I don't think I've ever read a book that more desparately wanted to be quirky than this one. Sorry to have to use a moldy metaphor, but it was like riding a rollercoaster. Only this rollercoaster had no brakes, kept jumping the track onto other tracks, lost cars, added cars, then just slowly ground to a halt. And I thought I was standing in line for the concession stand.

Even without the back cover blurb about Stone's work on "Judge Dredd", it was pretty obvious that he is a comic book writer. His writing screamed for illustration, just so we'd know who was doing what to whom (or what).

Also, it's really hard to maintain a comic novel when you've got two protagonists addicted to a heroin-like substance, and imminent genocide. It was as if the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup" had been set in Nazi Germany, with Groucho as Der Furher.

I suppose it depends on whether you consider there are any subjects that should, in the interests of good taste, not be comedy-fodder. If there are, then genocide and herion addiction would definitely be on the list. On the other hand, I'm not so sure there ARE any sacred subjects any more. Well, not since I found myself sobbing with laughter at the sight of Paul McGann about to be raped.

Of course, it could only be justified if it was very, very, funny (as well as, hopefully, making an important statement on this subject), which as far as I remember doesn't really apply to the Roz n'Chris subplot.

Good fun and surprisingly philosophical, if way too long - especially the relentless padding where bad stuff happens to Roz n'Chris all the time, especially as plenty of bad stuff is happening to everyone else. But then there's absolutely no point in accusing Dave Stone of being self-indulgent or of laying it on a bit thick. It would be like accusing the Doctor of travelling in space and time.

'Dirt, that mythical, lost and long-eradicated cradle of humankind' - didn't the Stainless Steel Rat books have the 'Dirt' joke decades ago?

'He was unable to metabolize ethanol' - ha! Well he metabolized it A LOT in Transit!

Why the hell would there be fish with adverts on them IN THE TARDIS?

Blimey. Time Wars...Reality Bombs...inter-species sex...you heard 'em here first!

'Any emergent race that might evolve a similar mastery of space-time [to the Time Lords] was judiciously nipped in the bud - not through any sense of cruelty...but for the simple, pragmatic reason that by definition there could be but a single Supreme Power' - well, they did a pretty poor job of it. And whatever happened to 'You can't change history! Not one line!'?

And why is the Doctor saying, a few hundred pages later, that 'Those exterminated creatures were not exactly evil as such, merely utterly incompatible with life as we can know it, inimical to it. A galaxy in which they existed could not possibly allow you or I or anyone else to exist too' - well, THAT'S a million miles away from JUST DEVELOPING TIME TRAVEL.

Anyway, by the time they'd dealt with the Carnival Queen (Christmas on a Rational Planet) and Anchored the Thread (Book of the War) this sort of lifeform just shouldn't have been popping up.

'A human being born even a quarter of a century before [Benny], or a quarter of a century after, might have flatly and even hysterically refused to believe [that humans were mating with aliens and producing hybrids]' - why on Earth would there have been such a brief flurry of open-mindedness (coinciding with a Dalek War, too!). Still, you can see where the foundations for New Who's 'So many species, so little time' was laid...

'At least Benny thought, whatever had happened to the Doctor, the strange process by which the words of those around them were translated into human terms was still operating' - well he's unconscious so they SHOULDN'T be.

And Benny can't read alien languages...well, as the TARDIS is a long way away AND still repairing herself, this isn't conclusive.

Cats in the System are 'timid neurotic sacks of suet with chronically weak hearts'. Rodney should read this book.

'Cybermen have been known to break out the gold dust at the mere mention of my name' says the Doctor. Uh?

'There were vast stockpiles of equipment and weaponry in [the TARDIS]' - why on Earth should Roz think this?

Since when has the Doctor done 'his Musical bloody Companions routine' 'all the time'?

The Doctor and Benny don't exactly give much thought to getting back to Chris and Roz and the TARDIS, or indeed the very survival of the newbies, do they.

Love the Dead Geek Wars stuff, though exactly when the New Old New Old Good Old New Old Little Old Islam-Christian Fundamentalist Republican Right Party attempted to stomp every other sentient life-form in the galaxy occurred is another question.

