Funnily enough, the mysterious cat subplot was obviously tacked on to Cat's Cradle: Warhead, as well. In fact - come to think of it - there WAS no cat subplot in Warhead: the feline appeared for about 30 seconds flat, then vanished.

What idiot came up with the idea of closely-linked stories?

Blame Virgin's head of the range at the time, Peter Darvill-Evans. After the linked Timewyrm series he felt the next three books should be linked as well (I mean why? They're already linked by being part of Doctor Who) and, after Time's Crucible came in, he asked Cartmel and Hunt to add the cat stuff to their novels as a way of linking them together. The cat's supposed to be a warning beacon that all is not well in the TARDIS, or still not that great after Time's Crucible, which is we only see flashes of it in Warhead before it's resolved in Witch Mark.
Or is it? I seem to recall as the Doctor fixes the TARDIS near the end, Ace spies the cat still near the time rotor but the Doctor doesn't which implied to me something might still be amiss.

I thought it was a gratuitous "Alice in Wonderland" reference. The cat faded out very much like the Cheshire Cat.

I'm becoming very tired of authors giving us ambiguous endings. If they don't care enough to give us the facts, I don't care enough to try to figure it out.

It might not be the author - it might have been at the behest of the editor. But you're right, either way.

I wonder what author Andrew Hunt is doing now?

One can only hope it doesn't involve writing books. Come to think of it, there are incredibly few Who authors who, however bad, didn't have a second (or, in Gary Russell's case, a twelfth) chance to inflict themselves on us. Andrew Hunt, Neil Penswick (of course), David Banks, Daniel Blythe, plus the odd insignificant co-author...

Daniel Blythe wrote two N.A.s, both of which featured Darius Cheynor

*Goes away and does considerable research* Urk. Ugg. So he does. Why did I think Gareth Roberts wrote Infinite Requiem? Oh. Because I read it at the same time as Tragedy Day and they were my last NAs and they were both mediocre so I've got them thoroughly muddled up. Fair enough.

Tell me more about this Darius Cheynor creature, because I don't remember him from EITHER of the Blythe books.

Oh, and that ghastly Stephen Marley of Managra fame did the decent thing and never inflicted a so-called Who book on us again.

Generally, I hear a lot of people saying that Managra was really good and wanting Stephen Marley to write another book!

Sorry Em, I dunno what happened to Cheynor in 'Infinite Requiem' cause I haven't read it!

Yeah, I hear the same thing!!! *Shakes head disbelievingly* You'd think all Who fans would have impeccable taste, but sadly not.

Gallifrey Base is concentrating on the NAs this week...interesting to note that its 'Favourite Authors' poll (in which you can pick as many as you like) has only ONE author not managing to garner a single vote...Andrew Hunt.

'Everything is connected. Subtle links exist between everywhere and everywhen. Singularity unified them. At singularity, everything is one - it is the quiet at the centre of a tornado, the Eye of Harmony' - oh what a pile of ••••••••.

'The tranquil pleasures of Central Park' - isn't that that place where people are always getting mugged/raped?

'A planet called Gallifrey whose history is tied up with the Earth's far more than its inhabitants appreciate' - only for about five minutes in End of Time!

'There dwell a people whose upper echelons are self-styled Lords of Time' - well, SOMEONE'S certainly trying to solve the are-all-Gallifreyans-Time-Lords question, though you'll forgive me if I wait until Listen for a definitive answer.

'The Panopticon Hall. It is a place with great significance...for beneath it, entwined in bonds forged by the legendary first Time Lord, Rassilon' - oi! OMEGA harnessed that black hole! - 'is the black hole which in Gallifreyan folklore has become known as the Eye of Harmony' - well it's funny no one knew of such folklore in The Deadly Assassin. OR of said black hole so the Panopticon had plenty of OTHER reasons for its significance - 'From this rich source springs forth the raw artron energy which powers every TARDIS from the simplest Time Scaphe (or at least those which did not rely, gods forbid, on the telepathic powers of their occupants' - what - the - ••••! - 'to the more recent and more sophisticated models which could travel beyond the accepted boundaries of this universe into the eternal nothingness and return' - well, THAT'S no big deal, at least if you believe Rise of the Cybermen.

'Time and space are linked. They intersect at an angle determined by some alien, non-Euclidean geometry, and the place where they meet is the space-time vortex' - oh JUST •••• OFF, will you. Sure, I realise this was 1992 and we were all fumbling around in a Wholess universe trying to make sense of the inexplicable LACK OF SODDING WHO ON OUR SCREENS and sure, CapaldiDoc himself spoke of three-dimensional Euclidean geometry being torn up, thrown in the air and snogged to death so I can hardly report YOU to Private Eye's Pseuds Corner, but still...STOP IT.

