If you were saddened by the loss of more stories featuring the umbrella-wielding tiny Scottish man who loved to roll his r’s and the teenage demolitions expert with a penchant for blowing up Daleks, then this guide is for you!
The Seventh Doctor was the final classic doctor before the show’s untimely cancellation in 1989, with only 12 stories across 3 seasons, his era felt like it had not achieved its full potential, which is saying a lot if you consider the great quality of his stories.
Fortunately, Sylvester McCoy reprised his role as Seven many times throughout the Wilderness Years across many media. Such as the 1993 Anniversary special Dimensions in Time, a segment of a children’s science quiz show named Search Out Space and passing the torch to the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Television Movie.
Here, I will make a comprehensive guide of every Seventh Doctor EU story across all mediums to help out others who want to dive into Seven’s further adventures across time and space!.
I’ve also made another guide on EU stories for The Fifth Doctor if you’d like to check it out!
Comics
We will start with Comics first this time to get a grasp on Seven’s EU before overloading with the novels. Seven’s comics were mainly published in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine, starting from when he became the incumbent in 1987 to his appearance in the TV Movie in 1996, with one further story being published in 2001. Quite a few of these stories included several monsters and companions from the classic show, as well as introducing new ones such as Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer, who came from the backup comic strips of the magazine. Seven also had a few comics printed in DWM specials and yearbooks as well.
Outside of DWM, Seven also had a few comics printed as a backup strip for the Incredible Hulk Presents comics which were printed by Marvel’s UK office.
For more recent comics, Seven featured in one issue of IDW’s Prisoners of Time series to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary. Titan Comics also published a Miniseries of the Seventh Doctor as well as a backup strip.
Seven’s DWM comics are collected in 5 main volumes. A Cold Day in Hell!, Nemesis of the Daleks, The Good Soldier, Evening’s Empire and Emperor of the Daleks. He also had stories in the multi-doctor trade collections Ground Zero and The Age of Chaos. His Incredible Hulk Presents stories have not been reprinted or collected, but the single issues are still available to buy.
The Titan Comics miniseries was printed in Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor trade paperback
Here’s the full list of stories from DWM:
- A Cold Day in Hell
- Redemption
- The Crossroads of Time
- Claws of the Lkathi
- Culture Shock
- Keepsake
- Planet of the Dead
- Echoes of the Mogor
- Time and tide
- Follow That TARDIS!
- Invaders from Gantac
- Nemesis of the Daleks
- Stairway to Heaven
- Hunger from the Ends of Time
- Train-Flight
- Doctor Conkerer
- Fellow Travellers
- Distractions
- The Mark of Mandragora
- Party Animals
- The Chameleon Factor
- The Good Soldier
- A Glitch in Time
- The Grief
- Ravens
- Memorial
- Cat Litter
- Pureblood
- Emperor of the Daleks
- Final Genesis
- Time and Time Again
- Cuckoo
- Uninvited Guest
- Ground Zero
- The Last Word
There were also a few stories printed in DWM Specials:
- Plastic Millennium
- Seaside Rendezvous
- Evening’s Empire
- Flashback
- Younger and Wiser
Here’s the full list of stories from Incredible Hulk Presents:
- Once in a Lifetime
- War World
- Technical Hitch
- A Switch in Time
- The Sentinel
- Who’s That Girl?
- The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise
- Slimmer
- Nineveh
There were also 3 comics printed in the Doctor Who Yearbooks from 1991-93
- Under Pressure
- Metamorphosis
- A Religious Experience
Books
When Target Books, the publisher that produced TV Novelisations of stories from the Classic Series, was bought by Virgin Books. They realised that since there were so few stories left to adapt into novel form, the Doctor Who Fanbase was still passionate for new stories. They decided to commission a new range of books to be published monthly and serve as an official continuation of where the TV series left off and in 1991, The Virgin New Adventures launched.
The Virgin New Adventures (or VNA’s) were novels serving as further stories initially featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace after the events of Survival, going off to have more exploits throughout the universe. These books featured a plethora of writers who were established by this novel range and would later go on to write for the revived series, such as Russell T. Davies, Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell as well as people that have been involved in other ventures of Doctor Who stories such as Justin Richards, Kate Orman, Gary Russell and Lance Parkin.
