I've been perusing the Doctor Who timeline at Outpost Gallifrey, plus other assorted timelines, and I have to admit this version of the Master has got me puzzled. Exactly where does he fit into the timeline? Did he come immediately from "Survival"? And how can nanotechnology help him overcome the fact that he's at his last regeneration?

Also, I'm starting to get bored with the overwhelming number of SF stories that revolve around Area 51 and Roswell. With the amount of alien traffic that's been shoved in there, thanks to "Deep Space Nine", "Doctor Who", "X Files", etc., etc., the skies over New Mexico should be clogged with UFOs...

Ah well, all those other programmes were WRONG, you see. Doctor Who has the One True Answer, and (unlike, say, Atlantis) mercifully it's only got one story based in New Mexico (Oh no, wait a minute...where was Devil Goblins from Neptune set?)

Don't ask me where this Master fits in. Not with the Prime Time Master, that's for sure. Though I don't see why nanotechnology couldn't help him survive - it made Sam Jones plus a lot of others immortal in Beltempest.

mercifully it's only got one story based in New Mexico (Oh no, wait a minute...where was Devil Goblins from Neptune set?)

Yup *sigh* that was Area 51. And since then we've had Dalek's Roswell milometre AND Dreamland's godawful Roswell cartoons. (NB: Dreamland says it was the alien Seruba who crashed. Devil Goblins says it's the alien Nedenah. I suppose the question is, which is the least canonical - book or cartoon? At least Dreamland has a real live voice of Tennanty goodness...but my Doctor is NOT a BADLY-DRAWN CARTOON.)

'Last time I did a doom-laden historical, next time - chance'd be a fine thing - I plan a doom-laden historical, so for now let's just have some fun, eh?'

Fun?

FUN????????????????????

Whatever 'fun' is, this isn't it.

'She's a very sensitive old girl, you see, and now and again she picks up things I'd miss. Somehow I got the feeling that she was trying to bring us to this time and place, and I want - I have to see why' - I'm not sure whether to be outraged that the Doctor has taken seven regenerations to notice that the TARDIS chooses the destination - or to be outraged that the Doctor has noticed this fact at all. Every other moment of his lives he seems blissfully unaware of this blatantly obvious fact. Presumably the TARDIS is suppressing a bit of the Doctor's brain, as she does to Old Who Companions to stop them questioning the language thing.

'"Well," he shrugged, "we are symbiotically linked, so there's bound to be a certain amount of growing together in terms of mental processes."...[Benny] felt it best not to mention that the best known parallel for this sort of behaviour amoung humans was between married couples. A surreal image of the Doctor and the TARDIS in front of a church altar flashed before her eyes.' - Kudos for raising THIS particular issue long before School Reunion or Eleventh Hour.

Area 51 is in Nevada, not New Mexico.

Pick, pick, pick.

Oh! I always assumed that there was just ONE alien hot-spot in America, and all this Area 51/Roswell stuff was linked. Not that I ever gave it a second thought, we all know (well...except that git who got all huffy about it in Children of Earth) that aliens will always come to Britain.

'In their June 1995 guidelines for prospective authors, Virgin recommended that they read at least a core set of the books. They are: Timewyrm: Exodus, Transit, First Frontier, Warlock, Set Piece, Human Nature and Original Sin.' - What the HELL is First Frontier doing on this list?!

this version of the Master has got me puzzled. Exactly where does he fit into the timeline?

*Hollow laughter* You just wait till you meet the bald Master in the UNIT: Dominion audios...

'We came up with the idea of [the regenerated Master] looking like Basil Rathbone...Basically I wanted the new Master to have the characteristics of Delgado's Master, but I also wanted a contrast with the Ainley version. A lot came from a character called Karswell from the film Night of the Demon, as well as Timothy Dalton's role in The Rocketeer. And then there were touches of Julian Glover, Ricardo Montalban and a bit of myself' - well, I'm sure this will be very helpful for anyone who a) has a clue what he's talking about and b) gives a •••• what First Frontier's Master is like.

It's not as if this Master is CONVINCING. If he'd really got a new regeneration cycle from messing around with the Tzun he'd hardly have bothered topping himself so he could turn into a snake (Eight Doctors) in time for the telemovie.

'Most of the Master's previous aliases were plays on his name. Why did he call himself Kreer in First Frontier? "Kreer was a malevolent hypnotist played by Roger Delgado in an episode of The Avengers. One of my little in-jokes"' - yes, hilarious.

'There's a moral argument between [the Doctor and the Master] in First Frontier. Which the Master wins! The Doctor will give a lecture about non-violence, and then blow something up, whereas the Master is at least more honest' - McIntee in DWM. Can't say I remember this, but if it's true...what kind of FREAK would have the MASTER beat the DOCTOR in an argument...??

Author's Notes: 'Yes, I'm sorry, but I'm at it again' - if David A McIntee REALISES he's so unpopular amongst Who fans, why doesn't he just STOP?

'Last time I did a doom-laden historical, next time - chance'd be a fine thing - I plan a doom-laden historical, so for now let's just have some fun, eh?' - FUN? WHERE?