'He was over seven hundred years old' - uh? The Seventh Doctor is over 950 years old (unless you count New Who in which case he can't be. But in THAT case even 'over 700' would be pushing it thanks to the War Doctor et al).

'It was as though the trials that the TARDIS had been through were taking their toll on him' - yeah, this is a recurring and actually rather good concept of TSLABYOD novels, the only problem being that when they're not pushing it they're blowing the TARDIS to smithereens without any effect on the Doctor...(Also, speaking from personal experience - you don't need a symbiotic link with a time-machine to age by YEARS whilst plodding your way through Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible...)

'The thought that the energy of the TARDIS might be lost completely worried the Doctor intensely' - so send an SOS to Gallifrey, moron - 'He could no more reveal his fear than a warlock could reveal his true name' - He seemed perfectly happy to reveal said fear in Rise of the Cybermen, also, why are you grasping for bizarre warlock analogies when THE DOCTOR won't reveal his/her true name? - 'That knowledge could give others a power over him - if they knew how to use it' - well, you can bet your life that Ace wouldn't know how to use it. And wouldn't use it even if she knew how - 'He couldn't risk anyone having that power. Once before he had done so - never again' - UH?

'Black transfer mathematics, you see, was discovered by the Logopolitans. They were on the verge of a breakthrough, setting up entropy-reducing programs to run on computers, when the Master turned his attention to them' - what a euphemistic way of saying 'I took the Master to Logopolis for some reason and it was Goodnight Vienna and, indeed, half the universe' - 'No one else has their mathematical skill' - Adric did according to Castrovalva and the Mistfall audio - 'and so TARDISes require morphologically unstable living organic matter for their block transfer function' - look, when I said '•••• off'? I MEANT 'DROP DEAD'.

'"Organic matter is adaptable, but the TARDIS's is somewhat atrophied." "So where can we get some more?" "I haven't the fainest idea. Gallifrey' - so you DO have the faintest, indeed, bleedingly-obviousest idea - 'perhaps Axos, even Nestene matter might work."' - you'd CONTAMINATE Sexy with Nestene or Axon FILTH! (I mean, I'm not racist, there was a perfectly pleasant Auton spatula in Return of the Living Dad and of course we all love plastic-Rory as much as original-Rory, but...)

To be continued...(REALLY hate to break the news but THAT WAS JUST THE PROLOGUE...)

'The tranquil pleasures of Central Park' - isn't that that place where people are always getting mugged/raped?

Only at night.

Yeah, Lady Me and Central Park at night sounds like an interesting combination, doesn't it. A guy tries to mug or rape/kill Me and finds out she doesn't die. Maybe he'd act like the Master and Captain Jack?

Um...Anyway...

Why would Ace say 'Lovely girl' to some slavering dawg? She's a cat person. I mean, LITERALLY she's got the Planet of the Cheetah People living on inside her (or something).

'She guessed by the way he held [the gun] that he wold have no compunction against using it' - shouldn't it be compunction about?

So the coach chucks a couple of American teenage backpackers off in the middle of nowhere cos they couldn't pay the fare...shouldn't this fact have been established WHEN THEY GOT ON not half-way through the journey?

'He corrected himself in his thoughts - it wasn't a whippoorwill here. In England, or rather Wales, it should be called a nightjar' - my, aren't YOU quite the expert...for someone who couldn't tell the difference between a frog and toad on the previous page...

'Jeez, ain't this a coincidence' - That you've been to this particular random-spot-in-the-middle-of-nowhere as a kid? Yes, ISN'T IT JUST.

'"You were at the Queen's coronation dinner?" Ace asked unbelievingly' - cos it's not like the Doc's a grovellingly-royalist time-traveller...OH WAIT! YES HE IS! - 'She'd joined in the royal wedding street party' - er...any particular royal wedding? - '"What was it like?" "Oh, very nice. If only Essex hadn't started throwing drumsticks about"' - Oh-kay *turns to Wikipedia* William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton, 1st Earl of Essex and 1st Baron Parr was, like, FORTY-FIVE when Liz One got crowned, why exactly was he chucking drumsticks about?

