books guide
byzantium!
bbc books #091
Written by: Keith Topping
Publication Date: 2 July 2001
ISBN: 0 563 53836 8
Pages: 283
Main Characters: The First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki
Setting: between the opening of The Romans (the TARDIS falling off the cliff) and the main story of the same episode
back cover blurb
'Life is cheap in Byzantium. Life is cheap everywhere that the Romans are.'
Byzantium. The imperial city. It rises, dramatically, as if by a trick of the light from the peninsular of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. Its domes and towers and minarets overlooking a place of intrigue, lust, power, oppression, resistance and murder.
Romans, Greeks, Zealots and Pharisee all mix in the market squares of the town, but mutual loathing and suspicion are rife.
Into this cauldron, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki arrive expecting to view the splendour of the Roman empire. But events cast them into a deadly maelstrom of social and political upheaval. In the eye of the hurricane they must individually face the possibility of being stranded, alone, in a culture bunker in which they do not belong.