'Make sure that no word of these events leak out. When we next launch a satellite, it will be designated Sputnik One, not Two. This failure must be erased from the records' - what, ANOTHER one? It's astonishing that the Soviet space programme just kept going, between this out-of-control satellite, the first woman on the moon getting time-looped (Torchwood audio Zone 10), Laika-the-dog returning to Earth to start an animal revolution (Sixth Doctor audio 1963: The Space Race), etc...

Since when has the Master planned his confrontation with the Doctor by getting fake-Doctors-and-Companions to run around? Surely he knows how useless any fake substitutes will be? Surely he's overconfident enough to believe that THIS will TOTALLY be the time he'll destroy that meddlesome Doctor...?

'He had wanted to bring some friends along, but [the aliens] had advised against it. Agar recalled the voice of the one who had seemed to be their leader. It was a soothing and reasonable voice, which had told him that one-to-one contact was best for now, as they did not wish to frighten their brothers on Earth unduly' - and yet they told him to GO TO THE MEDIA about them?

'The man's large and slightly canted eyes were a strange shade of violet that reminded Agar of his service in Korea five years earlier' - Koreans have violet eyes?

'The view changed to that of artistically curved domes and spires under a vibrant golden sky...Agar looked on in fascination. If he could only tell the world, he thought. The papers would lap this up...' - what's with the 'if only'? They've already TOLD him to go to the media!

'A red Plymouth convertible...pulled to a halt at the side of he road, wearing its cloud of tan dust like an Arab woman wears a yashmak' - OK, so how DOES an Arab woman wear yashmak? Religiously? Resentfully? Over-heatedly?

'Benny looked on blankly' when the Doctor and Ace refer to that time he got her killed on the lunar surface? Have neither of them MENTIONED that fairly important event to her during their years together?

'Mankind is just preparing to enter the big wide world that is the universe, and it's from places like this that he'll take his first steps...' MANkind? HE? •••• off you sexist git of a Doctor.

There are two Doctors at the launch of Sputnik? WHY? And why weren't they arrested as alien spies?

'You've no idea how embarrassing that can be' says the Doc, re bumping into himself. Multi-Doctor stories are a LOT of things, but seldom embarrassing.

'After a few moments, during which his eyeballs threatened to escape their sockets' - only threatened? Given the rate of eye-gouging in Who novels, you got let off INCREDIBLY lightly.

'It occurred to her that if she could have returned one of these cars to her own time she'd be financially set for life' - since when has Benny EVER thought about such grubby capitalistic matters?

'"It's just a matter of remembering to pop back after we leave here, and rent this place for ourselves before we arrive - retrospectively, as it were." "You can't do that," Benny protested..."It's just - " "Paradoxical? Unethical? A two-fingered salute to Time Lord law? Basically there isn't much choice in the matter when you're as unsure about the next destination as I usually am."' - no CHOICE? Seriously? You can't just turn up and RENT A ROOM like ANY OTHER TOURIST?

Benny just orders soup without asking if it's vegetarian? Sorry, what, now the Doctor's telling her it's pork and she's eating it! While the Doctor is served sausages?! Which bit of BEING VEGETARIAN has somehow slipped their minds?

'Now and again she would ask herself if trying to visit every bar in the history of the universe and acquire one of their beer glasses was a frivolous hobby for an archaeologist. Her answer to herself was invariably "no"' - on the one hand, this moment feels very-nearly-genuinely-Benny-ish (unlike the rest of the book), on the other hand, this is a delightful habit I certainly didn't notice in any of her OTHER several hundred novels, short stories and audios...

The Doctor lectures Benny that we have 'a rather odd bunch of Sidhe who inhabit the upper dimensions of Earth's timeline' - PLEASE tell me McIntee's not laying the groundwork for his bloody awful EDA where McGann shags some fairy queen...um, Autumn Mist, that was it...(I'll try not to blame him for that fairy-infested Twelfth Doctor novel, there's probably a Statue of Limitations or something...)

Ace 'felt that - given the choice - she would probably have forsaken the fall-out shelter. After all, she wondered blackly, who wants to survive the first blast just long enough to die of multiple cancers over the following few weeks?' - fatal cancers develop in WEEKS? And for those sick freaks/dedicated Fans who try to reconcile the NAs with the audios...is First Frontier set before or after Ace spends weeks in a fall-out shelter in Protect and Survive?

'It was all academic in any case, Ace reminded herself. Certainly there had been no nuclear exchange before she had left Earth in 1986' - well. Guess SHE didn't have one of those 'History can be rewritten!' Doctors - 'and her visits since had shown no sign of any such devastation either' - maybe not of the nuclear variety, but shouldn't she have NOTICED Eternity Weeps dissolving a tenth of Earth's population in 2003...?

'"We were on our way to visit an old pueblo when we saw you lying out there, so we came to help." Jack nodded understandingly. "Mighty kind of you. Not many people would do that these days."' - They wouldn't? I dunno about America, but I'm pretty sure that Britain in the 50s was still vaguely help-thy-neighbour-ish.

Why does Benny try to claim that Jack's references to black-eyed aliens hypnotising him are 'hallucinations'?

