A good read, though it's a pity that this let's-mourn-Roz book actually came out before Roz got killed in So Vile a Sin (it's also a pity that no fan gives a toss about Roz).

I loved 'Gilliam's' return, though it took me half the book to work out who she was...perhaps because the stifling formality of the Court did NOT fit my memories of Ycranos.

I also found it unrealistic that the Doctor should suddenly go all 'I cannot tell a lie' and be prepared to let people die rather than practice a minor deception. This Doctor, more than any of them, believes the ends justify the means.

I see your point about this sudden moral high ground not fitting with his philosophy throughout most of the NA series and I agree.

I assume you mean the way he would not support the 'bonding' party at the end of the book, to give the remaining 'shapes' (forgive the terminology, it's a while since I read it ...) an identity and thus fulfillment. Perhaps he always realised that it was possible for them to form their own identities, like the club owner did? Mind you, he seemed to agonise over the decision, if I remember rightly.

It could be suggested that his motivation (because he's a real bloke, you know ;)) was derived from the anger and betrayal felt by his companions in the book - Peri and the likable chap who lost his lover. But even though that might stand in the context of this story, it hardly fits with the kind of 'greater good' thinking in adventures such as the alternative Earth with the Silurians one.

You just got me thinking out loud.

Oh yeah - another thing about this story. Doesn't it have the weird faceless image on the cover? It reminded me of that fantastic Sapphire and Steel episode, with the fella with no face and the photos.

Top stuff, that ...

I think the 7th Doctor's decision fit in with the scheme of the NAs nicely.
He has a heart attack after Roz dies in 'So Vile a Sin' and is deeply affected. Here we see how he has begun to mellow, something that continues through 'The Room With No Doors' and 'Lungbarrow' to lead into his being more at ease and less manipulative by the time of the telemovie. I read earlier on this board somewhere about hwo the NAs were about the 7th Doctor's descent/fall and his restoration, and from 'So Vile a Sin' onwards this is startlingly so, with the Doctor coming to see that the end does *not* justify the means after all, and that he must tie up the ends of his *own* life before his impending regeneration (which 'Room With No Doors' reveals the Doctor is aware of).

Here we see how he has begun to mellow, something that continues through 'The Room With No Doors' and 'Lungbarrow' to lead into his being more at ease and less manipulative by the time of the telemovie.

Well, if 'more at ease and less manipulative' are the reasons McCoy strolled out of the TARDIS into a hail of bullets without bothering to check the scanner...maybe being manipulative wasn't such a bad idea after all...

It actually scores quite high (by NA standards) in the enjoyability stakes. But there's NOTHING about it that screams 'Let this bloke write for New Who!'

COULD you scream with a knife through your throat?

Why does the Doctor drag Eddy to a 50s hospital (and then wipe the nurse's memory of his face, of all bizarre and unusual things to do) instead of just treating him in the TARDIS which is RIGHT THERE and (this being master-manipulator-Seven's era) probably has PLENTY of life-saving equipment? (Hell, it even had weird head-wound-curing bandages in HARTNELL'S era...)

The Doctor is 'rather fond of [sci-fi] myself'? Since when! Reading 'War of the Worlds' every thousand years or so certainly doesn't qualify you as a FAN.

So if Eddy EXISTED to fulfil all Jack's fantasies...why didn't he have fair hair in the FIRST place?

'It looked as if he was attempting to pay the fare with tiny faintly luminous cubes. "What do you mean 'You can't accept them'?" Jack heard the Doctor exclaim. "I was assured they were legal tender on all the civilized planets in this Galaxy."' - any OTHER Doctor and I wouldn't complain, but McCoy is not only quite good at forward-planning, he's also spent YEARS on Earth in his stupid house on Allen Road...

'My doctorate is entirely my own invention...I don't even have a name. Not any more.' - Since WHEN!!

How could a blackmailer POSSIBLY be STUPID enough to cheerily admit in front of one of his victims that 'we often expose people even after they've paid up'?? It's not exactly an INCENTIVE to hand over one's life's savings instead of going to the police, is it?

'He dived on to the Doctor, straddling him, and started to pummel his head with his fists. The Doctor squirmed beneath him, trying to protect his face from the increasingly savage blows' - whatever happened to the Doc's 'Venusian hip throw' skills of a page earlier? Whatever happened to his opponent's cut-throat razor too?

'He felt human again. Powerful and whole...he started to laugh...for the first time in months he felt safe and free' - oh-kay. Which bit of a) THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE HAS JUST BEEN HIDEOUSLY MURDERED and b) YOU ONLY MET SAID LOVE OF LIFE FIVE WEEKS AGO SO THE BLACKMAIL CAN'T HAVE BEEN GOING ON FOR MONTHS is Jack somehow not grasping...?

