Timewyrm: Revelation is an original Doctor Who novel, published by Virgin Publishing in their New Adventures range of Doctor Who novels. It features the Seventh Doctor and Ace, as well as cameo appearances by the Doctor's mental representations of his first, third, fourth and fifth incarnations.
This is the first novel to feature a personification of Death, who turns out to be one of the Eternals, and sets the scene for future New Adventures in which the Doctor becomes Time's Champion. Death has also crossed over into the Big Finish Productions audio dramas; in Master, the Master is described as Death's Champion. The novel is also the final part of the Timewyrm quartet. It has been described as the point at which "the books entered adult terrain".
Synopsis
The battle to defeat the Timewyrm having taken the Seventh Doctor and Ace to Ancient Mesopotamia, 1950s Britain and the edge of the universe at the end of time finally ends within the Doctor's own mind with only his past incarnations to help him after Ace is killed by a playground bully.
Plot
Having lost track of the Timewyrm, the Doctor chooses the TARDIS's next destination apparently at random. The TARDIS arrives in the village of Cheldon Bonniface in the late 19th century. While the Doctor is playing chess with an old friend, Ace is attacked by a child-sized astronaut. Ace evades her attacker, but as she flees the village, she suddenly discovers that they're actually on the surface of the Moon. Away from the protective environment of the faux-village, Ace dies. The astronaut, an eight-year-old boy named Chad Boyle, uses a small device to extract Ace's memories and transmit them elsewhere.
The Doctor discovers the illusion, but is surprised to see that his old friend is in fact Lieutenant Hemmings of the British Free Corps (from Timewyrm: Exodus). The Doctor makes his way back to the TARDIS, where he discovers that he is really on the moon in December 1992. The Timewyrm killed Chad Boyle and Hemmings and sent their minds after Ace's. She took possession of Boyle's body and waited for the Doctor to confront her.
Ace wakes up on a pier overlooking a beach. She comes across a receptionist, who informs her that she died as the result of the Doctor finally losing one of his games. Ace is taken to the afterlife to be judged. She found herself in a library where she meets a kindly old Librarian. After exploring for a while, she decides that she must be dreaming. She concentrates on the village of Cheldon Bonniface.
In Cheldon Bonniface in 1992, the Reverend Ernest Trelaw is conducting the usual Sunday service, the last before Christmas. Present in his church are two newcomers, Peter and Emily Hutchings. Also present is the self-aware non-corporeal intelligence that has existed on the site of the church since long before the church existed. The Rev. Trelaw knows this intelligence as Saul, and both of them are shocked to see their old friend the Doctor run into the church in the middle of the service and deliver a baby into the arms of Emily Hutchings, before running out again. Later in the same service, Saul receives a psychic warning and shouts for all the congregants to leave. Hearing a disembodied voice speak, the congregants exit, except for Emily and Peter. Suddenly, and with a tremendous explosion that devastates the surrounding countryside, the entire church is transported to the surface of the moon. Elsewhere, Ace suddenly gets the feeling that she has done something terribly wrong.
The church materializes around the Doctor and Ace's body. The Doctor retrieves an amulet that he had hidden in the church the last time he had been there, and gives it to Peter and Emily, telling them to find a use for it. The Doctor leaves the church to confront the Timewyrm. After a brief conversation, the Doctor dances with the personification of Death that the Timewyrm had conjured, and dies. The Timewyrm extracts the Doctor's memories and sends them after Ace's, animates the Doctor's body, and marches it into the church where it collapses.