When last we saw John Hurt's The War Doctor in Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor," his old body was wearing a bit thin after saying goodbye to the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors and Clara Oswald. Inside his TARDIS, The War Doctor began regenerating into Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor, completing the continuity gap since Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, and was presumed never to be developed further as a character.
No more. The War Doctor stands.
Doctor Who TV has revealed that the forgotten eighth and a halfth Doctor is returning in a new BBC Books hardcover novel by George Mann titled Doctor Who: Engines of War.
The news was taken from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine #473, just hitting stores in the U.K., with quotes from Mann about what Whovians can expect. "A new companion! Calculating Time Lords! New Dalek paradigms! It’s a war story, at its heart, set against the backdrop of great turmoil and chaos.
"But it’s also about the Doctor’s personal journey, how he ends up where he is at the beginning of 'The Day of the Doctor.' He’s been through the wringer; and in Engines of War, he’s not given any reprieve."
Doctor Who: Engines of War will be released in the U.K. on July 31, 2014, with a United States release sometime afterward.