'If everybody gave up because things were hopeless, the whole vast panoply of galactic history would be reduced to an exponentially expanding mass of fissioning protozon...Then again, it'd save a lot of shrieking misery and death, you'd get a net gain in biomass and nobody would find themselves at a loose end on Saturday nights.' - That's the kind of thing I'd say (um, if I had a grasp of what fissioning protozon was) but quite unexpected for the Doctor.

Ditto for 'Feeling good has never been a major part of what you might call the human condition.'

Benny and Ace spent time on a Viking longboat when it attacked an Angle settlement? Why?

'The pattern-recognition processes inside me are linked to automatic and overriding reflexes. I have the horrible feeling that I'm simply going to kill [the Charon], and I won't be able to stop myself' - and yet when it comes to the Vampires, a GENUINE threat, all a Time Lord has is a printed record...IF they happen to have a Type 40 about their person?

The Doctor commits suicide - tells Li Shao to blow up his own ship - WHY, exactly?

And given the respect Li Shao must have had for him...why not enlist the Doctor on his universe-saving-but-really-boring trip in Oblivion?

OK, who the hell are the man in the purple hat with slack and flaking features and the thick-set, slightly jowly man in a striped shirt and red braces and cold eyes saying he had faith - page 313?

'The TARDIS was inextricably linked with the white hole known as the Eye of Rassilon' - the WHAT known as WHAT!

OK *sigh* I think I'll leave discussion of Dave Stone's concept of the Doctor for tomorrow...

'Any emergent race that might evolve a similar mastery of space-time [to the Time Lords] was judiciously nipped in the bud ... well, they did a pretty poor job of it. And whatever happened to 'You can't change history! Not one line!'?

The Time Lords did try nipping the Daleks in the bud, in Genesis but the Doctor decided he knew better. As for 'You can't change history', the First Doctor didn't think mere humans could understand timey-wimey fixed points, so he kept things simple for them.

Anyway, by the time they'd dealt with the Carnival Queen (Christmas on a Rational Planet) and Anchored the Thread (Book of the War) this sort of lifeform just shouldn't have been popping up.

They popped up between the banishing of the Carnival Queen and the Anchoring of the Thread, with their own ideas on how to anchor it.

'Cybermen have been known to break out the gold dust at the mere mention of my name' says the Doctor. Uh?

Admittedly, we've never seen them commit suicide rather than fight him, but it would be almost logical. Facing the Doctor, they're dead whatever they do, and suicide wastes the least cyber-resources.

That's the kind of thing I'd say (um, if I had a grasp of what fissioning protozon was) but quite unexpected for the Doctor.

Protozon, protozoa, protozoan, are single celled animals, like amoebas, larger and more complex than bacteria. In fact, the cells of all multicellular organisms can be seen as protozoa that have learned to live in colonies and specialize to form the various tissues and organs of those larger creatures. Fissioning protozon are simply those small critters reproducing by cell division.

The Time Lords did try nipping the Daleks in the bud, in Genesis but the Doctor decided he knew better.

But they did so in a typically clumsy stupid Time Lord way - nothing like the wholesale destruction of future species at the beginning of time (which I'm STILL having problems believing. In Five Docs kidnapping a few monsters for gladiatorial combats seemed to be the ultimate shame of the early Time Lords). They COULD have quietly moved Skaro closer to its sun so no life would evolve there in the first place, or time-looped it, or stopped the Thal/Kaled War in the first place, or ensured Davros's parents never met...instead of which, they wait till the very moment the Daleks ARE created and send an agent adamantly opposed to genocide. Cretins.

They popped up between the banishing of the Carnival Queen and the Anchoring of the Thread, with their own ideas on how to anchor it.

I'll have to reread, but I have the feeling the two actions were at the same time. Come to think of it, they may even have been different ways of describing the same thing.

Admittedly, we've never seen them commit suicide rather than fight him, but it would be almost logical. Facing the Doctor, they're dead whatever they do, and suicide wastes the least cyber-resources.

Quite. But when have Cybermen EVER been logical? Or kept their own stores of gold-dust? (Yes, I KNOW I shouldn't take so seriously a self-aggrandising humorous speech by the Doctor...)

