The story begins with a young man named Matthew Bedser, an RAF pilot flying in a training exercise over Stonehenge. Everything seems normal right up until his plane flies through a portal and into another universe. When young Bedser returns to his own time and place minutes later, he is horrified to discover something vital missing from his plane: the nuclear missile it had been carrying. Bedser, once landed safely on solid earth again, is taken in for an interview with a top military specialist with experience dealing with unusual happenings.
Tropes present in The Shadows of Avalon include:
- Epiphany Therapy:
- After spending so long consumed by his grief over Doris's death, the Brigadier realises that he wouldn't have chosen to avoid loving her to escape the pain he now feels.
- Although mourning the loss of his TARDIS, witnessing Constantine King implement his own plans assures the Doctor that he can still have independence despite whatever Faction Paradox try to do to his timeline.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- The Brig doesn't do this completely, but he actively works against the Doctor in favor of a strategic military advantage to Britain throughout most of the novel as he's consumed his own grief and guilt, leading in the end to a Heel Realization.
- Romana, who appears to have lost all sense of principal when she sends two sadistic CIA assassins after Compassion and seems like a totally different character (can be justified as this is a new incarnation of Romana who specifically influenced her regeneration into an incarnation who could lead her people in the Future War).
- A Father to His Men: The Brigadier.
- I Choose to Stay: The Brigadier chooses to stay in the other universe.
- The Lost Lenore: The Brigadier is consumed by his own grief over the recent death of his wife, Doris.
- Measuring the Marigolds: The Doctor wants to stop Compassion from seeing the world this way, so he leaves her on Earth for six weeks with a list of things to accomplish to make her "more human". This fails epically.
- Spaceship Girl: Compassion is turned into a TARDIS as a side effect of the Doctor programming her receiver to only pick up signals from the TARDIS.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Stranding Compassion on Earth for six weeks to make her act and think more like a human is kind of a Jerkass move from someone who says he values everyone for their uniqueness.
