This book was so utterly tedious that I barely even realised that I'd finished it.

Things appear with no explanation, and then are never satisfactorily explained. And then they just go away.

What was the point Blythe? Even the characters don't seem particularly fussed about the events of the book.

What do you know, I didn't mind it that much, although all the stuff at the university seemed tacked on.
The bits in the TARDIS at the end - where there references to Shada?
True, some bits owed a bit more to Star Trek's starships, although they are more decrepit in this book.
And there's a Star Trek in-joke too, which I actually didn't mind. It's when the Doctor is locked up with a commander or some such and, trying to guess his name, he asks "Tiberius?"

Edje, when I find a book utterly tedious I certainly realise when I've finished it. In fact, every ten minutes (maximum) I check what page I've got to, work out the percentage of the book I've still got to read, and have a minor celebration when I've actually managed to plow my way through the thing.

Of course, that only happens with Dr Who books. Any other book that doesn't grab me after the first page (and that's if I'm feeling generous - sometimes it's just the first paragraph) gets frog-marched back to the library and its author blacklisted. But unfortunately when it comes to the Doctor, I know my duty.

I rarely finish library books- mostly because my local library has such a godawful selection of books I very rarely use it.

I just noticed a continuity blooper in the Doctor Who novels (not a new thing, but it's always fun to nitpick)
SPOILERS FOR SHADOWS OF AVALON
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The President's TARDIS here is a Type 102. Yet isn't that what Compassion is?

The spaceship was called Icarus? Isn't that just asking for trouble, given the legend of the winged man who flew too high and the wax holding his feathers melted, making him crash to the ground...

Let's face it, asking for trouble when choosing a name is a Doctor Who tradition. Tremas, Aridius and Mechanus all got the trouble they were asking for.

the Time Lord President of an Oxford College

Time Lords have the taste and discernment to prefer Cambridge, thank you.

At least there's an attempt to explain the Doctor's mustn't-meddle-in-history stance – Earth has a crystallised 1000-year period, a 'rare stretch of immutable Time with a huge inertia'.

Bah, humbug.

Well, I s'pose that MIGHT be seen as a forerunner of the explanation we FINALLY get in Fires of Pompeii. If it wasn't for the fact that early-twenty-first-century Earth is ALWAYS getting its history changed (Metaltron, anyone?).

What was the point Blythe?

Well, at least he only wrote the one NA (well, that I noticed). And by the time of Autonomy he'd improved no end.

The President's TARDIS here is a Type 102. Yet isn't that what Compassion is?

Yes! This book is a TOTAL DISGRACE! Imagine getting something THAT important so WRONG!!

'Half the galaxy had been abandoned' - since when! I mean, isn't half the galaxy Draconian anyway?

'The eye-sockets were empty' - well, THAT didn't take long.

'Heels clicking like a clock's breath' - like a WHAT?

The Doctor's 'eyesight was sharper than that of an human' - since when?

'This part of his life seemed to have become the longest, the most painful' - well, if you WILL transfer to NAs instead of being on-screen where you belong...

'A newly dry-cleaned suit' - but Town Called Mercy said the Doctor regarded 'dry-clean only' as a mere suggestion!

'Even by Time Lord standards, he was an old man' - he's only around a thousand! THAT'S not old by Time Lord standards!

'It never sulks!' - SHE, if you don't mind, Doctor. And of course Sexy sulks.

'Nothing had seriously stirred the vaults of the TARDIS library for centuries' - hmm. Guess the Doc spending twenty years rearranging the books hasn't happened yet...even though he simply hasn't GOT twenty years to spare between this and Christmas on a Rational Planet, so it MUST have...

'If the Doctor had been in charge of the library's organization himself, then the books would have been in no order whatsoever' - I doubt even the Doctor spent twenty years DISARRANGING books...

'Followed by a Gallifreyan curse' - how many times do I have to TELL the NAs? The Doctor DOESN'T go round cursing in ancient Gallifreyan all the time or, indeed, at all.

'In her own 25th century' - ah yes, the good old contradiction about whether Benny's from the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth century...

'I directed them to St Catz' - maybe it's different in Oxford, but in CAMBRIDGE it's 'St Catherine's' or 'Catz', NEVER 'St Catz'.