Protozon, protozoa, protozoan, are single celled animals, like amoebas, larger and more complex than bacteria. In fact, the cells of all multicellular organisms can be seen as protozoa that have learned to live in colonies and specialize to form the various tissues and organs of those larger creatures. Fissioning protozon are simply those small critters reproducing by cell division.

Thanks! (I'm a protozoa colony? Well, anything to support my lack of belief in the soul...)

Oh-kay, Dave Stone has SEVERAL interesting things to say about our favourite Oncoming Storm:

'Levels, Benny thought uneasily as she ran through the twisting tunnels. Strata of truth and consequence, of culpability and blame. Just what levels are you in fact operating on, Doctor? And why am I suddenly starting to think like this again? Is a certain little bit of your mind currently too busy concentrating on other...'

Alright, so this brain-controlling thing IS kinda backed up by Masque of Mandragora (the Doc knows Sarah's been hypnotised because she actually starts asking questions) if not by the fact Ace spent several years of NAs practically spitting in the Doctor's face.

Then there are all the Doctors special, if petty, powers:

'He was levitating three feet off the deck - something he swore blind that he could only do occasionally and with concentrated mental effort'.

The wind 'entirely failed to disturb the hat planted firmly on his head'.

And his suit is always pristine, even when he's bleeding all over it.

'His quiet voice somehow overriding the din' - not ENTIRELY convincing to those of us who've spent decades watching him hysterically screech 'IF WE FIGHT LIKE ANIMALS, WE DIE LIKE ANIMALS!' at the top of his voice...

His 'travelling companions' would be 'remarkably familiar with the process' of their brains, unable to cope with alien mechanisms, 'trying to come up with the nearest available equivalent' - oh, so THAT'S why we saw a fast-return switch with 'fast-return switch' written next to it in felt-tip pen...? I think not. For starters, there would be a lot more incidents like not-seeing-the-fish-pretending-to-be-vampires in the mirror if our brains were playing tricks on us.

Since when has Davison had 'lank and slightly sparse hair'? Or Troughton been 'tubby'?

'They cannot see the Magic Man's other body'.

'Each time a layer was torn from the Magic Man he was getting bigger.'

His 'other body' is 'bigger than the sun'. His 'other other body' has the person who can cheerily see his other body screaming hysterically.

'Those minuscule things that lived inside their meat machines that it amused [the Doctor] to emulate'.

'The hated thing [the Doctor] was vast, now, impossibly powerful. It could crush the thing inside with the merest flicker of an idle thought.'

So if the Doctor's just playing at being humanoid...why doesn't he reveal his 'other other self' when, say, the Time War is going on, or Parting of the Ways?

And presumably this isn't just the Seventh Doctor, it's all the other Docs AND all the other Time Lords.

Kellner and Runcible must be SERIOUSLY good actors.

Alright, so this brain-controlling thing IS kinda backed up by Masque of Mandragora ... if not by the fact Ace spent several years of NAs practically spitting in the Doctor's face.

Maybe the Doctor wanted her to do that, either because he felt he deserved it, or because it made her easier to steer.

So if the Doctor's just playing at being humanoid...why doesn't he reveal his 'other other self' when, say, the Time War is going on, or Parting of the Ways?

Presumably, it's against the rules Rassilon laid down, rules even the Doctor cannot lightly break.

Kellner and Runcible must be SERIOUSLY good actors.

Or they don't know what they really are. It's possible that for most Time Lords, their other other self is asleep, with their humanoid bodies animated by a tiny sliver of their dreaming mind, one that doesn't even know what it truly is.

Maybe the Doctor wanted her to do that, either because he felt he deserved it, or because it made her easier to steer.

That's a point...mind you, he shouldn't feel TOO bad about how he treated Ace, at least, not bad enough to make years of his and Benny's lives - not to mention the lives of the poor unfortunates reading the NAs - a misery.

Presumably, it's against the rules Rassilon laid down, rules even the Doctor cannot lightly break.

By the end of the Time War, Rassilon was prepared to destroy the universe. I hardly think that popping into something more comfortable (viz, his real body) would be unthinkable in comparison.