'"Do you remember watching the coronation on the television, Hugh?" Janet asked. "Couldn't forget it, could I? We all piled into the bus and drove down to Doctor Snape's house in Gwydyr. And Gareth stood in front of me the whole time so I couldn't see a blasted thing' - on the plus side, YOU DIDN'T GET YOUR FACE SUCKED OFF and would presumably be in an excellent position to REMEMBER it happening to everyone else?

'Nasty things, some spiders. I seem to recall one almost killed me' - you SEEM TO RECALL one of them SNUFFED OUT YOUR THIRD LIFE!! (Alright, so that's more than JODIE! seems to remember, but that's not the POINT.)

(Of course, this could be a marvellously subtle reference to Pertwee getting his spidery demise altered by Faction Paradox in Interference but given this is years before the Eighth and Past Doctor Adventures were a twinkle in anyone's eye...probably not.)

No one finds a coach crash with NO survivors remotely suspicious?

The Doctor fries bacon? The SEVENTH Doctor? (Who's definitely vegetarian in later NAs and also didn't really have much time to unvegitarianise himself since Old Sixie's unilateral declaration at the end of Two Docs.)

'No, Ace, don't go through the centre...' - you didn't think to warn her of that BEFORE she, er, went through the centre of the stone circle?

'Nobody deserves to die' says the Doctor. What, seriously, EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE even the ones who COMMIT GENOCIDE (and aren't as amusing as the Master) have the right to live FOREVER?

'Eyes bulged in their sockets' - but didn't pop out? How refreshingly unusual for an NA.

'We all have our crosses to bear' - since when has the Doc talked in Christian terminology? Since when has the Doc regarded having a lisp as a cross to bear? There was NO SIGN of this during his adorably-lisping Third incarnation...

'Sister Keli, for example, was the prime mover behind many of the cults' - haaang on, surely even the most...energetic of cult leaders just has ONE cult? I mean, surely the entire POINT of cults is that each of them is the One True Way?

'"Yes?" the Doctor asked suspiciously. The word "chance" had an unpleasant ring of danger to it' - and the Doc's just so scared of danger...

Why the hell don't he and Ace ask what happened to the MANY Earthlings who came through?

Oh great, now the Doc's eating salt meat.

'A Celtic culture on another world with a highly technological matter transmission device' - as opposed to what, an UNTECHNOLOGICAL transmat?

'She knew intuitively that [the castle] couldn't be as big as the Doctor's time machine' - I hardly think you need much...intuitiveness...to realise THAT.

'With only the flickering light of the torch in the corridor outside to hinder her, she drifted into a heavy sleep' - she didn't think to SHUT HER EYES?

'After a brief sojourn on the lavatory' - who writes like this!

HUNDREDS of mosquitoes suffocated to death in David and Jack's tent? And they didn't shake 'em out, they just crawled in and slept with them coating the floor and (in defiance of gravity) walls?

'"I thought I heard a voice. Nearby." "I didn't hear anything. You were probably dreaming."' - Yeah, cos watching a policeman burn a talking centaur to death, fair enough, but there being someone in a nearby field at night - well, that's just ridiculous.

'Don't worry about us, we always travel light' - ACE doesn't travel light, she's got a bloody great rucksack with a LADDER in it for starters!

The Doctor can only horse-ride 'to an extent'?

'I even helped with one of the lines' - I thought Byzantium! had the Doc helping write a lot more than one line of the Bible?

'Why are the Firbolg and Fomoir trying to get into Dinorbn, Professor?' - you didn't think to ask SOONER?

To be continued...

'Sister Keli, for example, was the prime mover behind many of the cults' - haaang on, surely even the most...energetic of cult leaders just has ONE cult? I mean, surely the entire POINT of cults is that each of them is the One True Way?

That's just for the followers. The leaders don't give a toss about the cult's beliefs, they are in it for the money, or adoration, or power, or all three. Starting more than one cult makes perfect sense to them.

But won't said followers notice...?

It all depends on how well they have been brainwashed.

"I can't achieve transcendence by myself! That would just make me some kind of lone nut! Somebody's got to die with me" - Marshall Applewhite parody cult leader on Family Guy.

Bathsheba suddenly announces that something's been following them FOR THE LAST HOUR? She didn't think to mention this, like, AN HOUR AGO?

'It was human society in miniature - the adults seething with prejudice and the children free of such feelings but being prepared for them every day' - oh yeah? Ace really thinks babies aren't racist?

Why the hell doesn't the Doctor just talk his way out of this little local difficulty, this is the guy who talked a Special Weapons Dalek to death for heaven's sake...