Gods. Now Jack's claiming that Eddy's hair is 'brown, almost black' when everyone else in the universe knows it's chestnut brown. Honestly, if Jack obviously doesn't give a toss about the most basic, obvious facts about the Love Of His Life why the hell should I?

'Her schedule had been carefully arranged for the next two years' 'On more formal occasions, her clothing was so intricate and unwieldy that two handmaidens were required just to allow her to be seated' 'The suffocating constraints of royal clothing was only a reflection of the tight organization of a queen's life' 'The concept of a "holiday" was unknown to the royal courts of Kr'on Tep' - look, we've all SEEN Mindwarp. And no amount of attempting to FORGET said experience is gonna convince anyone that THIS is what Ycranos's court is LIKE.

'The first queen of Kr'on Tep, a woman scientist named Petruska' - what, as opposed to a man scientist named Queen Petruska...? For what's basically a 292-page rant against homophobia, this isn't exactly too PC when it comes to sexism...

Harris doesn't notice the Doctor's terrible bruising? Or has it all miraculously cleared up by now...?

'Funny, he didn't look like one of them, but then you could never tell' - what, a 50s policeman could NEVER spot one of those illegal 'gay' creatures...?

'Despite the Doctor having put an end to his blackmailing operation...' - sorry, WHAT! Sure, the Doctor burnt all photos the blackmailing scumbag had of blokes gazing into each other's eyes and other such hideously incriminating filth, but why the hell would THAT stop said blackmailing scumbag? He has no reason to ADVERTISE the fact he's lost his leverage.

'Chris could usually tell if the Doctor was aboard the ship. It wasn't anything tangible, just a general feeling of alertness and expectation in the air when the Doctor was around. At the moment, the cool, dimly lit corridors of the ship suggested that it was slumbering, patiently awaiting its master's return' - it's WHAT!

'Where are we going?' - Chris managed to buy a ticket for the train without having a clue as to its desination? (Admittedly I can barely remember what the halcyon days of rail-travel were like before John Major came up with the fantastic idea of out-Thatchering Thatcher by privatising it...)

Would the Seventh Doctor really be so careless as to refer to 'your anatomy' to a police inspector (thus casually revealling his extra-terrestrial origins), not to mention using the daed boy's name (thus casually revealling his involvement in a murder)?

'I was sure I was going to be able to save the boy, Eddy' - really? Cos AT THE TIME you said there was an 'outside chance' of saving him...

'She had a college kid's knowledge of archeological theory; her only claim to practical experience were the two college digs she'd attended' - um...why didn't Peri's attendance at her stepfather's archaeological dig count? And why would a BOTANY STUDENT attend TWO college archaeological digs anyway? And why doesn't this book know how to spell 'archaeology'?

'Not once since she had fled...had she considered that the king might take her leaving personally. She'd assumed he would be angry at her disobedience. Angry, but not hurt' - leaving aside the fact that even I seem to have more insight into Peri's marriage than SHE does...what about the PREVIOUS PAGE'S 'Ala'dan had reported that he'd never seen the king more angry and upset; that the king thought that she was deliberately choosing to humiliate him'??

Also - given the TOTAL lack of mention of KIDS when Peri blithely abandons her husband and seven worlds, I'm assuming that she n'Ycranos mercifully didn't spawn any. So why wasn't her barrenness AN ISSUE?

'He was sure of only one thing. That he wasn't going to lose anyone else. Not tonight. Not ever' - oh puh-lease. There's simply NO WAY that the SEVENTH Doctor would react to the self-inflicted demise of one unloved Companion with such hysterical denial. (NOT EVER? Gonna give up universe-saving, are we, Doc?)

'My name? How much time do you have? A literal translation has thirty-eight syllables - or at least it did last time I counted. And anyway, mine keeps changing' - look, can you just STOP making up (contradictory!) rubbish about the Doc's name? It took about two seconds to say in Name of the Doctor...

'Whether it was tiredness or just plain fear, the last remains of the Doctor's bravery left him' - SO not swallowing this.

'Was there anything the little man couldn't do' - er...yes there is. And seeing as Jack's SEEN him beaten up, he of all people should know this.

To be continued...

COULD you scream with a knife through your throat?

Doubtful. You could gurgle for a short while, until the blood flowing into your lungs drowned you. That's about it.

At the moment, the cool, dimly lit corridors of the ship suggested that it was slumbering, patiently awaiting its master's return' - it's WHAT!

That's just Chris's opinion of the situation, not a reflection of reality.