'And who's Romana?' - does the Doctor NEVER actually TALK to his pets? Surely post-Battlefield's 'The Latest One' piece of tactlessness, Ace demanded SOME sort of accounting of previous Companions?

'They were speaking English. I mean, real English. Not translated like normal' - how the hell would you be able to TELL?

'"So that's real ale," she said' - Benny is considered a GODDESS OF BOOZE on SEVERAL planets! How can this POSSIBLY be her first experience of real ale?

'It was a way of distracting him from her true opinion of this beer stuff' - OK, which bit of THIS IS PROFESSOR BERNICE SUMMERFIELD are you JUST NOT GETTING?

'Ace, back to the TARDIS, now!' - er, WHY? The Doctor said he WANTED to introduce himself to the boarding party.

'Why do you humans always expect that everything has to be within your comprehension? It's your most irksome trait. And one I've never come to live with' - THE DOCTOR is SERIOUSLY objecting to humans wanting to UNDERSTAND STUFF?

'The Doctor always says that if you show that you mean no harm yourself, then you won't come to any' - oh yeah? WHEN?

'Not for the first time, Bernice Summerfield realized that she was in a position where her combat skills were not going to be much use' - WHAT combat skills?

'Which floor are we on?' - you didn't MATERIALISE here, Benny, why don't you KNOW?

Like the Whoniverse would EVER acknowledge certain facts for long enough to acquire a Professor of Extra-Terrestrial Studies at Oxford University.

'Towards the end of his fourth incarnation he had even contemplated giving up the whole intergalactic trouble-shooter life for good and retiring for an extended fishing holiday on Florana' - no he didn't. 'Only recently had he actually begun to enjoy the wretched business again' - that's not the impression you gave when moaning about your painful life.

'He kept asking himself where he had seen the red diamond logo, and before he had time to think about it' - but he obviously DID have time to think about it!

'You don't have another name?' 'Only on special occasions' - only on ONE very special occasion, according to Forest of the Dead...

'Where is the Doctor, anyhow?' 'No idea. I imagine that without me around, he's having the time of his life' - Benny really thinks she's some kind of hideous burden on the Doctor?

'Not to have progressed in a third of a millennium was surely indicative of a lack of imagination' - four hundred years isn't exactly a third of a millennium.

'They warned me at the Academy about speaking to the dead' - they did? Why? Isn't the whole of Time Lord civilisation based on the Matrix, i.e. talking to the dead? (At least until Romana blew it up in the Gallifrey audios, which admittedly made bugger-all difference to said civilisation.)

'The voice reminded him of the way his late Siamese, Audrina, used to rub herself around his calves' - ah yes, we got the eye-gouging out of the way really fast, I was wondering when the dead-oochie would pop up.

'I'm relieving you of command' - er...on what grounds?

'My computer says you're telling the truth, Doctor' - what's the computer got to do with it?! The Doctor's interrogation was 'simply the traditional cold steel room with a light shining in his face and a continual barrage of identical questions' - not, to the Doctor's disappointment, involving high-tech lie-detectors or anything.

New Age peace groups are terrified that scientists might 'strip the mystique from the Earth - or discover that pollution and the destruction of the rainforests were necessary cogs in the ecosystem' - I find THAT hard to believe.

'One of the most attractive features of the Type 102 TARDIS, for him, was its highly reliable chameleon circuit, while another was its voice-activated lock' - OK, ignoring all the 'Type 102' nonsense...a VOICE-ACTIVATED LOCK is SERIOUSLY the most exciting feature of your TIME MACHINE?

To be continued...

'Even by Time Lord standards, he was an old man' - he's only around a thousand! THAT'S not old by Time Lord standards!

Maybe he meant a thousand years without regeneration. I think they would consider that old.

'"So that's real ale," she said' - Benny is considered a GODDESS OF BOOZE on SEVERAL planets! How can this POSSIBLY be her first experience of real ale?

Maybe it no longer exists in the 25th, or 26th, whatever, century, and this is the first time she actually encounters it? It could happen. I mean, you couldn't find real absinthe today to save your life, and it's only been a century since the recipe was lost.

Maybe he meant a thousand years without regeneration. I think they would consider that old.

He's the SEVENTH Doctor, why would he mean that?