One thing this series is well known for is it’s dark content, given that the writers were not subject to TV rules and regulations. These books featured violence, sex, drug use and everything else you can think of. But the quality was there for the most part. The VNA’s are also known for introducing fan favourite EU companion, Bernice Summerfield, who still stars in her own spin-off stories to this day, over 30 years after her debut!
The other more prominent storylines of the VNA’s is delving into the Doctor’s past and completing the infamous “Cartmel Masterplan” which was a planned storyline for the TV show before it’s cancellation. The final VNA featuring Seven, Lungbarrow was famous for it’s introduction of Looms, a device capable of rewriting Time Lord Dna and serving as a way of reproduction.
Outside of the VNA’s, Seven also featured in the Past Doctor Adventures range of books, which are more standalone and self-contained compared to the VNA’s. These books were published alongside the Eighth Doctor Adventures Novels and focused on Doctors 1-6.
Here’s the list for all of Seven’s PDA’s
- Illegal Alien
- The Hollow Men
- Matrix
- Storm Harvest
- Prime Time
- Independence Day
- Bullet Time
- Relative Dementias
- Heritage
- Loving the Alien
- The Algebra of Ice
- Atom Bomb Blues
He also made a small appearance in the Second Doctor novel The Colony of Lies
Here is the full list of VNA’s:
- Timewyrm: Genesys
- Timewyrm: Exodus
- Timewyrm: Apocalypse
- Timewyrm: Revelation
- Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible
- Cat’s Cradle: Warhead
- Cat’s Cradle: Witch Mark
- Nightshade
- Love and War
- Transit
- The Highest Science
- The Pit
- Deceit
- Lucifer Rising
- White Darkness
- Shadowmind
- Birthright
- Iceberg
- Blood Heat
- The Dimension Riders
- The Left-Handed Hummingbird
- Conundrum
- No Future
- Tragedy Day
- Legacy
- Theatre of War
- All-Consuming Fire
- Blood Harvest
- Strange England
- First Frontier
- St Anthony’s Fire
- Falls the Shadow
- Parasite
- Warlock
- Set Piece
- Infinite Requiem
- Sanctuary
- Human Nature
- Original Sin
- Sky Pirates
- Zamper
- Toy Soldiers
- Head Games
- The Also People
- Shakedown
- Just War
- Warchild
- Sleepy
- Death and Diplomacy
- Happy Endings
- GodEngine
- Christmas on a Rational Planet
- Return of the Living Dad
- The Death of Art
- Damaged Goods
- So Vile a Sin
- Bad Therapy
- Eternity Weeps
- The Room with No Doors
- Lungbarrow
Shortly after the publication of the Eighth Doctor VNA The Dying Days, Virgin lost the Doctor Who licence but continued to publish New Adventures novels about Bernice for a further 25 books. Seven also appeared alongside Five in the Missing Adventure novel Cold Fusion, which also featured his companions Chris and Roz. Cold Fusion was also adapted into an audio drama by Big Finish in 2017.
One last outlier for the novels are the 2 novellas that were produced by Telos Publishing. The latter of which featured a new companion that was not seen afterwards.
- Citadel of Dreams
- Companion Piece
Audio
Like Five and Six alongside him, Seven was a regular of the Big Finish monthly range and had several arcs and companions beside him for many stories. Seven had a total of 76 stories across the Main Range. Most stories (mainly ones with just him and Ace) are standalone and can be listened to at any point. But the releases with original companions, such as Hex and Klein are best listened to in chronological order. Seven’s travels with Hex are also interwined with Six’s stories with Evelyn. If you want to listen to the bare essentials for Six and Evelyn to understand the full story, here’s a small list of prerequisites to get you up to speed without having to listen to all of Six and Evelyn (though you should, I’ll make my guide for Six soon enough).
Like with my Fifth Doctor guide, I’ll split up stories into groups based on Companions, although it will change a lot more drastically than Five’s.
Mel
The first set of stories is set during everyone’s favourite Season 24. Pretty much all of these are standalone, with most trying to fit into S24’s campy and over-the-top tone, with some exceptions. There aren’t many stories in this period due to Bonnie Langford being unavailable for the majority of the monthly range’s tenure.
- Unregenerate!
- Bang-Bang-A-Boom!