'What the smeg is that?' - this isn't Red ••••••• Dwarf. The correct term is 'Cruk'. (Or, according to So Vile a Sin if nothing else, 'Shampoo'. Or, courtesy of New Who, we are now blessed with words like 'bloody', 'buggering', '•••••' and 'arse'.)

To be continued...

if David A McIntee REALISES he's so unpopular amongst Who fans, why doesn't he just STOP?

The man's gotta eat.

Koreans have violet eyes?

Most Koreans have brown or black eyes.

There are two Doctors at the launch of Sputnik? WHY? And why weren't they arrested as alien spies?

The trusty psychic paper?

Which bit of BEING VEGETARIAN has somehow slipped their minds?

They're just not fanatical about it.

The man's gotta eat.

So have I, but I've never inflicted anything along the lines of First Frontier, Autumn Mist, Unregenerate!, White Darkness, Sanctuary or Mission: Impractical on a civilian population...

The trusty psychic paper?

Those incredibly dim pre-Eccy Doctors didn't have a CLUE what psychic paper was (unless you count Season 6B Troughton suddenly flourishing it in that World Game PDA, which obviously I DON'T).

Which bit of BEING VEGETARIAN has somehow slipped their minds?

They're just not fanatical about it.

I'm not asking 'em to be FANATICAL, I haven't suspiciously inquired what their shoes are made of, I wouldn't say a word if they were gobbling down some fish and chips, but, sorry, you don't get to eat several different types of dead pig AND claim to be vegetarian, it's gotta be one or the other.

'The Doctor stopped, taking a few steps back, and Benny soon discovered why. As she got within a few yards of the disc, the heat became so intense that she felt so sluggish she doubted she would be able to remain standing upright. Nausea washing over her in waves...' - Er, the Doc couldn't have WARNED her?

'"So much for security," he commented, tapping the padlock over the phone. Brandishing his alternative self's sonic screwdriver, recovered from a world in which Homo Reptilicus had destroyed humanity, he triggered it at the lock' - a) when ARE people gonna learn to JUST SEARCH THEIR PRISONERS before locking 'em up, b) why didn't even master-manipulator McCoy realise he needed to build himself a new sonic/bribe Sexy into providing him with one? Why did he have to prise one from Pertwee's cold dead hands? c) I can live with Homo Reptilia, inaccurate as it is, but Homo Reptilicus?! d) humanity wasn't destroyed. The Brig was still alive, for starters.

'Ace checked the charge remaining in her blaster' - OH FOR ••••'S SAKE YOU DIDN'T EVEN TAKE ACE'S BLASTER OFF HER WHEN YOU LOCKED HER UP, ARE YOU DELIBERATELY TRYING TO DRIVE MY BLOOD PRESSURE TO FATAL LEVELS?

'Everyone seemed to be running towards the prefabricated building outside, so Ace felt it was logical to blend in with the crowd' - what, the ALL-MALE crowd, none of whom happened to be wearing a twenty-sixth-century skin-tight black combat suit...?

'I've been ordered by the Pentagon, at the behest of the CIA, to release you and let you go about your business!' - the Doctor didn't get his hitherto-unsuspected CIA chum to tell Finney to HELP him?

That info-dump Finney gives Benny after 'turning on her coldly' instantly makes my Top Ten Embarrassingly-Blatant-Even-For-Info-Dumps list.

'"Scientific adviser?" the Doctor asked, eyes wide. "He's not a tall, white-haired -"' - what, McCoy thought Pertwee had spent a few years hanging round AMERICANS and he'd just...FORGOTTEN? Or what?

'That way we can keep an eye on you, he thought' - funny he's not raising a finger to keep an eye on ACE, then.

McCoy keeps SMELLING SALTS in his umbrella?!

Benny regards Ace as 'her - almost - adopted kid sister' since WHEN!

'"As to how should you know..." Ace shrugged. "You always do."' - the Doctor ALWAYS knows what sort of alien they're facing? Has she forgotten that time he accidentally created the Timewyrm due to his pig-ignorance about the nature of the alien they were facing?

Stoker's never heard of FAKING photos...?

'The Doctor, Ace and Bernice walked through the twilit activity with equally false calm' - but surely the Doctor's false calm was more...equal...than the mere humans'?

'The Doctor and Benny slipped off into the night and left Ace sitting on the crates' - you just said they slipped BEHIND the pile of crates!

'"Oh no," he muttered grimly. "Well?" Benny asked, appearing out of the darkness. "It's a scout-ship."' - Well, DUH. Which bit of telling Ace 'Some sort of scout-ship by the look of it' a couple of dozen pages ago has somehow slipped your memory? (And it's not like she was overly impressed by the information at the time: 'Amazing. You've been talking to Holmes and Watson again, haven't you? I'm not blind.')

Why let Marion Davison near the alien spaceship in the first place? Surely she'd do her job (lying to the press) a lot better if she HADN'T seen it?

'She was about to dismiss him and have him arrested' - and what exactly gave Marion Davison the AUTHORITY to arrest a member of the CIA? She's barely got the authority to tell her own subordinates what to do.

'Warrior races are ten a penny. Every civilization goes through a warlike phase - it's an outgrowth of the "survival of the fittest" ethos' - EVERY civilisation? Gallifrey? The Ood-Sphere? Dulkis? The people made of smoke and cities made of song?

