The Fall of Yquatine

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Doctor Who: Novels: Eighth Doctor: The Fall of Yquatine
Synopsis: Within hours of the Doctor's arrival, Yquatine, the central world of the Minerva system, is destroyed by a millennia-old sentient weapon, the 'all solid mortals will be dissolved' Omnethoth. Dumped a month back in time, Fitz attempts to flee impending doom with the President's girlfriend, only to get imprisoned, whilst Compassion spends decades in the Vortex trying to override her Randomiser, the Doctor struggles to reprogram the Omnethoth into being peaceful, the President blows it up anyway, and the warlike Anthaurk almost seize power.

Thoughts: Nick Walters obviously hates the Eighth Doctor's guts. Not content with turning him into an incompetent wimp in Dominion, he now has him raping Compassion. Well, forcing a Randomiser into her console, anyway. Funnily enough, apart from this...and the utter obsession with Arielle's appearance...and the unoriginality of an ancient race being wiped out after creating the ultimate weapon...and the unlikelihood of all the Anthaurk bar their leader being really nice guys...I love this book.

Courtesy of Emily

By Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 10:59 am:

Nice, not excellent, but nice.


By Mike Konczewski on Wednesday, December 20, 2000 - 1:18 pm:

Okay, so the Randomizer randomly changes where Compassion will materialize. So, in an infinite universe, just how many times did she have to take off and land before she returned to Yquitane? I would imagine the number would be extremely large, which would mean that a lot of time would pass for Compassion. Yet she doesn't act that way.


By Emily on Wednesday, December 20, 2000 - 2:34 pm:

Wow, haven't you been busy with the EDAs recently? Yes, a large figure was mentioned for Compassion's adventures in and out of the Vortex (I think ten years. Could be twenty.) but rather unconvincingly, it doesn't seem to have made any emotional impact on her at all. Everything's forgiven and forgotten by the end of the book. (And what makes me REALLY sick is the way she not only FORGIVES the Doctor for raping her and permanently robbing her of control over her own body, but he isn't even GRATEFUL for forgiveness, he just says something like 'it was for your own good'. I'd have KILLED him in those circumstances, I really would - and I worship the man, unlike Compassion who really couldn't care less about him.)


By Chris Thomas on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 5:28 am:

I quite enjoyed this one: a rough guide to a Who book is how quickly I read them and I finished this within a week. Others are left half-read by bed, forgotten as other parts of my life take over. I found the writing in this one crisp, making me want to read more.

I haven't read the previous books leading up to this Doctor/Companion relationship with Fitz and Compassion but I got the gist. I guess I could relate to Fitz but at times I felt the name Chris Cwej could have been put in his place and it wouldn't have made a difference.

As for the Doctor, I had real trouble picturing McGann. It could just as easily have been McCoy. At one point the Doctor gets angry: do you ever recall having seen McGann get really angry in the telemovie?

And it looks there is an explanation for what happened to resurrect Grace and Chang Lee in the telemovie. A surge of artron energy, something they try on Arielle as she is dying.

Did I spot a Red Dwarf reference in the book? "The Cassandra of legend was doomed to know the future with not a soul believing her". Is this the Cassandra from Season VIII of Red Dwarf?

And is there a possible Simpsons reference? We hear the second part of a name of a news reporter "-ockman" and all I could think was that he was possibily a descendant of Channel 6 news anchor Kent Brockman.

Speaking of descendants, was Trooper Jones related to Sam in some way?

If Arielle was carrying the Omnethoth spores and Compassion absorbed her dying body, does that mean she is now infected?

Why doesn't the Doctor at least explain the Randomiser to Compassion before installing it? At the end I half expected Lou Lombardo to be a new incarnation of Drax. I wouldn't mind seeing this pie seller again somewhere, though.

Has anyone come across an artist's impression of Compassion?

I kept wondering how "Time Lord gift of translation" worked in this book, given Fitz was a month in the past, the Doctor was in the present (relatively speaking) and Compassion was stuck in the vortex for 10 or more years. Surely it has to be more than telepathic TARDIS circuits?

Why, when the Doctor discovers Fitz went back a month into the past, is he not overly concerned about the fact he told President Vargeld about the impending disaster? Surely he should have been worried that Fitz might bump into his past self as time caught up to the future... "Blinovitch Limitation Effect" crossed my mind once or twice.


By Mike Konczewski on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 7:05 am:

Actually, Chris, the Cassandra that both this book and "Red Dwarf" refers to is the Cassandra of Greek legend. She was given the gift of prophecy, but cursed by the gods so that no one would believe her.


By Chris Thomas on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 7:25 am:

Ah... OK, same source of inspiration.

The fact that Compassion can seem to impersonate anyone, why was I reminded of the Changelings of the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?

And you know, I was really guessing until the end how the Doctor might survive. I actually thought Fitz and Compassion might be heading off on their own at the end of the book.


By Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 8:02 am:

"The fact that Compassion can seem to impersonate anyone, why was I reminded of the Changelings of the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?"

And no-one did shapeshifters before DS9, oh no...

Never mind the fact that the TARDIS herself is a shapeshifter... (albeit a broken one)


By Chris Thomas on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 9:09 am:

I knew someone was going to bring that up... I guess it because DS9 is the one most fresh in my mind.

True the original TARDIS could change shape but as far as I was aware it couldn't take on the form of humanoids and so on.