- Flip-Flop
- We Are The Daleks
- The Warehouse
- Terror of the Sontarans
- Bad Day in Tinseltown (Silver and Ice)
- The Fires of Vulcan
- Red
- The Ribos Inheritance (Silver and Ice)
There is also 1 Short Trip during this period: The Devil’s Footprints
Ace (Season 25 and Season 26)
Now we get introduced to one of the best companions in Who, Ace! These stories are still set quite early in their relationship, so characterisation is much closer to the TV Show versions. I’ll be including stories set after S26 for the sake of making it easier to know when they take place. View these stories as being between or straight after S25 and 26; this section will also include the Lost Stories for the proposed ideas for Season 27 with new companion Raine.
- Fond Memories (Big Finish Interlude)
- 1963: The Assassination Games
- Shockwave (Destiny of the Doctor Audiobook)
- The Haunting of Bryck Place (Big Finish Interlude)
- House of Plastic (BBC Audiobook)
- Frozen Worlds (Big Finish Interlude)
- Thin Ice (Lost Story)
- Crime of the Century (Lost Story)
- Animal (Lost Story)
- Earth Aid (Lost Story)
- The Genocide Machine
- The Grey Man in the Mountain
There are also 11 Short Trips during this period:
- Dark Convoy
- Doctors and Dragons
- The Riparian Ripper
- Inside Story
- The Shadow Trader
- Crystal Ball
- Emerald Isle
- The Shrine of Sorrows
- Dead Woman Walking
- Critical Mass
- Washington Burns
Ace (Early VNA’s)
For chronology, I mainly use EYESPIDER (please don’t crucify me for this), and if we are taking everything into canon, these next few stories are during the period of the early VNAs. Mainly around the Timewyrm and Cat’s Cradle books, with a few also coming after Nightshade. This is also where things start to get darker and the Doctor’s relationship with Ace becomes more strained. Nightshade was also adapted into audio by Big Finish.
- The Fearmonger
- Dust Breeding
- Colditz
- The Rapture
There are also 2 Short Trips during this period: Forever Fallen and Police and Shreeves
Ace and Benny
Ace left the Doctor after the VNA Love and War, and he travelled with Benny for a few stories. That period has no audios as of the time of writing, so we are skipping to after they reunite with Ace in Deceit. Ace is now colder and battle-hardened after 3 years of fighting Daleks, and her attitude towards the Doctor is a lot more aggressive. Love and War, Theatre of War and All-Consuming Fire were adapted into audio by Big Finish. Big Finish also adapted The Highest Science with just Seven and Benny.
- The Shadow of the Scourge
- The Dark Flame
- The Big Blue Book (The Eighth of March)
Ace soon departs after the VNA Set Piece, and the Doctor travels with Benny for a few more stories, the Companion Chronicle Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code and the Short Trip The Hesitation Deviation take place there.
Chris and Roz
Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester were introduced in the VNA Original Sin and travelled with the Doctor and Benny as a four-person Tardis team for a while. Eventually, Benny left the TARDIS to get married to Jason Kane in the VNA Happy Endings, and Chris and Roz decided to continue with the Doctor. Only one box set is set during this period. This is also where the audio adaptation of Cold Fusion takes place.
- The Trial of a Time Machine
- Vanguard
- The Jabari Countdown
- The Dread of Night
Ace and Hex
After Chris and Roz depart and the VNAs wrap up with Lungbarrow, Ace at some point joins back up with the Doctor again. Due to the canon conflicts between the books and audios, it’s up to you as to how that happened. As Ace did feature in Lungbarrow, it’s possible that she joined up with the Doctor again after that story. In any case, things are kinda back to status quo again with the battle-hardened Ace forgotten about as she’s back to more of her characterisation in the TV Show.
