Why has the Rani brought the Doctor to Lakertya? What are the hideous Tetrap guards? Who are the eleven geniuses she has imprisoned in her stronghold? What is the vital significance of the asteroid of Strange Matter? And can the Doctor stop the Rani's diabolical scheme before it affects the whole of creation throughout time and space?
 

Assailed by violent bouts of energy, the TARDIS is blasted off course and forced to land on the barren planet of Lakertya, and the violent buffering triggers the Doctor's sixth regeneration. But that is the least of his worries. He has been hijacked by that ruthless renegade Time Lord, the Rani.

Why has the Rani brought the Doctor to Lakertya? What are the hideous Tetrap guards? Who are the eleven geniuses she has imprisoned in her stronghold? What is the vital significance of the asteroid of Strange Matter? And can the Doctor stop the Rani's diabolical scheme before it affects the whole of creation throughout time and space?

Doctor Who - Time and the Rani is the first story to feature the seventh Doctor as played by Sylvester McCoy. This novelization is by Pip and Jane Baker, and is adapted from their original script.
 

After an attack by the evil Rani, the TARDIS crash-lands on the desolate planet of Lakertya. On the floor of the console room, the Doctor begins hsi sixth regeneration...

In his pot-regenerative confusion, the Doctor is sepatated from his young companion Mel an tricked into assisting the Rani in her megalomatic scheme to construct a giant time manipulator.

Lost on the barren surface of the planet, Mel has to avoid the Rani's ingeneous traps and her monstrous, bat-like servants, the Tetraps. She joins forces with a rebel faction among the Lakertyans, desperate to end the Rani's control of their planet.

The Doctor must recover his wits in time to avoid becoming a permanent part of the Rani's insane plan to drain the genius of the greatest scientific minds in the universe...

Originally transmitted 7 September 1987 to 28 September 1987.

Running time: 98 mins approx.

Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Andrew Morgan
Cover Illustration by Colin Howard