(But then, what do I know? Any Time Lord could have just ripped open a TARDIS and destroyed all the Daleks at the cost of one regeneration, or better still, got a human to do it for them.)

Or they don't know what they really are. It's possible that for most Time Lords, their other other self is asleep, with their humanoid bodies animated by a tiny sliver of their dreaming mind, one that doesn't even know what it truly is.

THAT'S a bloody good point. Though why on Earth an all-powerful pan-dimensional being would squish itself down to their level is another question. Surely they'd have the same reaction as poor darling Wolsey in Oh No It Isn't!, when he discovered he had to lose his brains and speech and suchlike and revert to being a cat. In fact, I was quite insulted at how upset he got, and surely it would be NOTHING in comparison to the fuss he'd've kicked up if he'd had to become Runcible the Fatuous.

Besides, 'Toy Story' makes it clear that something similar is going on with the TARDISes - in fact, the Matrix invented Time Lords so they could construct bodies for her daughters - so it would be a bit much if Time Lords AND TARDISes were all extra-dimensional god-creatures crunched down into mortal frames for no readily apparent reason.

Though why on Earth an all-powerful pan-dimensional being would squish itself down to their level is another question.

The usual explanation, in lesser fictions, is either that the universe is too fragile to hold their full glory, or the pan-dimensional being is having fun in dimensions invisible to mere humans.

In the first case, if the Doctor shed his disguise of flesh, and walked eternity as a naked god, his every footstep would reverberate across the galaxies. A single whispered word from his lips would be enough to snuff out a trillion stars, like candles in a hurricane, whether he wanted to or not. The Doctor wouldn't like that, and even the Master might well feel it would too boring.

In the second case, it's as if the Time Lords are spending 99.999999999999999999999% of their attention on whatever pan-dimensional beings enjoy, leaving only a tiny sliver of their being to pay attention to the physical world.

For a human analogy, imagine you hired some dim-witted secretary to take care of your daily routine - cleaning your house, feeding your cats, answering your phone - so you could spend every single waking second watching Doctor Who, without being distracted by trivialities, like the building being on fire (as in the Time War). It's roughly like that, only the secretary is just a splinter of your mind which doesn't know what it really is.

God-like powers are said to do this kind of thing a lot, usually as an excuse for why they don't help their worshippers. They're far too busy on the divine internet to answer prayers.

The usual explanation, in lesser fictions, is either that the universe is too fragile to hold their full glory

Ah. Well, the Time Lords would have redesigned the universe to their own specifications - it's not like they're exactly concerned about other speces and anyway, at the beginning of time there WERE no other intelligent species. Though the fact the Time Lords have always been portrayed as EVOLVING first, not magically popping through from another dimension/universe, does kinda blow a hole in Dave Stone's theory.

or the pan-dimensional being is having fun in dimensions invisible to mere humans.

If they're already having fun, why mutilate a tiny bit of themselves and shove it into this distinctly unfun universe?

In the first case, if the Doctor shed his disguise of flesh, and walked eternity as a naked god, his every footstep would reverberate across the galaxies. A single whispered word from his lips would be enough to snuff out a trillion stars, like candles in a hurricane, whether he wanted to or not. The Doctor wouldn't like that, and even the Master might well feel it would too boring.

Well, the Doctor revealed his true form in Sky Pirates! when under attack so he really should have done it on several OTHER occasions that are springing to mind too. A brief spell in his other body - he wouldn't even have had to go as far as his other other body - in that booth and he'd've survived the radiation no problem, and emerged with all that Tennanty goodness intact.

In the second case, it's as if the Time Lords are spending 99.999999999999999999999% of their attention on whatever pan-dimensional beings enjoy, leaving only a tiny sliver of their being to pay attention to the physical world.

Well MY DOCTOR is paying PERFECT attention to the physical world, thank you very much.

For a human analogy, imagine you hired some dim-witted secretary to take care of your daily routine - cleaning your house, feeding your cats, answering your phone

Feeding cats is a JOY and an HONOUR! And if pan-dimensional beings could steer clear of this universe, why bother getting involved in such mundanities in the first place?