This is also where we get introduced to Hex Schofield, a nurse from the 2020s who travels with the Doctor and Ace after an encounter with the Cybermen. As I said in the intro to this section, Hex’s storyline is interwined with Evelyn’s as she travels with the Sixth Doctor. (Note: The Companion Chronicle: The Prisoner’s Dilemma takes place here, but before they meet Hex and is tied to the Fifth Doctor Key 2 Time trilogy)
- The Harvest
- Dreamtime
- LIVE 34
- Shadow Planet/World Apart
- Night Thoughts
- The Settling
- No Man’s Land
- Nocturne
- The Dark Husband
- Muse of Fire
- The Flying Dutchman/Displaced
- Forty-Five
- The Magic Mousetrap
- Enemy of the Daleks
- The Angel of Scutari
- Project: Destiny
- A Death in the Family
- Lurkers at Sunlight’s Edge
- Project: Nirvana (Companion Chronicle)
- Protect and Survive
- Black and White
- Gods and Monsters
- Afterlife
- Revenge of the Swarm
- Mask of Tragedy
- Signs and Wonders
Ace and Mel
The Doctor and Ace soon meet back up with Mel and travel as a trio for a few stories, although this storyline has yet to be wrapped up due to being pretty late within the Monthly Range. (Note: the anthology You Are The Doctor and Other Stories is also set during this period before they meet back up with Mel)
- A Life of Crime
- Fiesta of the Damned
- Maker of Demons
- The High Price of Parking
- The Blood Furnace
- The Silurian Candidate
- Red Planets
- The Dispossessed
- The Quantum Possibility Engine
Klein
These next few periods are much more ambiguous in chronology due to the absence of Ace and her not getting a definitive departure story. This point is marked by the Doctor reuniting with Elizabeth Klein, a scientist from an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WW2 that the Doctor aborted. She was first introduced back in Colditz and is fully aware of the Doctor being a time-traveller and an alien. The Doctor decides to take her aboard the TARDIS and show her the universe to convince her to abandon her fascist beliefs.
There is a bit of a significant gap between the original Klein trilogy and Persuasion, but I’m grouping all of the stories featuring her together for simplicity; just understand that some time has passed.
- A Thousand Tiny Wings
- Survival of the Fittest/Klein’s Story
- The Architects of History
- Persuasion
- Starlight Robbery
- Daleks Among Us
- Warlock’s Cross
- Subterfuge
Mags
Late on in the Monthly Range, Seven joined up with Mags from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for a trilogy of stories, the last of which also features Ace.
- The Monsters of Gokroth
- The Moons of Vulpana
- An Alien Werewolf in London
Harry and Naomi
Seven later reunited with Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan and Naomi Cross, who was introduced in the Big Finish boxsets about the UNIT from the new series and later travelled with the Fourth Doctor as well in his own series.
- London Orbital
- Scream of the Daleks
- Operation Dusk
- Naomi’s Ark
- With The Angels Part One
- Catastrophix
- With The Angels Part Two
Solo
Seven has had a great deal of audios travelling Solo with ambiguous placement within his timeline.
- Harvest of the Sycorax
- The Defectors
- Last of the Titans
- The Haunter of the Shore (The Doctor and Carnaki)
- Robophobia
- The Doomsday Quatrain
- House of Blue Fire
- Excelis Decays
- Master
- The House (The Doctor and Carnaki)
- Valhalla
- Frozen Time
- The Death Collectors/Spider’s Shadow
- Kingdom of Silver
- The Shadow Heart
- Return of the Daleks
- The Psychic Circus
- The Krillitane Relic
- The Silent City
- The Institute of Forgotten Souls (The Doctor and Carnaki)
- Keepsake
- Dark Universe
Crossovers/Spin-Offs
Seven has also appeared in multi-Doctor stories and Spin-offs around other characters.
- The Sirens of Time
- The Split Infinitive (The Legacy of Time)
- Driftwood (Death and Life of River Song Series 2)
- The Unknown (Diary of River Song Series 2)
- The Eye of the Storm (Diary of River Song Series 2)
- Dark Gallifrey: Missy 3
- UNIT: Dominion
- Good Night, Sweet Ladies (The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield)
- Random Ghosts (The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield)
- The Lights of Skaro (The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield
- The Pyramid of Sutekh (The Triumph of Sutekh)
- The Vaults of Osiris (The Triumph of Sutekh)
- The Eye of Horus (The Triumph of Sutekh)
- The Tears of Isis (The Triumph of Sutekh)
- The Light at the End
- The Four Doctors
- The End of the Beginning
To close off the Audio section of this guide, there were two box sets of a single story for Seven called The Last Day, which was a massive crossover with many of his EU companions across prose and audio in his counterpart to the Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure box set.
Short Stories
All of the Classic Doctors have had boatloads of prose short stories throughout the years, and Seven is no exception. Everywhere from the pages of DWM to anthology books have contained several short adventures featuring Seven and his companions.