Maybe it no longer exists in the 25th, or 26th, whatever, century, and this is the first time she actually encounters it?

Benny's been a Companion for quite some time, there is SIMPLY NO WAY she wouldn't have been dragged to late-twentieth-century England on a regular basis, and there's SIMPLY NO WAY she wouldn't have ended up in a drinking establishment. SEVERAL drinking establishments.

Also, how difficult IS it to mess around with, um, hops and yeast and stuff? I don't exactly remember the details but I DO remember helping my dad brew beer when I was very young. In the bath. I realise these people have been through a Dalek Invasion and suchlike but if humanity held fast to such concepts as FREE SAMPLES after centuries of occupation, surely SOMEONE stashed a beer recipe away SOMEWHERE.

He's the SEVENTH Doctor, why would he mean that?

Ah, ok. I thought this was referring to another Time Lord, or perhaps someone from an entirely different race they had encountered.

and there's SIMPLY NO WAY she wouldn't have ended up in a drinking establishment. SEVERAL drinking establishments.

Her tastes may gravitate toward stronger drinks than mere ale, and judging from your next comment, beer doesn't appear to impress her much.

Her tastes may gravitate toward stronger drinks than mere ale, and judging from your next comment, beer doesn't appear to impress her much.

Very true, but she's obviously HEARD of real ale, so it would have been weird of Benny not to give it a try alongside the harder stuff. She doesn't discriminate against any type of alcohol, in fact she regards it the way Captain Jack regards anyone with a pulse (except, weirdly, pre-transformation Donna).

Why does Benny waste valuable breath while being gassed to make a really unfunny quip about calling a cab?

'The tallest soldier was standing, feet planted firmly apart, in front of him, with its blaster levelled at Cheynor's eyes. Cheynor was wishing something would happen' - yeah and HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE who'd be prepared to lose their own eyeballs if that meant SOMETHING HAPPENED. We're half-way through the book and NOTHING has happened other than some Time Soldiers popping up.

Why does the President bother to lie to Rafferty and Cheynor ('You'll come to no harm if you do exactly as I say') when ten seconds later he's telling them 'I have decided to spare you for the moment, that is all'?

'There were silvery, reflective tables set up for chess' - who wants to play chess on a silvery, reflective surface?

'These stretches of immutable Time were rare and possessed a huge inertia, making them difficult to tweak and disrupt. Any minor change - like, for example, the assassination of a Government minister - would release a vast amount of energy' - are you trying to grope your way towards the concept of Fixed Points and getting it horribly wrong?

'These Type Forties are rather resilient' - they ARE? How come Sexy's the last one left, then?

They didn't SEARCH the Doctor before locking him up?!

'Captain, how would you tell a man that you know he's going to die' - but I thought the Doctor thought he could change things?

'"Get four guards and bring those prisoners down with you"...the Doctor and Terrin were marched at gunpoint...they were frog-marched' - frog-marched AND at gunpoint? Whatever happened to 'no longer treated as prisoners'?

'The Doctor did not move. He had seen death in many forms, and it always angered him, but this time he was trebling' - yeah, cos THIS adventure is SO MUCH SCARIER than all his OTHER adventures...(And since when did death always ANGER him?)

'The Doctor sighed. "This isn't my job. I don't get paid for it. I don't get any kind of reward...I've never asked for one"' - this is TOTALLY your job AND YOU LOVE IT you self-pitying suddenly-capitalist git! And didn't Happy Endings claim he was paying for Benny's wedding with all the money he'd got for planet-saving?

'How old are you?' 'I honestly don't recall' - well you recall well enough by your thousandth birthday.

'Not carrying any morphine, I s'pose?' 'Sorry, not my scene' - why ISN'T Ace carrying any painkillers (which by THIS century you'd think would be better than addictive old morphine)?

'She grabbed him under his good shoulder, puling him with all her newly honed muscles' - newly honed? I thought Ace had been a soldier for three years?

'Ace backed off, the pistol levelled with both hands. It won't do any good, she thought, but it feels better' - you know what would feel EVEN better than a useless gun? Something you KNOW can kill the Time Soldiers, LIKE A MIRROR.

'Gallifrey? But that's just a myth itself. All the stories of Time Lords and Guardians -' people BOTHER telling tales of GUARDIANS? Why?