'Tackle evil at its core. Goibhnie has caused all this trouble - maybe I can make him repair the damage' - why did you just accept one bloke's word that Goibhnie had turned from good to evil? Why, as you believe it, do you just assume that you can TALK HIM ROUND? You of all Doctors sure as hell didn't have that sort of sunny optimistic attitude towards the Cyber-fleet or Davros...

Ace 'remained amazed at the Doctor's stamina in being able to carry Bathsheba all the way. Admittedly, the girl could not be that heavy - at a rough estimate she was only thirteen years old and she had little hair to increase her weight' - yeah, cos HAIR is the really important factor here...

At least this doesn't share the tragic delusion of so many novels/audios - that Our Hero actually has a sense of direction - though since when has the Doc ADMITTED to it being rubbish?

And why hasn't he got his everlasting matches or at least a torch with long-lasting batteries?

Stevens SAW a kidnapping but doesn't think to, say, call in more police officers to investigate it? Apparently being the only member of the Yard's Paranormal Investigations Team doesn't give him much credibility but he's a sodding police officer who saw a sodding kidnapping with his own eyes, surely THAT gives him SOME credibility? (He surely doesn't have to mention what department he's from until it's renamed something a bit more sensible, like C19 or Torchwood or the Bannerman Road Gang or Broadsword or the Forge or the Paternoster Gang or MIAOW like all the other paranormal investigation teams...?)

What sort of freak says 'We would be grateful of that'? Are Sexy's translation circuits breaking down...hang on a sec, the Doctor and Ace are WORLDS away from the TARDIS, what are they (or at least SHE) doing understanding ANYTHING?

'Ace felt angry with the Doctor. She'd never bottled out of anything before so why should he try to leave her behind this time?' - he could have numerous reasons, ranging from YOU'RE A WOLF OF FENRIC to YOU'D BLOW UP NEGOTIATIONS WITH NITRO-9 to YOU TOLD HIM YOU WERE REALLY REALLY SCARED IN SILVER NEMESIS SO HE THINKS YOU'RE A WIMP.

'When she had been transported to the planet of the Cat People her mind and body had been influenced by the strange forces at work there. She had thought that the change had been only temporary' - a) planet of the CHEETAH People, moron, b) ONLY TEMPORARY! The Doctor TOLD you that planet lived on inside you and YOU WERE GLAD!

'At the centre of the camp lay the bodies of the two pregnant women. Their bellies had been slit open and the babies plucked out and then strangled with their own umbilical cords' - lovely. Really lovely. Good to know you're carrying on the spirit of Who through The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair.

Oh-kay. Jack and Inspector Steven rescue Jack's chum David from being human-sacrificed in a scene unpleasantly reminiscent of K9 and Company. Stevens says he'll go and fetch the village policeman. Jack protests that said village policeman is mixed up in this. Stevens says 'Maybe. Anyway, I'll need him if I'm to get the police at Gwydyr to do anything' which frankly is a bit weird as HE'S A POLICE OFFICER who's just witnessed AN ATTEMPTED AUTO DE FE but this is as nothing compared to the 'Sounds good to me' response cos NO IT DOESN'T SOUND GOOD TO REPORT A CRIME TO ONE OF THE CRIMINALS YOU HALF-WITS.

'Bathsheba cowered behind [the Doctor]. She had been told that the Fomoir, the Firboig and the Sidhe were to blame for the loss of Dagda's Wheel from the sky' - well Bathsheba didn't seem remotely convinced of that a few dozen pages ago, when she was telling Ace how horrible it was for her old Fomoir chum to be burnt alive cos he was accused of being to blame for Dagda's Wheel leaving the sky.

Ace couldn't just TELL people she could blow up the wall, she had to blow up their sacred revealing-their-feelings touchstone thing and waste a deodorant can on proving it?

'Turned to watch him with an eye which oozed aqueous humour where the crossbow bolt projected' - aaaaand what makes this even worse than the usual Who-novel-eye-gouging stuff is that a) this is a dragon and b) the Doctor TOLD them to aim for the eyepiece...

Oh great, and now they're hacking off unicorn horns as well...

'It was as though Ace had been dealt a double blow. The sight of Nuada in the doorway, bringing back her memories of the night she had wandered the corridors of Dinorben and seen a figure with wildness in his eyes; and then the news that Chulainn had reached Dinorben safely' - and these things are blows WHY, exactly?

