to be out to any of the other characters, but in one scene, the audience is privy to his thoughts about how much he'd like to have sex with Iris Wildthyme (a female time traveller), or, actually, the Doctor. Also, his first scene has him in his home era, the 1960s, idly daydreaming about [[MetaGuy life as a]] RadioDrama and gay marriage. What with his {{Brief Accent Imitation}}s of people such as Creator/GretaGarbo, one suspects some of the other characters view him as a little [[CampGay camp]]...
** 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.
** Sam(antha) Jones, who's also a queer rights activist. She madly fancies the Doctor and has a long relationship with a woman named Chris in ''Seeing I''.

* CasualKink: Fitz doesn't stop at [[BiTheWay casually coming out to the reader]], he also makes what seems like a semi-sincere crack implying this trope:

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: At least two villains have made disparaging remarks about the Doctor's apparent sexuality (he's [[TheDandy rather dandyish]], and whether this has anything to do with [[BiTheWay his sexuality]] is his own affair). He always handles it with complete savoir-faire: in one book, a villain shouts "Queer!" at him and then beats him up for good measure, and he shags the guy's wife, which was almost certainly not intended as a TakeThat but would have been a pretty awesome one if it was. He endeavored to convince a {{Mook}} who'd called him a "poof" [[ClipboardOfAuthority that he was a cop and would write him up for discrimination]], and [[CuttingTheKnot when that didn't work]] he poked him in the ear with his pencil and shoved him off a boat. So, homophobes take warning: the Doctor bashes back.

* InnocentBigot: Invoked in the alternate timeline depicted in ''The Domino Effect'', as the world has evolved into a far more isolated culture due to the lack of computers and associated advances in communications, with the result that most people see nothing wrong with talking about the Asian Anji as though she isn’t right in front of them or telling her that she’ll have to go to another compartment in a train because people won’t like her smell, Anji resigning herself to the treatment until they can regain the TARDIS and leave this timeline.

* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: In ''Trading Futures'', the Doctor demonstrates such uncanny aim that he manages to shoot bullets fired from a rifle out of thin air with only a standard handgun.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: ''Endgame'' seems to mostly use it as an excuse for gratuitous InfoDump. ''The Turing Test'' features [[CharacterTitle Alan Turing]], Joseph Heller, and Creator/GrahamGreene, and ''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]].

* ComicBookFantasyCasting: One of the novels introduces a new incarnation of the Doctor's old companion Romana, who the author modelled on Louise Brooks.

## The "War in Heaven", as the Doctor learns of a future [[BadFuture Time War]] between the Time Lords and [[EldritchAbomination an unnamed "Enemy"]], and contends with the mysterious [[TemporalParadox Faction Paradox]].
## The "Earth Arc", in which, following the Doctor's derailing of the war, he spends a century literally WalkingTheEarth (but [[CreatorProvincialism mostly Britain]])
## The "Sabbath Arc", where the Doctor meets with [[EnigmaticMinion Sabbath]] and tries to stop his [[TheManBehindTheMan benefactors]], who are trying to get a stranglehold on all of space and time.
## Epilogue, as not long after the above was resolved, a new series was green lit, and most novels attempted to resolve the ongoing [[CharacterDevelopment character]] and [[MythArc myth]] arcs.

* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: Anji and Trix's stock-tips arrangement.

* TraumaInducedAmnesia: After [[WhereIWasBornAndRazed the events of ''The Ancestor Cell'']], the Doctor suffers from this.

** Trix's GreenEyes are repeatedly described as "catlike".