'When you have revealed the access code, this ship will be ours in which to destroy all hated life' - now might be a REALLY good time for Cheynor to kill himself and Quallem. Or, at the very least, NOT to GIVE THEM THE STUPID CODES TO SAVE TWO LIVES. And why do the Time Soldiers kill Quallem themselves instead of trying to get the codes out of her?

'And then, unbelievably, she heard Cheynor' - 'unbelievably' is right. Betraying the entire human race for ACE and STRAKK?

'The ravaging of Time had begun' - and yet STILL, SOMEHOW...NOTHING'S HAPPENING.

'"But then, I suspect it already it [sic] a game to him," said the Doctor, scowling up at the President. "Wouldn't you think? Playing with lives. Experimenting. All for fun." "A lot of it about," murmured Bernice, not quite low enough under her breath. If the Doctor recognized her allusion to recent events on a parallel Earth, he did not let it show' - I'm sorry, you think she's referring to BLOOD HEAT and the alt-uni he DESTROYED, in what sure as hell wasn't playing games, rather than the dozens of times McCoy IS pointlessly manipulating people?

Benny witheringly regards saying 'I think [the Doctor] knows what he's doing' as haing 'proselytic faith'?

'Catressium's a mild emetic. You get god-awful stomach cramps for ten minutes and then you vom. After that it gives you a slight high' - why would McCarran have this particular drug about her person whilst operating a spaceship, exactly?

'You, Epsilon Delta, will now stand aside. Your time and your usefulness are at an end. The President looked slightly put out..."Very well. I trust that Gallifrey, as we agreed, will be handed over to me before the Ravaging?"' - the cretin's STILL expecting the universe-destroyer to keep its bargain?!

'It had always been challenging, up until now. It had even sometimes been fun' - don't strain yourself. The New Who idea that Companions might actually ENJOY TARDIS-travel hasn't quite evolved yet.

'Where is Ace, by the way?' 'Safe' - no she isn't!

The Doctor put a telepathic link into Ace's mind, cos the TARDIS wouldn't trust him, only her - ??

'For this TARDIS, plucked from a world where its owner had died a shattering death, did not trust this man who called himself the Doctor. How could it?' - er, because he IS the Doctor? And since when has she regarded him as her OWNER?

'Ace was edgy, still covering their tracks with the Derenna, and trying not to look at the fallen bicycle. She knew only too well what it brought back' - so...what DID it bring back?

'I can see that you chaps still have a few uses for the skills of pre-technological Man' - I'm pretty sure Morse Code wasn't invented in pre-TECHNOLOGY days.

'The Doctor's hearts were pounding. He could see the Garvond, cowled and waiting like Death in Bay C of the bus station. So it was playing with him now. Playing off his deepest fears...' - er, I think SOMEONE'S taking that line in Ghost Light a little too seriously...

Ace shoots the Doctor but hey don't worry it all turns out to be Virtual Reality...YOU'RE BLOODY KIDDING ME.

'She knew she was going to have to get out of the bridge before she went and said or did anything stupid. It was crazy, but she knew she couldn't look at the blue eyes behind his grey quiff or she might end up staying after all' - sure, who WOULDN'T want to leave the Doctor for some deformed unnaturally-rapidly-ageing soldier she barely knows. Cos obviously HE can't come with HER. That would be SILLY.

'Yes, yes, I know the Doctor knocked everything back into shape again, but he was never meant to lose. Oh no, that wasn't the point at all' - there was a POINT? Oh goody! 'The experiment showed exactly what it was meant to show. That within parameters, time can b changed' - er, you're THE MEDDLING MONK. Surely you settled THAT question to your own satisfaction MANY CENTURIES AGO?

Bookwyrm:

'This was the best-selling New Adventure' - eek. 'It has two things going for it: 1) an absolutely gorgeous cover, one of the best in the line, and 2) the fact that it was the newest book out when the thirtieth anniversary occurred' - *sigh*

'How does Darius Cheynor recognise Tom Cheynor as his distant ancestor because they look so similar, when, at a conservative estimate, only 1/65,536th of Tom's DNA is in Darius?' - maybe it's one of those families with a tradition of marrying their first cousins all the time...?