'What bothers me is that, even according to the Matrix records on Gallifrey, the closest [the Tzun] ever came to Earth was the establishment of mining colonies on three planets of the Reticulum system, which is still a good fifty-odd light years away' - and what bothers ME is that the Doctor has suddenly memorised the entire Matrix/can google it at will. (Also, that the Matrix was spectacularly wrong for no readily apparent reason.)

'Most races either see the error of their ways, or else they wipe out either themselves or each other' - how...convenient. What allowed humans to avoid this fate? (Assuming it's the Doctor, why isn't he feeling guilty at this blatant favouritism?)

The Doctor needs to take Marion's pulse to tell that she's human?

'He moved her hand to the right side of his chest. "Feel that?" he asked, and Marion's world turned upside down' - she's not a medical professional, surely she would have assumed it was some sort of echo or something? And hasn't she ALREADY swallowed all that alien-future-history stuff the Doctor was feeding her? ('"In two years they had turned S'Arl into a radioactive cinder and destroyed the entire Tzun starfleet, along with as many colonies as they could find." "They destroyed the whole species?" Davison asked in a mortified tone.')

'The Doctor's heartbeat had been slow, no more than two dozen to the minute' - since when! - 'so perhaps he had one of those things [electrical stimulators] and that was producing the other beat on the other side. She knew she wasn't very convincing, even to herself, but clung to the idea like a drowning person clings to driftwood' - isn't it too late to try this AFTER your world's turned upside down? And if she IS trying this approach, why does she promptly ask 'What are the Tzun things like?'

'Dimensional transcendence...It's perfectly simple. The universe is basically infinite, because it has no exterior boundaries...because any finite number divided by infinity is zero, then although the universe has eleven dimensions it is also a single point with no dimensions at all. Since there is nothing outside then nothing can enter or leave...there's no reason why you can't go from one place to another instantly on account of the fact that you aren't actually moving because you're staying put in the one point that is the universe. Since time is just another dimension also divided by infinity, the same principle applies' - a) can someone with more scientific knowledge than me confirm that this is total ••••••••, b) since when has such nonsense applied to Sexy, c) stuff LIKE SATAN can enter and leave, thank you very much, d) anyone else find themselves wistfully thinking of Nardole's explanation that 'First you have to imagine a very big box fitting inside a very small box. Then you have to make one. It's the second part people normally get stuck on'...?

To be continued...

the Doc couldn't have WARNED her?

He probably thought stepping back like that was a warning.

McCoy thought Pertwee had spent a few years hanging round AMERICANS and he'd just...FORGOTTEN?

Maybe he was hoping a future regeneration would reuse Three's face. Wouldn't be any stranger than the Curator copying Four's face.

EVERY civilisation? Gallifrey?

Remember all those wars Gallifrey fought when the Time Lords were young?

can someone with more scientific knowledge than me confirm that this is total ••••••••

It is. By that warped logic you're currently sitting on a fast melting ice berg, heading for the Falklands, since all places are in the same point.

So, unless your cats are currently playing with the penguins and trying to persuade you to catch them a nice fresh shark for tea, we can confidently conclude it's total nonsense.

Maybe he was hoping a future regeneration would reuse Three's face.

Pah. As if ANY Doctor would go back to THAT face when he could have TOM'S. And no Old Who Doctor can even have DREAMED that he'd ever have that sort of control over the regenerative process.

Remember all those wars Gallifrey fought when the Time Lords were young?

Oh. OK. Now you MENTION it I do. I'd claim that wasn't a warmongering phase so much as defending themselves and the universe against Racnoss and Vampires and suchlike, only there IS that Death Zone.

Also, there's that weird claim in Listen that anyone who doesn't make Time Lord has to become a soldier...

it's total nonsense

I KNEW IT!

Honestly, what made McIntee unnecessarily take it upon himself to blow all the Time Lords' secrets like that? It would have been bad enough even if it HAD made sense instead of being a stream of gibberish.

As if ANY Doctor would go back to THAT face when he could have TOM'S

But that face would remind them of the fun days they had at UNIT.

no Old Who Doctor can even have DREAMED that he'd ever have that sort of control

Some of them dreamed they could steer the Tardis, no less likely.

Honestly, what made McIntee unnecessarily take it upon himself to blow all the Time Lords' secrets like that

Pure ego, I'd guess. He was probably expecting people to impressed by what he thought was a stroke of genius, not realising they'd see it as deranged gibberish.

But that face would remind them of the fun days they had at UNIT.

Fun, what fun? He hated his time at UNIT so much that he flew into a rubbish-tip using an unreliable console that had just dumped him in a fascist dystopia. He positively LOOKED FORWARD to the Master returning for more mass-slaughter. He threatened his Eighth self with murder in an attempt to hijack his TARDIS (well, according to The Eight Doctors anyway). He even found COLONY IN SPACE a blessed relief, for heaven's sake. Jo was the only thing that made the UNIT years bearable and when SHE eloped with a younger version of himself, well, that's gotta HURT.

Honestly, what made McIntee unnecessarily take it upon himself to blow all the Time Lords' secrets like that

Pure ego, I'd guess.

Ah yes, that makes sense.