Doctor Who Magazine
The monthly magazine used to irregularly publish prose short stories alongside the main comic strip every now and then. Eventually, they gained the subtitle of Brief Encounters. There were also stories published in the Doctor Who Yearbooks and Poster Magazines during the early days of the Wilderness Years.
Here’s the full list of stories:
- Scream of the Silent
- The Infinity Season
- Living in the Past
- Teenage Kicks
- Affirmative
- An Unfulfilled Dream
- Echoes of Future Past
- Cathedral Heart
- A Romantic Evening
- The Useful Pile
- Dream a Little Dream for Me
- A Time and a Place
- Three Steps To The Left
- Anti-Matter With Fries
- Pulling Strings
- One Minute Fourteen Seconds
- Front Line
- The Gallery
- It’s Only a Game
- Davros
- Meridians
- The Shoreditch Incident
- How Did This Creep Get in Here, Professor?
Decalogs
Alongside the VNA’s and VMA’s, Virgin Books published short story anthologies named Decalogs. The first three of these contained Doctor Who stories before they lost the licence.
- Playback
- The Trials of Tara
- Question Mark Pyjamas
- Continuity Errors
BBC Short Trips
After the licence for prose Doctor Who media was given to BBC Books, they had their own go at publishing Who short stories with their Short Trips series, which also lasted only 3 volumes.
- Stop the Pigeon
- Ace of Hearts
- Special Weapons
- uPVC
- Monsters
- Storm in a Tikka
Big Finish Short Trips
After BBC Books had given up, Big Finish was granted the licence to produce print media for Doctor Who alongside their audio dramas. They decided to continue under the “Short Trips” title and published 29 anthologies centred around a different theme (Zodiac, Seven Deadly Sins, Christmas, etc.) Seven had a total of 74 stories across all 29 books.
- Virgin Lands
- The Invertebrates of Doom
- Notre Dame du Temps
- This is My Life
- Hymn of the City
- Monitor
- Inmate 280
- Cold War
- Ante Bellum
- Of the Mermaid and Jupiter
- The Southwell Park Mermaid
- A Rose by Any Other Name
- The Ghost’s Story
- The Tramp’s Story
- Last Rites
- These Things Take Time
- Categorical Imperative
- The Nuclear Option
- Separation
- Daisy Chain
- Culture War
- Anteus
- Last Christmas
- A Yuletide Tail
- Spookasem
- Never Seen Cairo
- Perfect Present
- Too Rich for My Blood
- Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
- The Heroine, The Hero and the Megalomaniac
- How You Get There
- Uranus
- Presence
- Nobody’s Gift
- The Anchorite’s Echo
- Not in My Back Yard
- Utopia
- Log 384
- Testament
- The Hunting of the Slook
- Natalie’s Diary
- Private Investigations
- The Report
- Sunday Afternoon, AD 848,988
- Fable Fusion
- Omegamorphosis
- But Once a Year
- 24 Crawford Street
- Christmas Every Day?
- The Time and Tide
- One Car for the Curious
- Seance, or Smoking is Highly Addictive, Don’t Start
- The Celestial Harmony Engine
- Closing the Account
- The Devil Like a Bear
- Twilight’s End
- Peaceable Kingdom
- Clean-Up on Aisle Two
- Policy to Invade
- Driftwood
- Larkspur
- Relativity
- The Shopping Trolleys of Doom
- Evitability
- Running on Empty
- Stolen Days
- Instead of You
- No Room
- The Best of Days
- Christmas in Toronto
- Have You Tried Turning It Off and Then Back On Again?
- Death Sentences
BBC Books/Anthologies
In recent years, Doctor Who has seen an expansion in print media since the show came back in 2005, with anthologies becoming more and more common within the past 10 years. BBC Books have continued to release theme centric anthologies at least one a year, featuring a mix of Classic and New Doctors.
- The Ripple Effect (15 Doctors, 15 Stories)
- Exits and Entrances (The Shakespeare Notebooks)
- The Girl Who Stole the Stars (Scientific Secrets)
- The Grotto (Twelve Doctors of Christmas)
- The Living Image (Tales of Terror)
- The Slyther of Shoreditch (The Target Storybook)
- We Will Feed You to the Trees (Wintertime Paradox)
And with that, we are done! Thank you so much for reading, this was way harder to make than the Fifth Doctor one and way more comprehensive. I’ve tried my best to make it as easy to follow as I can, but any feedback is appreciated.
Thank you!