'What about the fuel from your spacecraft?' 'I have to return to Troifres' 'Surely you have an excess of fuel' 'It is a possibility I could look into' - that's, er, a really simplistic and really temporary and really YOU REALLY DIDN'T THINK OF THAT SOONER?! solution.

'Let us descend to the gates. Fling them wide and demonstrate our friendship to the assembled armies' - SERIOUSLY?!

Ace 'looked out across the marvellous snow-clad hills and felt for a moment the magic that she had experienced when she and the Doctor had first rode out across the land' - what, when you were blackmailed to go on a suicide mission, you mean? - 'But the feeling was soured by what had happened to Bat' - and all the others you led to the slaughter, I hope.

Ace 'had to find Dryfid and warn him of the demon in wolf's clothing' - so Dryfid can burn him alive! Great plan!

'"Professor!" Ace ran to him and hugged him. The Doctor grinned in embarrassment. "Thanks for leaving me." "I knew you'd be all right"' - and now would be a GREAT time for Ace to mention that the entire camp got massacred after the Doctor abandoned them...

Why does everyone obey the Doctor's 'Don't touch him' warnings re David when two pages earlier they were cheerily disregarding his 'No' to burn a witch-like-David alive?

'Conflicting emotions raged in his mind. Wholesale destruction of life? Could it be justified?' - the Doc hasn't considered such philosophical (and, in his line of work, practical) issues BEFORE?

Since when has THE DOCTOR described us as 'Tellurians'? (And wouldn't it be much more fun if he HAD claimed to be half-Tellurian on his mother's side...?)

'"I think you should all leave the tent. This could be dangerous." There were no protests. The Doctor had great authority in his voice' - he DID?! You don't say! Why has no one mentioned this before...?

'Lethbridge-Stewart is very fond of horses' since WHEN!

'The TARDIS looked awful. Its walls were dull and grey, drained of the vibrant light which had always suffused them' - don't recall that vibrant light in Battlefield?

So the cat tries to yowl a warning at the Doctor - about WHAT, this is never followed up that I can recall! - but he doesn't see it and Ace thinks it best not to worry him?!

Re the fake-Ace and fake-demon-Doctor who appear in Return of the Living Dad for, um, no readily apparent reason: '"Did Albinex decide to send in the clones?" "They were genetically engineered shape-shifters from another dimension...They must have crossed over while Ace and I were visiting Llanfer Ceiriog...Another loose thread, left untied because I didn't know about it"' - you weren't the only one, Sunshine. What - the - •••• in Witch Mark suggested that Ace- and Doctor-clones were being created and coming through stone-circle-portals?? (I realise it's a supremely unmemorable book but I reread the wretched thing within the last six months, dammit!)

Bookwyrm: 'Practically everything suggests the date is roughly contemporary to the book's publication date, especially the very cheap beer. But there's also a law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to under-18s, which didn't come in until 2007' - well, maybe it happened earlier in the Whoniverse. Though I don't see WHY, all those alien invasions should promote more of an 'eat, drink, and smoke, for tomorrow you die' kinda mentality. Well, maybe prominent members of the cancer-promoting lobby got exterminated or something.

Written by Andrew Hunt, with this his only piece of Doctor Who work despite the novel having been published back in 1992.

Overall Hunt makes a good stab in Doctor Who fiction with this adventure being sparked off by a coach crash in the the Welsh village of Llanfer Ceirog.

Intriguing when the Doctor and Ace stumbled into this and ended up being transported to another world all because of a mysterious stone circle.

This unfolds into very dark fantasy which includes in it unicorns, dragons and shape-shifting demons.
Hunt delivers well in making his only piece of Doctor Who work a very haunting tale to endure.

a very haunting tale to endure

I quite agree, though I suspect I may not mean it in quite the same spirit that you do...

The mysterious cat subplot was obviously tacked on.

Funnily enough, the mysterious cat subplot was obviously tacked on to Cat's Cradle: Warhead, as well. In fact - come to think of it - there WAS no cat subplot in Warhead: the feline appeared for about 30 seconds flat, then vanished.

Mercifully years after the so-called Cat's Cradle trilogy, Christmas on a Rational Planet redeems the existence of the misfortunate creature:

'A cat with silver fur crouched in a dissolving alcove, its skin like mercury, and Chris knew at a glance that it was a TARDIS-spawned thing. He saw Wolsey creeping up behind the quicksilver animal, attempting to sniff its arse. Just as he was about to succeed, the silver cat exploded into a shower of red, blue, and green pixels. Wolsey looked grumpy and floated off on a loose tile.'