In fact, it's astonishing more Who writers don't go completely off the rails, they are the ultimate gods - the gods who can play with the Oncoming Storm himself without him noticing...(At least, I REALLY HOPE he hasn't noticed.)

He positively LOOKED FORWARD to the Master returning for more mass-slaughter.

Exactly. He enjoyed regularly matching wits with his old chum.

Jo was the only thing that made the UNIT years bearable

Don't forget Sarah Jane and the Brigadier. Sarah Jane was just as good as Jo, and he seemed quite fond of the Brigadier too.

He enjoyed regularly matching wits with his old chum.

Yes! And he enjoyed it SO MUCH because he was SO bored out of his skull that he found the murder of tens of thousands of humans* a price worth paying for a bit of entertainment.

Sarah Jane was just as good as Jo

And the FOURTH Doctor is very well aware of this fact, but I'm not sure Three would agree...

and he seemed quite fond of the Brigadier too.

'Seemed' being the operative word. He didn't exactly look back. Drop in for a pint. Attend the funeral. Save him from roasting his Cyber-self alive. Honestly, what exactly does the Doctor think friends are FOR?

(OK, to be fair the Brig couldn't be arsed to come back from Peru for the Doctor's funeral either.)

*I'm guessing, admittedly based more on the novelisation than the TV story because thanks to being able to afford a sense of scale, for once the novelisation FELT more canonical. It could even be millions, I doubt that daffodil-collection campaign was particularly successful.

I'm not sure Three would agree...

Perhaps not, but what about Seven? He's the one I'm suggesting might think a future regeneration would choose Three's face, if they could, so its his opinion that's relevant, not Three's.

So, what did Seven think of his UNIT years? Did he remember them fondly or with loathing?

So, what did Seven think of his UNIT years? Did he remember them fondly or with loathing?

Hmm. He WAS thrilled to see the Brig again, but then the Brig HAD just saved him from that stupid-snake-thing. It's a lot more telling that he actually hung around afterwards, and even cooked a meal. On the other hand, he was the first Doctor who could really steer that TARDIS and he never deliberately steered it towards dear old Lethbridge-Stewart.

Of course, Seven did have that rubbish adventure with the Brig in No Future, which may have skewed his views of Pertwee's UNIT years (he wiped the Brig's memory of it and it's just a pity he couldn't wipe the readers' memories too).

'That's the principle behind warp matrix engineering, a cornerstone of Time Lord science!' - and you chose to share it with a 1950s human soldier WHY, exactly? Have you never heard that CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES?

The Master was 'almost unwillingly recalling the previous occasion when he had served as a scientific adviser of sorts. Then, as now, he was expected to complete the impossible in half the time it would take. At least the Englishman who had co-opted him then had been a little more understanding than Finney...' - blimey, has McIntee just referred to the events of his not-written-for-several-more-years PDA Face of the Enemy? Kudos.

'The renewed realization shocked him like a dousing with iced water. "No...Not again...I will not fear my own body," he snarled, resisting the sense of discomfort that flooded him as completely as if his worst enemy had walked in' - but he LOVES it when his worst enemy walks in! And how come he deliberately turned into a snake (Eight Doctors/telemovie) if he reacts THIS badly to a little Survival-style oochification?

'Stoker watched anxiously as the troops from Holloman fanned out...Outwardly collected, he darted around the sectioned cargo with a nervousness he knew he should not be able to feel. He irritably waved the troops to stand clear' - that's an awful lot of anxiety, darting around and nervousness for someone you're claiming is COLLECTED.

'"I certainly saw him, so it seems wise to assume he saw me." Me giving advice on wisdom, [Ace] thought; how things change' - um, I'm not convinced that constitutes actual wisdom.

'Before they could recover, Ace, Benny and Marion popped up from behind the jeep and opened fire on them. The guards pitched to the ground like marionettes whose strings had been cut...The Doctor shaking his head as they passed the bodies of the guards' - oh well, as long as the Doctor SHAKES HIS HEAD to express his displeasure at his Companions slaughtering loads of people (after he'd fired a flare to make it easy for them)...Also, for a PR woman never supposed to see combat, Marion takes awfully easily to massacring her own ex-comrades on the say-so of some mad trigger-happy alleged time-travellers.

'The wreckage of the fugitives' vehicle has been located. There are no survivors' - gosh, you world-devouring conquerors are fooled awfully easily.

'It was odd that Kreer was able to arrive so quickly...must have done it literally in seconds' - that was quite careless of the Master if he doesn't want to rouse human suspicions of superpowers, or Tzun suspicions that he's recovered his TARDIS.

'The Doctor applied a half-remembered Venusian Aikido strike..."I'd almost forgotten how difficult that is with only two arms," he muttered' - um, sorry, where there hitherto unsuspected incarnations of Our Hero with more than two...?

'He straightened up with a grim look. "We're too late here. The Tzun have complete control of this base. Someone has been out-thinking us every step of the way"' - or, er, just got here and took over months ago, nothing to do with YOU?

'Oolion is unique to Collactin. It used to exist on Bandraginus Five as well, but that was destroyed by Zanak about eighty years ago' - look, I like a bit of fanwank as much as the next crazed fanatic, but come ON, that's both pointless AND boring. Oh, and inaccurate as the Doc specifically states two paragraphs later that 'I was on Zanak in 1978' and 1978 is NOT eighty years before 1957.

