This was one of the 1st NAs that I read, so I was originally put off by the angry, sleasy Ace, and the Doctor's sneakiness. Of course, I'm older now, and having read some of the later NAs (and the Virgin EDAs), L&W looks pretty tame.

I always wonder, while reading the novel, what it would like if televized. Somehow, the image of a nude Ace, snuggling with her boyfriend, seems wrong. I don't why.

I always found Ace's line "Look, I didn't have it off with a b l o o d y Dalek" and the Doctor's reply "Would it have made a difference?" and the resounding slap to be both shocking and amusing at the same time.

Mike, if you don't like the thought of a nude Ace (and I'm definitely in sympathy with you there) then the NAs must have been a bit of a trauma. Genesys begins with a naked Ace, and ever since then writers have displayed a sad obsession with getting her clothes off.

How likely is it that Earth and Draconia would bother shipping their corpses off to Heaven, anyway? The cost would be unbelievable. Does it just mean the corpses of those who died in space? I still don’t see the point – dumping them out of the nearest airlock is so much quicker, cheaper and pleasanter.

And if Jan is only Ace’s second lover, how does she know that ‘hearing all the things men came out with in the morning was an awful experience’?

Is this the NA that refers to Sabalom Glitz as a previous lover? So nothing happened with Robin in Nightshade then? That would make three with Jan.
In Exodus, Ace is asked if she was qualifed for the title of virgin to be sacrificed and she blushes.
As for Ace hearing about all the things men come out with in the morning: other female acquaintances have told her?

Not Mel I hope.

Goog, DON'T!!!

Chris, nothing happened with Robin. Oh, apart from the fact that Ace was prepared to dump the Doctor and the freedom of all space and time for him (a man who ends up engaged to her own MOTHER!). He must have been a very good kisser, or something.

So we have to accept the Glitz thing? Yeeuch.

There are some things one just can't accept, no matter how canon they are. Bloke with two hearts travelling through space and time saving planets - no problem. But there is NO WAY that Ace slept with Glitz; that the Brigadier was a Buddhist; that a different incarnation of the Third Doctor was that Inferno dictator; that the Third Doctor spent 10 years dying of radiation sickness during Planet of the Spiders (well, thanks to Lawrence Miles I suppose I don't have to try to believe that any more). Funny that these are all Paul Cornell's ideas.

Mind you, why did Mel go off with Glitz? Do opposites really attract?

According to "Head Games", the Doctor planted a subconscious suggestion in Mel's mind to go with Glitz. He didn't want her getting mixed up in the Fenris situation.

He loves sending his companions off with these types - first Peri with Yrcanos, then Mel with Glitz.

Peri and Yrcanos wasn't his fault; blame that on the Time Lords.

It's interesting at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks the Doctor says "It seems I must mend my ways" - then a few stories we have the Colin Baker era start and seems to break his ways even more.

I suppose you can blame the Time Lords for claiming Peri and Yrcanos were happy - but as 'Gilliam' tells the Doctor in no uncertain terms, he really should have checked up on her. As it happens, she's thoroughly miserable. As were David and Susan. And Jo and Cliff, though at least they weren't stranded on an alien planet.

What did the Doctor mean by 'mending his ways', anyway? Certainly not that he was going to give up getting into violent situations in order to save the universe. And another thing I've never understood about that scene - he says he left Gallifrey for the same reasons that's Tegan's leaving him. I assume he was referring to 'It's stopped being fun' rather than her inability to take the bloodshed any more. But when was Gallifrey ever fun?

You certainly can't blame the Doctor for Jo and Cliff. Jo made that decision all by herself. The Doctor would have been very happy to have her stay with him.

Yes, it's not as if he forcibly locked her out of the TARDIS, but I think as her best friend and father figure (or whatever) he could quietly have mentioned to her that running off to the Amazon with a man who a) she met about two days earlier, and b) thought she was an idiot, might not be the most sensible course of action. Not that it would have done any good, of course. He should also have tried warning Leela and Andred (or at least stayed for the wedding!) but, miracle of miracles, they actually worked out OK.