You could gurgle for a short while, until the blood flowing into your lungs drowned you. That's about it.

Ha! I thought as much. Ah well, at least no one's 'chuckling dryly' with a knife embedded in their stomach, a la PDA Byzantium. Screaming actually makes SENSE (emotionally, if not actually, y'know...physically).

That's just Chris's opinion of the situation, not a reflection of reality.

But Chris has been living in the TARDIS for YEARS and is the only person she's bothered interfacing directly with (at least until The Doctor's Wife). And he's a highly-trained and observant Adjudicator who only seems thick cos he hangs around Benny/Roz/the Seventh Doctor. His opinion should carry weight.

Though in this case you're no doubt quite right and stuff his stupid opinions.

'Nothing floated on the Grand Union, nothing except for dead cats and used contraceptives' - still, look on the bright side. It took HALF THE BOOK to get round to the traditional oochie-murder.

If black people 'were everywhere in Notting Hill' how come it took Mickey so long 'to find a landlady who would have a Jamaican as a tenant'?

Why - the - HELL didn't Dennis TELL HIS BROTHER or, indeed, his Mother-creator that a gang had tried to kill him and that Eddy had sacrificed himself to save him? (Eddy had even SAID 'Run and tell Mother' in case the rug-rat was too stupid to think of it himself.)

'The little man's eyes were full of fear and alarm' - when exactly did the Seventh Doctor become so SCARED? Is it the knowledge of his impending regeneration? Is it Roz's death? Was he always like this and I/whichever human he was attached to at the time just didn't notice?

'He sent a telepathic distress call to his ship and hoped that it would open the door for him...The dear old thing had heard his cry for help and opened the door' - hmm. I'm not saying it's impossible - not after the finger-clicking nonsense, not to mention her opening up whenever Clara of all people demands it - but still...there are SEVERAL OCCASIONS I could think of when such a thing would have come in REALLY HANDY.

Why doesn't the Doctor just OVERPOWER Sergeant Bridie and get on with saving the lives of the poor boys who are going to be mutilated to death any minute now? Why does he let himself get arrested? Whatever happened to 'a finger can be a deadly weapon'?

NOW the Doctor's saying he holds no medical qualifications...on this planet anyway. Just when you thought this question couldn't get any MORE contradictory, we now learn that if he DID get said qualifications, it WASN'T under Lister after all...

'I'll lose my job over this, Doctor' - and yet we never DO discover whether helping the Doc gets Harris sacked as well as suspended. You shouldn't ask people to invest in your characters if you can't even be bothered to finish their stories.

Why the hell doesn't the Doctor take advantage of Harris's new self-sacrificial trust and tell him to RELEASE THE MAJOR FROM JAIL before it kills him?

The 'walkways which stretched between the mile high towers' of Chris's day were 'alive with the chatter of a thousand races'? You do surprise me. Alright, so Chris's Overcity was the hub of an interplanetary empire, and it wasn't QUITE as manipulated as Satellite 5, but still...there was a definite 'We ask why these alien scum should be left alive to ask for compensation for us destroying their planet' about the whole thing, and most aliens I remember encountering in Original Sin were down in the Undercity.

'"Faster than a time machine?" the Doctor smiled. "I doubt it"' - aaaaand yet he decides to take Tilda's car rather than go by TARDIS anyway. Is he DELIBERATELY participating in the slowest-rescue-of-imminent-murder-victims in history, or what?

Peri thinks of Howard as her UNCLE?

I thought Mother selected her candidates carefully ('It's the most important decision in the world'). So why, exactly, give Patsy to a middle-aged fat self-satisfied 'I like my women stupid' chauvinist? One who made her beg for every penny she was permitted to spend DESPITE THE FACT SHE WAS A POP STAR.

'Such was the authority in the Doctor's voice' - woo HOO!

'No face. It was unthinkable. Horrible. How could such a thing be possible?' - er...masks?

'She prepared the instruments for surgery' - yeah, gods forbid you should use unsterilised equipment for KILLING PEOPLE.

'Moriah retracted his hand, as if it had been scolded' - er...do you mean scalded?

Make up your mind whether she's your BETROTHED or your BRIDE.

Would Peri's accent really be 'one hundred per cent New York' after a quarter of a century on Kr'on Tep?

Peri would really jump into an untested space portal with no idea as to its destination...to get away from her husband? Has she never thought about DIVORCE?

Why is Peri's face 'heavily lined from the sun' if she's been living aboard a royal space-barge thing all this time?

