Time’s Champion

Time's Champion was a novel pitched by Craig Hinton to BBC Books for their Past Doctor Adventures line. Hinton's first New Adventures pitch, Cascade, was about a virus invading the Matrix and forcing the Seventh Doctor and the Valeyard to team up to save Gallifrey. Ten years later, his Time's Champion pitch revisited much of the same territory, only with the Sixth Doctor rather than the Seventh. The new version of the story would have tied together elements from Hinton's previous novels, shown the Sixth Doctor's regeneration and explained the origin of the Valeyard. However, it was rejected.

"IT SEEMS THAT WE HAVE FINALLY FOUND OURSELVES, DOCTOR. A PITY. I HAD HOPED TO AVOID THIS REUNION; I'VE BEEN DISAPPOINTED ENOUGH TODAY ALREADY."

2008: John Benton is celebrating his birthday by having a few friends round to his house at Hilsley Halt. But the monsters are lurking.

1908: Writer George Mackenzie-Trench is suffering from writer's, block unable to foresee the ending of his novel, Time's Champion, nor the consequences of its completion.

9908: The planet Caliban is under attack from Cyber-forces, and governor George McKenzie-Trench intends to save their world by unleashing Abaddon, a powerful computer virus. But Abaddon has other instructions.

Meanwhile Gallifrey is threatened and the Keeper is seeking answers within the Matrix. President Romana is helpless: no-one is who they seem and the conspiracy goes even deeper than she can imagine. She needs the Doctor…

But the Doctor is on Earth in 2008, fighting to save the life of a child who must survive at all costs.

As Gallifrey is besieged by ghosts from the past, the Doctor, Mel and Benton find themselves in the middle of an epic and final battle as the ancient gods choose their champions and allow chaos to reign across all of time and space.