Peri and Yrcanos may not have been the Doctor's fault but the Time Lords would not have allowed a trial if there was at least some suggestion of wrong-doing on the Doctor's part.

I thought the "mend my ways" line was that he actually realised there had been *too* much bloodshed in victory. The Doctor says he didn't want it that way but Tegan's departure makes him think perhaps he could have gone about it differently.

The main mistake the Doctor made in Resurrection was that he wasn't bloodthirsty enough - that he let Davros live.

And then he let the Master die, someone who was actually his friend at one stage, in 'Planet of Fire'.

I can't remember exactly what happened in PoF...did the Doctor ever have a chance to save the Master? Personally, I feel the Doctor's greatest crime was to let the Master live all those years...if, say, he hadn't intervened with the Time Monster's plans for eternal torment (or if he'd just asked her to tone it down a bit instead of releasing him), then several galaxies wouldn't have perished in Logopolis. Yet the Doctor shows no remorse about his failure to do in Mr Genocide.

If I recall correctly, the Doctor even organised for the flames to change from numismaton gas *plus* didn't turn them back as the Master pleaded with him.
It's not until 'Planet of Fire' that the Doctor has been able to kill the Master, perhaps he regrets not doing so to Davros earlier and is now determined to fight evil more definitively.

Is that why we got the acid bath scene in Vengeance on Varos?

The Doctor tried to prevent the Master from using the gas. By the time the Master realized he was in trouble, it was too late for the Doctor to save him, so I don't think we can blame the Doctor for this one.

As for the acid bath in "Vengance on Varos", while the Doctor didn't intentionally push the two guards in (it was more of a slapstick routine), he didn't need to stand around and gloat about it afterwards.

If the Doctor couldn't save him, why did the Master scream "Would you show no mercy to one of your own?" All's fair in love and war, perhaps?

The Master was probably just trying to make the Doctor feel guilty, in the hope that the Doctor is s t u p i d enough to jump into the flames to try to save him (judging by the extraordinary lengths the Doctor goes to in the telemovie to rescue him, this is well worth a try). Of course, the Master knew perfectly well whilst burning alive that the flames were fake/he was really a clone/an angel of the Lord would descend from above to save him. Or whatever.

Okay. Even if the Doctor *couldn't* save the Master (which I don't think), he still kills Kamelion.

Out of compassion, though?

Was it really out of compassion? Kamelion would've been okay, I felt it was just because he couldn't be trusted and was too easily manipulated by others.

I thought it was because Kamelion was experiencing so much pain.

Let's face it, if the Doctor killed every Companion who couldn't be trusted and was too easily manipulated by others, he'd lead a lonely, not to mention homicidal, existence. IIRC, Kamelion was in agony and begging for death.

So was Liz Shaw in 'Eternity Weeps'. Do you think if the Doctor was there he would've killed her too?

Hmm...interesting question. Logically, yes. The Doctor has made clear his support for euthanasia in Planet of Fire - and that was the softest-hearted Doctor of them all, the one who would risk the destruction of the universe in an anti-matter explosion by stopping to help pick up spilt vegetables. And whilst in The English Way of Death the Fourth Doctor refuses to commit euthanasia, he does supply the means whereby the victim can shoot herself - he's just splitting hairs in order to keep his hands clean.

Anyway, given what the Doctor did in The Ancestor Cell, he's capable of mercy-killing on a VERY big scale.

But having said all that...if Liz had been on TV dying in agony and begging for death...of COURSE the Doctor wouldn't have killed her. Watching the Hero murder his attractive young female assistant would have been more than the watching children, not to mention Mary Whitehouse, could have coped with. The fact that no-one turned a hair when Kamelion copped it probably has less to do with the fact he's a machine - can you IMAGINE the reaction if the Doctor had slaughtered K9 - and more to do with Kamelion's utter unpopularity, and his lack of true Companion status (personally I completely forgot that he was supposed to be tucked away in the TARDIS, and so did whoever wrote Frontios).