'I want him back more than anything I've ever wanted. But not now. It wouldn't be the same, would it? I'd know he wasn't real' - see, here's the major problem of this book. At the heart of it is the Eddy/Jack relationship, but if Jack doesn't love Eddy enough to forgive him a minor thing like not being real, why should I care about this relationship? You know, occasionally blasphemous thoughts about THE DOCTOR not being real cross MY mind, but that doesn't mean I'd turn down my very own Ninth Doctor if he happened to be on Special Offer.

Plus, Eddy WAS real. And he deserved the chance to live again. And if the love of his life doesn't feel that way...with all the Toys standing around GAGGING to be given glorious new life...why the hell NOT! Especially as Jack can clearly see that his own friend and roommate quite rightly doesn't give a toss that his own 'little brother' was born of alien tech and his own desires instead of in the traditional repulsive squeezed-from-someone's-stomach manner.

Oh, and when Jack thinks he DID accidentally turn one of the Toys into Eddy, 'he felt ashamed, exposed, and a little excited' - a LITTLE excited?! Look, hasn't Jack suffered enough from discrimination? What makes him think discriminating against alien biomass is so much better than discriminating against gays?

'I had plenty of time on my hands' - really? I got the impression your diary was booked up for TWO YEARS in advance. What with you ruling seven planets and all.

'It was all falling into place: the wreath with the funereal message; all the flowers in the sitting room...' - er, YES, Chris. Some detective HE turned out to be.

'You are sentencing all of my people to death. Don't you understand, you stupid little man, that without partners my people are nothing. You have condemned each and every one of them to a blank empty nothing' - or...er...you could go out and select 'em all partners. The way you've been doing for years.

I'm sorry, EVERYTHING we've learnt about the Toys suggests that they just COULDN'T all convert EACH OTHER to people like this.

So Moriah has travelled the galaxy in a fruitless quest to recreate Petruska...until he reaches Earth. What makes humans so...suitable?

Great, so the Notting Hill riots were caused by aliens too. Can't we have ANYTHING to ourselves?

'Why not give him what he really wants? Why not give him his queen? Wouldn't he be a happy little maniac then?' - er...HE might be happy, what about the misfortunate Petruska? Peri of all people shouldn't be recommending that some woman ruin decades of her life tied to a Kr'on Tep King.

'It's too easy being in love with you' - that was quick. You're such a git, Chris Cwej.

'I can't risk taking Petruska into the TARDIS. Who knows what dreams and needs the old thing might project on to her' - bloody good point, Doctor. Pity you didn't think about THAT when you rerouted Compassion's earpiece through the TARDIS...

'Gilliam had spent too many nights tossing and turning under the desert sky' - what, she WAS living in a desert after all! What happened to the royal barge?

'Moriah. First King of Kr'on Tep, Emperor of the Seven Systems' - hang on, the empire didn't build itself up gradually? Kr'on Tep got itself it's first ever monarch, who promptly took over SEVEN MORE SOLAR SYSTEMS before vanishing? What was he, NAPOLEON? (In which case, why did he pathetically mess around with people-swallowing taxis and minor criminals instead of just conquering Earth?)

'The Doctor's eyes bulged as he felt his windpipe begin to collapse. He'd used up all his tricks, all his plans. He didn't have anything tucked up his sleeve' - er...what about his respiratory bypass system?

'I've spent the last twenty-five years governing half a dozen planets. I think I'll be able to find my way into Europe without a passport' - that doesn't necessarily follow at all.

Surely Dennis should be far too attached to his big brother to go off acquiring a WIFE and DAUGHTER and suchlike?

Bookwyrm:

'The Doctor lists the content of his pockets, which include "the key to an obsolete blue telephone box". Except this is 1958'...oops.

'He pulls a Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket that blatantly wasn't there when said pockets were searched sixteen pages previously. Lawrence Miles probably has an explanation for this' - yeah, but never mind THAT, only idiots carry knives according to the Thirteenth Doctor...

'He simply has little or no idea what to do with no women in the TARDIS' - Oh, I dunno, Five and Turlough seemed to be managing fine, for their first five minutes anyway...

'We actually don't get homosexuality dealt with this maturely in the New Series until the arrival of Bill in The Pilot' - we don't?

'He simply has little or no idea what to do with no women in the TARDIS' - Oh, I dunno, Five and Turlough seemed to be managing fine, for their first five minutes anyway...

And then there was Four in The Deadly Assassin.

That's true...and for however-long-it-was-between-Deadly-Assassin-and-Face-of-Evil...and he was so HAPPY being on his own that instead of grooming the nearest female or just KIDNAPPING her, he told her to •••• off and Leela had to FORCE her way aboard...

it even had weird head-wound-curing bandages in HARTNELL'S era...

Also in Capaldi's, if you count The Lost Angel audio.