The Tomorrow Windows was the sixty-ninth novel in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Jonathan Morris. It featured the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Trix MacMillan. It was notable for referencing many past stories, both televised and from other media.
There’s a new exhibition at Tate Modern — The Tomorrow Windows.
The concept is simple: look through a Tomorrow Window and you’ll see into the future. You’ll get "the Gist of Things to Come". According to the press pack, the Tomorrow Windows exhibition will bring about an end to war and suffering.
Which is why someone decides to blow it up.
Investigating this act of wanton vandalism, the Doctor, Fitz and Trix visit an Astral Flower, the show-world of Utopia and Gadrahadradon — the most haunted planet in the galaxy. They face the sinister Ceccecs, the gratuitously violent Vorshagg, the miniscule Micron and the enigmatic Poozle. And they encounter the doomsday monks of Shardybarn, the warmongers of Valuensis, the politicians of Minuea and the killer cars of Estebol.
They also spend about half an hour in Lewisham.
Tropes present in The Tomorrow Windows include:
- Artistic License – Biology: The book is based, very loosely, on Richard Dawkins' idea of harmful memes. The villains exploit these to commit planetary genocide without breaking any laws.
- Brick Joke: One of the planets that only half gets mentioned begins with Gallifr-. This is referenced many times in the novel with an event or interruption before the full name can be revealed. At the end of the novel it turns out the planet is Gallifraxion Four, much to Fitz's delight as he thought it was Gallifrey. It is spectacularly unfunny.
- Evil Is Petty: The motivation for the genocide of a dozen or more planetary populations? Money. It's a real-estate scam. No, I'm serious.
- Immortality Immorality: The villain is immortal and makes his fortune by destroying planetary populations in such a way as to sell their worlds thereafter.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Prubert Gastridge, famed for playing the King of the Buzzardmen in "Zap Daniel" is in no way supposed to be BRIAN BLESSED!!!!!.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Subverted in a bizarre way given the history of such villains in Doctor Who. The villain is killing planetary peoples so he can make a fortune in real estate.
- Napoleon Complex: The Microns want universal domination via buying planets.
- Path of Inspiration: The fake religions created by the villains are this, solely existing to lure in the gullible then destroy them.
- The Plan: The villain's plan is to commit mass-genocide via tricking Too Dumb to Live planetary populations to...sell the planets thereafter.
- Shout-Out:
- Guests at the opening of the Tomorrow Windows Gala Opening include Blur, Stephen Hawking, Jeremy Paxman, Ian Hislop, Michael Grade, Salman Rushdie, Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, Bill Bailey, Stephen Fry, Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.
- One of the Chapter Titles is "mostly worthless".
- Too Dumb to Live: The citizens of the worlds destroyed by the villains are done by them being tricked into destroying themselves. Which would be believable if not for the fact they're tricked into doing SPECTACULARLY stupid things.