Kamelion *was* in Frontios - he was the hatstand.

Oh yeah, and all that stuff about the 5th Dr mercy-killing, that was my point. What you said, Emily, about the Doctor wanting to keep his hands 'clean' before this, just goes with my point. The Doctor's actions in 'Planet of Fire' are indicative of his inner struggles through his last 3 television stories, after not being able to kill Davros he forces himself to do away with the Master (or even allow his death) and even mercy-kills Kamelion, an action he never would have done before (no matter what the popularity of the character was), these 'changes' are what led to him becoming the more volitale and violent 6th Doctor, and as an extension/evolution of this, the more distanced and, sometimes, even callous 7th Doctor.

Ah. Do you mean that the Fifth Doctor _deliberately_ regenerated into a more violent character because he thought that sort of person would be needed (as the Seventh Doctor justified his murder of his predecessor by saying that a Time's Champion/chess grandmaster figure was necessary, rather than his Sixth persona, which was not only very like the Valeyard, but was also too scared to make grand plans for fear of _becoming_ the Valeyard). Or do you mean that because the Fifth Doctor had acted quite violently in the run-up to regeneration, those tendencies happened to come to the fore?

Either way, an interesting proposition. Not that I believe it. After all, the Doctor _does_ fail to kill Davros; leaving the Master to die is not exactly unprecedented (he does it all the time (except in the telemovie) presumably feeling guilt-free because he just KNOWS the man'll pop up again) and as for killing Kamelion...I'm just trying to remember if such a situation has ever arisen on-screen before. I sincerely hope that if I was dying in agony the Doctor would have the guts to put me out of my misery, not decide that, 'Hey, it's just not good for my image, so why don't you carry on in excruciating torment for a few more hours/days/weeks.'

Maybe the spectrox poisoning brought the necessary violent tendencies to the fore? We don't know what effect it might have on a Time Lord.

Re: Emily. The second, but more unconsciously. Throughout all the Doctor's lives he has struggled to keep back the tides of violence, within and outside of himself. Towards the end of the 5th Doctor's incarnation it became too much and the traumatic regeneration caused by Spectrox Toxeamia evolved such tendencies he had tried to keep at bay.

Re: the Master. The 3rd Doctor always had a grudging reespect for the Master and asked Kronos to spare him in 'The Time Monster'. The 5th Doctor is the first to actively kill/let the Master die, perhaps unconsciously trying to become 'stronger'/'firmer' (okay, there *are* elements of your first suggestion Emily) after failing to execute Davros.

I'm still not convinced that things became 'too much' towards the end of the Davison era. I don't see the Doctor's failure to kill Davros as a big deal - he's also failed to kill him on every other occasion they've met.

And it's not as if the Doctor was deeply affected by Kamelion's death. Whenever he remembers Companions who died, it's always Adric, Sara and Katarina (despite the fact that several hundred other people who he knew at least as well as Sara and Katarina directly died for him (let's not get into the billions who died BECAUSE of him)).

As for the Master...of course the Doctor wanted to spare him from Kronos's plans for eternal torture - this is not in the least incompatable with a desire for his death. Whilst I have a long 'better dead' list myself, I wouldn't condemn my worst enemy to hell. I can't remember which story it was, but I remember one of the UNIT crew once asking the Third Doctor if the Master was dead, and he said something along the lines of 'I hope so - and there isn't anyone else in the universe I'd say that about.'

Did anyone notice an AIDS allegory in Love and War?

The Fourth Doctor was the one who said he hoped the Master was dead, in The Deadly Assassin.

Chris - no.

Ed - I'm sure the Third Doctor said it as well. I can practically HEAR him saying it to his UNIT pals after his latest successful foiling of the Master's fiendish plan to take over/destroy the world. Unfortunately I don't feel like trawling through the entire Pertwee era looking for it, just at the moment.

I was thinking of the spreading of the infection and the Doctor infecting Benny and her hating him for it. Mind you, 'twas a while ago I read it.

Paul Cornell claimed that it was an AIDS allegory in an issue of DWM. This is the first place I've seen the issue raised apart from there, though.