'She handed Benny her blaster. "Go and close the door we came in, and the one in the cargo bay. If anyone sees you, zap 'em." "Jesus," Benny muttered, but went nevertheless' - ah yes, another token almost-protest about committing more mass-murder...

'It's exactly the clue we need' - er, I'm not sure 'the two women asked about Cuba' is a CLUE as to where they were heading. Either it was helpfully spelling out their destination in words of one (OK, two) syllables or it was a cunning ruse.

'"Well, I suppose it makes a change for you to have something useful to do. Nothing personal," he added hurriedly. Marion nodded in acknowledgement. She didn't take the slight personally, of course. She was well aware, through long experience, that it was only her position that was being deprecated' - because, of course, no woman in the 1950s military would EVER be insulted for, say, HER GENDER.

'Marion was nothing if not curious as to how the Doctor had been with her for almost twenty-four hours solid and still didn't have even the faintest shadow of stubble' - yeah, cos that's TOTALLY what you care about when your planet's being taken over by aliens. Also, he WOULD have stubble (see Leisure Hive, Doctor Dances, Day of the Moon, Wedding of River Song, etc).

I don't remember Venusians being allergic to all metal but gold in Venusian Lullaby? (Mind you, I don't actually remember anything about Venusian Lullaby.) *Checks TARDIS Wikia* HA! 'Susan and the First Doctor visited the metal seas on Venus. (TV: The Singing Sands)'!

'"Be firm and they'll follow you. If it comes to the worst, find another man they respect to relay your orders," the Doctor finished in a disdainful tone. "Humans..." he muttered disconsolately' - yeah, because the Doctor himself is NEVER EVER SEXIST, no sirree...

'The first joyous rush of Marion's new-found confidence was ebbing' - WHAT first joyous rush? She responded to command by telling the Doctor loads of men wouldn't obey her. He helpfully responded by telling her to find a man to give the orders. Is this some weird new definition of the word 'confidence'?

The Master believes that 'eventually time steals everything'? Surely he of all people wouldn't take such a fatalistic attitude?

'"Madness is relative," the Doctor snapped. "Mine certainly are, anyway," he added' - OK, I don't know why the Doctor's endlessly spilling his guts to these people vis-a-vis everything from Time Lord secrets to the destruction of Bandraginus Five to his hitherto-unsuspected relatives, but kudos for foreseeing the horrors of Lungbarrow.

Xeno KNOWS about the Doctor so why run through every other possible explanation for a non-human lifeform approaching before the penny finally drops?

'Benny had spent an hour discreetly tracking the fleeing guards' - what, on a stolen police motorbike? Her discretion is truly remarkable.

'Exceptionally odd and trying - even by Ace's standards - circumstances' - exceptionally boring, anyway.

'She was fairly sure that he was human, since all the Tzun she'd met so far had blond hair' - and gods forbid they should ever have heard of HAIR DYE.

Benny takes THREE PARAGRAPHS to work out that the 'oddly familiar sound' is A TARDIS MATERIALISING?!

'It looked to Benny like either a weapon or a sex toy' - you can't SAY that about the TCE, you just...CAN'T!

'A medium-sized black cat watched her impassively through luminescent eyes. "Are all the white ones copyrighted?" Benny asked, nodding towards it' - is it just me or is that a REALLY bizarre reaction to an oochie?

To be continued...

Oh, and inaccurate as the Doc specifically states two paragraphs later that 'I was on Zanak in 1978' and 1978 is NOT eighty years before 1957.

Maybe he's referring to how long it's been from his own personal point of view?

Oh!

Good point, except that he CAN'T be, of course the Doctor's timeline is shot to hell and it's ridiculous even TRYING to make sense of it, but if Tom was 750-ish in several stories and McCoy was 953 in Time and the Rani...

Also, he WOULD have stubble (see Leisure Hive, Doctor Dances, Day of the Moon, Wedding of River Song, etc).

But those were different regenerations.

but if Tom was 750-ish in several stories and McCoy was 953 in Time and the Rani...

Then maybe Six visited Zanak sometime between his trial and his regeneration.

maybe Six visited Zanak sometime between his trial and his regeneration

Hmm. Possible but unlikely. Old Who Docs didn't tend to nip back and see how badly things were going once they'd abandoned a planet, and McIntee would have no doubt gone into excruciating detail about any such trip. Also, telling a human 'that was destroyed by Zanak about eighty years ago' definitely implies eighty calendar years ago, unless he SAYS 'in my own personal timeline'...

'Hasn't the Doctor told you about me?' - er, QUITE. ZOE gets an Evil of the Daleks crash-course but the rest of 'em are just pitted against various arch-enemies with no warning, sink or swim...And don't the Doctor and Benny ever TALK in all those years they've had together? That must be half the Doctor's life-history he's been censoring for, er, no reason whatsoever.