If they're already having fun, why mutilate a tiny bit of themselves and shove it into this distinctly unfun universe?

That's back to front. They're from this universe, but they've mostly left it, for greener pastures beyond. However, they still need a foothold in the physical world, for metaphysical reasons - much like the way you need to eat and sleep, though you'd much rather spend 24 hours a day watching Dr Who, with a cat purring in each ear, and three kittens curled up in your lap.

The true Time Lords can enjoy themselves on the pan-dimensional internet, watching videos of kittens being cute, while their ignorant shadows in base reality (that is, the physical bodies we're familiar with) carry out their meaningless rituals, never realising they're just a mask for something far greater, but if those shadows die, the true Time Lord dies too.

Nonetheless, I agree this theory has a few holes in it. If Eleven starts claiming to be the avatar of a pan-dimensional power, we may need to consider it, but until then, we can assume that the weird conditions produced by the Charon left the unnamed narrator of Sky Pirates! a little deranged.

If Eleven starts claiming to be the avatar of a pan-dimensional power, we may need to consider it, but until then, we can assume that the weird conditions produced by the Charon left the unnamed narrator of Sky Pirates! a little deranged.

An excellent solution, except that all this stuff gets repeated, with barely more subtly, in Death and Diplomacy...

Can anyone remember exactly what Dave Stone said here about banished universes? Cos Lawrence Miles says It Takes You Away canonises it, whereas I of course think It Takes You Away is Season 11/37's classic precisely because it rips off Christmas on a Rational Planet instead...(Obviously substituting 'Talking Frog' for 'Carnival Queen'. As you do.)

I'm two thirds of the way through this and still have very little idea of what is going on. I have had a few chuckles along the way at things that were obviously intended for comedy, but mostly I'm confused. I'm going to try reading the synopsis on the Doctor Who Reference Guide page again.
Is this a common reaction to this book?

Of course it's a BIT confusing, what with the whole different-laws-of-physics and being-a-Dave-Stone, but I think with concentration one can achieve a fair idea of what's going on, it's not like, say, The Sword of Forever where every synopsis is totally different and I don't trust any of 'em further than I can throw them, even my own one...

I won't say that there weren't any parts I didn't enjoy. I chuckled a few times. But my comment back on August 28 still stands. I honestly didn't know what was going on half of the time!

I see by Emily's comment at the top that I'm not alone on this. But she liked it after multiple readings. So perhaps in a few years I'll try again.

And Benny needs to learn the proper way to speak to cats.

she liked it after multiple readings.

Actually it was only multiple readings for the first part of the book, owing to the fact I kept giving up...

perhaps in a few years I'll try again

You're really gonna have to speed up or it'll be several centuries, by my reckoning, before any Great Re-Reread reaches Sky Pirates!.

And Benny needs to learn the proper way to speak to cats.

Benny is actually VERY GOOD at serving her fluffy master, I don't know WHAT THE HELL was going on with her suddenly deciding she doesn't like cats...

If Eleven starts claiming to be the avatar of a pan-dimensional power, we may need to consider it, but until then, we can assume that the weird conditions produced by the Charon left the unnamed narrator of Sky Pirates! a little deranged.

An excellent solution, except that all this stuff gets repeated, with barely more subtly, in Death and Diplomacy...

To hell with Death and Diplomacy, Christmas on a Rational Planet is quite specific on this issue:

'Many of the caillou existed in "more than three dimensions"...the physical form of a caillou was a mere fragment of its vast "multi-dimensional" form...like the proverbial iceberg - most of it went unseen by the human eye...' (Of course, this IS all according to a mysterious Professor Hulot of Orleans.)

If Eleven starts claiming to be the avatar of a pan-dimensional power, we may need to consider it

What if FOURTEEN claims it?

The Giggle:

DOCTOR: I don't understand why you're so small! You can turn bullets into flowers. Think of the good you could do. So tell me why you don't!
TOYMAKER: You know full well this is merely a face concealing a vastness that will never cease, because your good and your bad are nothing to me. All that exists is to win or to lose.
DOCTOR: And you know full well that I've had many faces, containing something far more.

Containing. Something. Far. More...