I've seen it mentioned that his book Goth Opera was an AIDS allegory as well.

I am re-reading this at the moment, and am disturbed by how dated it feels; a future wrapped in long-dead traveller-culture cliches. Still, it does have some fantastic moments.
By the way, I'm sure South London teenagers liase with much less appealing entities than Glitz, judging by what I saw on Friday nights during my distant youth!

They may have LOOKED even less appealling than Glitz, but at least (presumably) they weren't slave traders, unlike Glitz.

Yes, all the Cyberspace stuff is pretty dated too. You know what the Completely Useless Encylopedia says about it - ALWAYS put some Cyberspace stuff in your NA, even if it fits uneasily into your fifteenth-century historical...

Huh. Paul Cornell says in DWM that the Seventh Doctor murdering the Sixth is just a dream of Ace's, 'and I never really quite meant it to be true.' Bah humbug.

Hmm. Not wild about the audio adaptation of Love and War for Benny's twentieth anniversary. It REALLY highlighted all the book's weaknesses and few of its strengths.

No monsters to fight and 'all the dragons are dead' since WHEN?!

Ace has never seen horses in 'space' (i.e. an alien planet) before? She saw them on the planet of the Cheetah-People!

'A long time ago, I decided I'd always give someone money if they looked like they needed cash' - well, I've never noticed Ace doling out money to beggars left, right and centre...oh wait, she DID put money in that collection tin in Survival, I suppose.

'Meet you at the TARDIS' - er...WHEN?

Benny automatically assumes that Ace is lying about being a time-traveller from the 1980s. Surely she should at least have been able to spot that Ace is SERIOUSLY out of place? And time-travel shouldn't be TOO unthinkable to someone from the twenty-sixth (or whatever) century?

So people who believe that the universe came about by accident are evil nihilists who practice human sacrifice? THANKS, Paul.

Why doesn't the TARDIS just translate the scrolls for the Doctor?

Why has Ace never her mentioned 'big brother' Jules before?

'Do you always pick the people who travel with you' - Ace never thought to ask sooner?

The Ace/Jan relationship is CONSIDERABLY more embarrassing on audio. Also...totally unbelievable.

'I don't care about anything but him [Jan]' - Ace. Not only a spectacularly stupid thing to say, but obviously untrue as she's still desperate to stay with the Doctor.

'I assume asking for an explanation is pretty pointless' - Benny to the Doctor. And THIS is the person he chooses as his next Companion! Someone who DELIBERATELY REFUSES to ask stupid pointless 'Doctor what's going on' questions!

'Why? Where's he gone?' - which part of 'I'll nick a shuttle and deal with the Hoothi' did Ace somehow fail to grasp?

'If you weren't allowed to shoot yourself, what makes you think you'd be allowed to shoot me' - quite. What a moron.

The Doctor seriously thinks that telepathic 'contact' with Benny - without asking her permission first - is the only way to get to know her??

'Wow...it looks so..spacey...We're really going to fly a three-person shuttle alone?' - Ace is a GROWN WOMAN who has spent SEVERAL YEARS travelling around space and time saving planets in the company of the universe's most dangerous man. Why is this treating her like she's about FIVE?

'Ace's world has fallen apart' - it HAS? WHEN? Oh. When Ace n'Jan did that 'I love you' thing, THAT was that incredibly-moving-scene-IN-THE-BOOK when his body exploded into Hoothi spores? Well IT'S A BIT DIFFICULT TO TELL ON AUDIO. The fact he also pyrokinetically destroyed all the Hoothi would also have been totally lost on me without vague memories of the book.

The Doctor gives Benny his word he won't ever play games with her life because he won't have to? Sorry, WHAT!

All that 'I took the Hoothi into my palm and fooled them into thinking I'd infected you by showing them a copy of your brain' stuff is rubbish. If only fandom had made it CLEARER to Paul Cornell that we wouldn't put up with such nonsense we might not have got that 'simple olfactory trick' nonsense that marred an otherwise perfect Human Nature/Family of Blood.