'I suppose it's some sort of domination complex that's arisen to compensate for some physical impotency?' 'Your inane opinions have no relevance to Gallifreyan physiognomy' - ah, *nostalgic sigh* THOSE were the days. When Time Lords knew and cared nothing about sex and were grown in Looms and TOTALLY didn't have twenty-four-year orgies with their wives in restaurants.

'Surely the Doctor has told you of the effects of the tissue compression eliminator?' - don't be ridiculous you half-wit, why would he have mentioned THAT but not, say, that time you messed up each other's time-experiments with tea-leaves, or thought the Clangers were a real alien race, or became an oochie-coochie or, y'know, ANYTHING about you EVER?

'"I believe I've heard it mentioned," she replied calmly' - WHAT! WHEN! WHY!

'"The Doctor said you didn't have a TARDIS last time you met," she prompted' - hang on, sorry, the Doctor DID tell Benny all about the Master?! Make up your bloody MIND!

'Besides, he was just old enough to have served in World War Two or Korea' - surely if he was just old enough to be a WWII veteran, he'd've been MORE than old enough for Korea?

Benny says 'Of course not!' to the concept that the Nestene Consciousness had ever reached Earth. And her an archaeologist specialising in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries!

'I suggest you ask the Doctor that same question when next you meet - assuming you believe in some sort of afterlife, that is' - er, believing in an afterlife doesn't actually mean you GO THERE you cretin (unless you believe Ghosts of N-Space/Deadly Reunion and even people who believe in afterlives would have to draw the line at THAT).

Also, TELLING Benny you're gonna murder her surely leaves her, rather dangerously, with nothing left to lose?

WAS Tremas a 'pacifist degenerate'? He armed the Fosters fast enough.

'The recharged nanites will give you your new life cycle, naturally' - regeneration should be a lot more...mystical...than this 'nanite' nonsense. (Also, it's a bit pathetic that you need a big painful needle to deliver said nanites. Surely pain-free injections are easier to invent than entire new regeneration-cycles.)

'Not a crewman, she corrected herself, but another Ph'Sor Tzun' - what, are you only allowed to use 'man' for males of human extraction?

How does Ace manage to shoot 'the bearded criminal' (no, really) in the dead-centre of his chest if he's turned to dart for his TARDIS?

'The illumination faded fitfully as the symbiotically controlled lighting elements died with their master's consciousness' - oh for heaven's sake, Sexy doesn't have a power-cut every time her Thief takes a snooze!

'The fire in his veins was even worse than that which had seared his and Shadow's linked minds when leaping from the exploding Cheetah Planet' - stop hurting cats! And, um, since when has it hurt, anyway, Ace seemed to manage just fine.

'Ace looked down at the glassy surface of the Potomac being churned into foam. With the ship going this fast, she suspected the water would be as solid to land on as hard-packed earth' - is that TRUE?

'Perhaps if I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow in the multi-centre omnipolar diathermic phase-discriminator' - don't - you - DARE desecrate our Sacred Catchphrase with such gibberish!

The Master changed his clothing without looking in a mirror to check said clothing or, y'know, HIS NEW BODY?!

'Surely I can't have changed that much?' - oh you just WAIT for your Missy days, Sunshine...

The Doc didn't think to warn people about Finey being controlled through his neck-implant if he wakes up SOONER?

'"Good luck," she said from the hatchway. "I make my own," the Doctor reminded her' - since when has he spurned being wished luck?

'She knew it was her journalistic duty to reveal this event' - you're kidding, right? Her job is to COVER UP such events!

'I'm no king' is a rather odd reaction of Ace's to being told that 'Any good commander values individual subordinates.'

'It was a shame that vacuum is so silent, the Doctor thought...This really was the sort of thing that deserved to have a very bass sound effect added by a team of brilliant audio engineers who had been supplied with some very hallucinogenic substances' - a) vacuum isn't silent, I've heard LOADS of spaceships making exciting whizzing noises, b) since when has the Doctor NOTICED that his life has a soundtrack (well, since he started playing Clara's Tune in Hell Bent, I suppose, but before then...?), c) did his Left-Handed Hummingbird experiences make him some kind of expert on human narcotics?

'Face it, [Ace] told herself; you may be younger than Benny - twenty-seven in a couple of months, relatively speaking' - how the hell did you work THAT out? Relatively speaking?

'Only S'Raph? Aren't there any pure-blood Tzun awake yet?' - the Doctor's a RACIST?!

The Doctor's pig-ignorant of the Tzun habit of passing on a hundred generations of memories?

'How did he get thirty-two years back in time without a TARDIS?' - what makes the Doctor assume the Master doesn't have his TARDIS?

'"You were at school together?" Benny asked' - We seem to be in a state of quantum uncertainty about whether the Doctor told her anything, everything or nothing about the 'bearded criminal'.

'How did he escape the Cheetah planet without a TARDIS?' - er, he used Midge you cretin.

'Not bothering to check the setting on the disruptor she had brought from Washington, Benny leaned out around the corner and swept the beam across both of them' - ah yes, more homicidal-Companion mayhem...

'The influence of a warrior race that had conquered its own urge to kill and conquer might well have provided an inspiring example for humanity. "For what it's worth," she added, "I think you probably would have raised Earth civilization"' - come OFF it, these GENOCIDAL MANIACS were just attempting to conquer Earth BY SETTING OFF NUCLEAR BOMBS. There's no WAY Benny (even THIS bizarre gun-totin' version of Benny) would ever approve of THAT.