'Perhaps I believe in reincarnation. Perhaps I of all people should' - god, you're not hinting at that godawful 'the Doctor is the Other!' thing, are you?

Why doesn't it just end on 'Long ago, in an English autumn' instead of waffling onto a third disc, followed by yet more waffling interviews ('Ace is doing a few things she's never done before, like kissing blokes' - Sophie Aldred is perhaps a little ignorant of her alter ego's goings-on. Though even SHE can spot a mile off that this Jan/Ace thing is WAY TOO SUDDEN).

'Ace's decision to leave the TARDIS hadn't been taken only because she'd fallen for that wide-boy traveller on Heaven who'd died destroying the Hoothi. It hadn't even been just because she blamed the Doctor for his death. She'd said that the TARDIS was getting "well weird"' - Deceit.

Um, can the next person to read/listen to Love and War keep their eyes/ears peeled for something along the lines of 'I couldn't care less if you murdered the Love Of My Life, Doctor, but I just feel your dimensionally-transcendental semi-sentient alien space-time machine is GETTING A LITTLE WEIRD'...?

Did anyone notice an AIDS allegory in Love and War?

Bookwrym certainly did. And it didn't like it:

'Except in very unusual circumstances, you have to actively take a decision, perform an action, to run the risk of catching [HIV]. Cornell's Hoothi metaphor is specifically written that it could happen to anyone - you just have to be unlucky - which is simply not the case with the real disease at all...reworking it in the way that Cornell does here, particularly when it's juxtaposed against his apparent admiration for the travellers and their "shag-who-you-will" philosophy, given the way in which AIDS is still mostly spread, makes it an inaccurate metaphor, thus cheapening it horribly.'

It also gets a bit sarcastic about the owls: 'Here, and in other works, he uses owls to mean... well, actually, we're not sure, because their symbolic qualities change from book to book and sometimes from page to page. But it's all very symbolic, we're sure...the owl-to-page ratio is, at its lowest, roughly 0.05957, one of the highest ever recorded in the history of literature.'

Now reading Love and War and I was surprised to come across the bit of the Draconians calling the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm.

Released in 1992, this came thirteen years before the 2005 TV episode Parting of the Ways by showrunner Russell T. Davies which had the Ninth Doctor revealing that the Daleks also refer to him as the Oncoming Storm!

So it was Cornell who came up with the Doctor being the Oncoming Storm!

Yes, but by the wrong species. Cornell also claimed the Daleks called him the Ka Faraq Gatri - Bringer of Darkness (Timewrym: Revelation). Whilst Moffat later claimed (Short Trips: Continuity Errors) that Ka Faraq Gatri actually meant 'Nice guy, if you're a biped'...

'You sacrificed the colourful jester because you needed to be born! Time would have her champion, and he was just the compost for your blooming. You ran your TARDIS into the Rani's beam joyfully. Hah! Your sixth self hates you for that, he will become the Valeyard for that.'

Well, Six n'Seven get on JUST FINE in Power of the Doctor. Just sayin'.

'You sacrificed the colourful jester because you needed to be born! Time would have her champion, and he was just the compost for your blooming. You ran your TARDIS into the Rani's beam joyfully. Hah! Your sixth self hates you for that, he will become the Valeyard for that.'

Well, Six n'Seven get on JUST FINE in Power of the Doctor. Just sayin'.

On the other hand, Romana's claiming in Gallifrey: Imperiatrix that 'Your past selves always want more life, always blame the successive regeneration, it's such typical bad grace ingrained in all Time Lords...'

Huh. Paul Cornell says in DWM that the Seventh Doctor murdering the Sixth is just a dream of Ace's, 'and I never really quite meant it to be true.' Bah humbug.

Well, Christmas on a Rational Planet takes it quite seriously:

'A pygmy-sized copy of his sixth self was running around his legs, kicking his shins. He didn't remember creating it, but then a subconscious was dangerous thing once it was riled. For God's sake, the teeny sixth Doctor squeaked, how many more of us are you going to have to kill before you're happy?'