The Doctor urges the Master (in his usual charming Earth-obsessed manner) to 'go bother some other planet.' The Master scoffs 'And have you follow me? Interfering as usual?' - since when has the Doctor ever bothered following him?

'As if tiring of the game,' - HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE - 'the Master snatched the gun back from the Doctor's limp hands' - well that was rather careless of the Doc, wasn't it.

'Gravity-drive systems are particularly sensitive to interference form [sic] gravimetric anomalies. Being an iron-cored planet, Earth has many of those in its magnetosphere' - we're an iron-cored planet?!

'I'm definitely getting too old for this' - alas poor Benny, she has several hundred novels and short stories and audios ahead of her...

'She tossed the disruptor aside in distaste, preferring to leave that side of things to Ace - sorry, what, she's just spent the whole book shooting people!

'It was a bitter-sweet thought' 'Perhaps I'll drink a toast to your memory - something bitter-sweet, naturally' 'They prompted some bitter-sweet memory within him' - yes kids, today we're gonna learn all about the exciting concept of BITTER-SWEET...

'At least the Earth is safe' - er...FLYING BOMB HEADING FOR MOSCOW YOU IMBECILE!

Sexy doesn't have a power-cut every time her Thief takes a snooze!

And he wouldn't want her to, but the Master has different priorities. I can see him arranging for his Tardis to be absolutely dependent on his continued consciousness so she can't rebel against him.

since when has the Doctor ever bothered following him?

He hasn't, but the Master doesn't know that. He'd naturally assume that all their post-UNIT encounters he didn't set up himself were the result of the Doctor hunting his old friend down.

He has no idea it's actually Sexy who's hunting him down, to keep her thief amused, or that it's Sexy who normally picks the Doctor's destination.

I can see him arranging for his Tardis to be absolutely dependent on his continued consciousness so she can't rebel against him.

I doubt that has ever crossed the Master's mind. I mean, it never seems to cross his mind that whatever-crazy-alien-race-he's-allying-with-this-time will double-cross him so he's not gonna suspect treachery in what he no doubt regards as a mere machine (didn't he once refer to Sexy herself as a second-hand gas stove?).

'Ace looked down at the glassy surface of the Potomac being churned into foam. With the ship going this fast, she suspected the water would be as solid to land on as hard-packed earth' - is that TRUE?

It's a widely believed myth. Water being incompressible, it WILL feel rather solid when entered at high speed, but nowhere as solid as solid GROUND.

'Gravity-drive systems are particularly sensitive to interference form [sic] gravimetric anomalies. Being an iron-cored planet, Earth has many of those in its magnetosphere' - we're an iron-cored planet?!

The core of our planet is about the size of planet Mars and made or around 80% iron, with the remainder mostly nickel and cobalt. Iron cores are in fact the norm in rocky planets like Earth, even large asteroids have them.

The core of our planet is about the size of planet Mars and made or around 80% iron

Oh! I always thought Earth had fire (and Racnoss. And Primord-goo, obviously) at its core.

My education really was ••••, wasn't it.

Iron cores are in fact the norm in rocky planets like Earth, even large asteroids have them.

*Sigh* So even when McIntee accidentally gets a scientific fact right, he simultaneously manages to get it wrong...

Oh! I always thought Earth had fire (and Racnoss. And Primord-goo, obviously) at its core.

Well, it IS very hot down there. Earth's core, believe it or not, is as hot as the surface of the Sun. The reason it's not also in the form of ionized gas like the surface of the Sun is the enormous pressure that also exists down there.

Hmm. In that case, was Torchwood drilling a hole to the centre of the Earth, or indeed the Doctor flooding said hole in a Professor-Zaroff-style manner entirely wise?

Bookwyrm:

'From the moment of Major Kreer's entry, the clues are far from subtle. He's giving predatory glances...reminisces about hijacking a missile, is genetically corrupted...thinking about the "delicious malevolence" of "deviation"...there's a cat knocking around. When he does, after an unbelievably long 200 pages, reveal himself, the surprise is not so much that it's him as it is that, by now, we were sure it was another double-bluff' - brilliant! So it's basically triple-bluffing us by NOT bluffing us...or something...

'Commits the cardinal sin of having everyone else refer to him as "Kreer" right up until his identity is revealed, at which point they casually revert to calling him the Master, almost as if they knew that it was important for the narrative to keep his identity secret' - *sigh*

'Basically, all the characters are demonstrating McIntee's experiences, speech patterns and, apparently, the TV shows he watched growing up, and thus everyone sounds the same' - Oh! Wonder if McIntee does this in ALL his books. Will watch out when the unhappy day of the Sanctuary reread rears its ugly head, it will be particularly noticeable in the Middle Ages...

McCoy keeps SMELLING SALTS in his umbrella?!

Well, OK, so Two (Night Witches) and Five (Iterations of I) also keep smelling salts about their persons, but at least they sensibly* use their POCKETS.

*If weirdly, in Five's case, given how few things WERE in his blasphemously-unDoctorish pockets when they were emptied in Four to Doomsday.