By Luiner on Monday, January 08, 2001 - 2:12 am:

Well, the Master's TARDIS could change into a humanoid statue that had some mobility and can shoot lethal rays (laser's?) from its eyes. It would take a leap of imagination to have a TARDIS take on a humanoid shape and able to walk around like a Japanese MechWarrior or something, though obviously scaled down to humanoid size.


By Mike Konczewski on Monday, January 08, 2001 - 7:05 am:

Lunier, I direct your attention to "Alien Bodies", and you'll see a TARDIS similar to the one you describe.


By Chris on Saturday, January 27, 2001 - 7:00 pm:

The Doctor didn't rape Compassion. That's a silly overreaction and a pretty grotesque thing to say.


By Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Sunday, January 28, 2001 - 9:50 am:

Re: "It would take a leap of imagination to have a TARDIS take on a humanoid shape and able to walk around like a Japanese MechWarrior or something, though obviously scaled down to humanoid size."

Yeah, and the concept of the TARDIS itself requires no such leap of imagination... ;-)


By Luiner on Monday, January 29, 2001 - 4:40 am:

For some reason I typed 'would' instead of 'wouldn't'. It wouldn't take a leap of imagination to imagine for the TARDIS in the shape of a Mechwarrior robot. It certainly doesn't take a leap of imagination to see the concept of the TARDIS. What concept? It is right there on my television screen, whenever I feel like it. It is certainly more real than ...I don't know, world peace, Pamela Anderson's boobs, super string theory, etc,etc.


By Emily on Monday, January 29, 2001 - 7:14 am:

It was a grotesque thing to DO, Chris! (Which Chris are you, btw?) I don’t make a habit of throwing rape accusations around - especially not at a man I’ve adored since I was four years old - but how else would you describe it?

The Doctor himself - after the event - admits that his actions are a ‘violation’. Fitz (who far from being a feminist is a total male chauvinist from the 1960s) describes it as ‘rape’ AND ‘violation’. If they can use such language, why is ‘grotesque’ for me to do so?

Look at the facts. With no warning, totally against Compassion’s will, the Doctor shoves an alien instrument inside her, causing her agonising physical and psychological pain and robbing her of control over her own body.

The Doctor is not acting out of ignorance - he knows that Compassion doesn’t want a Randomiser because he’s discussed it with her and she categorically refused. So he sneaks out and buys one behind her back, forces it into her with a surprise attack, and then has the cheek to look surprised when she starts screaming her head off! The Doctor must have known that the Randomiser would burrow into Compassion like that - there’d be no point installing it if she could remove it. What the Doctor did was worse than rape in a way - he _permanently_ robbed Compassion of control over her own body, rather like a rapist who left his victim pregnant. She went to the most horrific lengths to get rid of the alien invader inside her - even having herself sliced open without anaesthetic, resulting in such agonising pain that she lashed out and killed the man performing the operation. Then she spent years in the Vortex, alone and lost and desperately trying to find her way back, materialising in a thousand different times and places, always manacled and enslaved by what the Doctor had left inside her.

Are you basing your opinion on the fact that the Doctor didn’t use his own body to commit the rape? What difference does that make? The Chinese Government uses electric batons to rape dissidents - male and female.

Or are you claiming it isn’t rape because the Doctor didn’t realise it was, and didn’t mean to hurt Compassion? Like the Doctor, some rapists - especially those married to their victims - don’t think of it as raping or even hurting women, just as exercising their ‘rights’. Less than ten years ago, it was perfectly legal for a husband to rape his wife in the UK. The Doctor had a relationship with his old TARDIS that was in many ways similar to a good old-fashioned (i.e. filthily patriarchal) marriage (in First Frontier Benny actually has a vision of the Doctor and the TARDIS standing in front of the altar together) so it’s not surprising that he’s got an attitude similar to a marital rapist’s.

Fall of Yquatine tried to portray the Doctor’s actions as well-meaning but thoughtless - the result of him not realising how fragile Compassion’s emotional state was, or how different she was from his old TARDIS. It won’t wash. Look at the end of Shadows of Avalon. Look at the Doctor saying ‘Romana thinks of her as a TARDIS, _but Compassion is still a person_.’ Look at him thinking to himself - as he eyes the dark, insane depths of the new Compassion - that he has to be very careful with her and that he, however unwittingly, brought this agony down on her. Yet an hour or two later, Fall of Yquatine has him betraying her trust in the most fundamental way possible.

And even if he _had_ thought of Compassion just as a TARDIS, there would still be no excuse for the Doctor's actions. He wasn’t exactly happy at K9 drilling a hole for Romana to put the Randomiser! And the First Doctor actually built a console on his stolen TARDIS so that he _wouldn’t_ be able to control her and she’d have free will (well, that’s what he says in Taking of Planet 5, anyway - I have my doubts.)

Yes, the Doctor believed it was ‘For your own good.’ It’s ironic that the entire PURPOSE of the excise is to stop Compassion being raped and forcibly bred by the Time Lords. Funny that the Doctor should resort to similar methods to ‘save’ her. For a start, there was no guarantee that the Randomiser would keep Compassion safe. To quote the Completely Useless Encyclopedia, the last time a Randomiser was used, it dropped the Doctor off at Skaro then Earth – the Black Guardian could have tracked him down by the most cursory glance at the Doctor’s usual haunts. As it happens, the Randomiser was unsuccessful, and they _were_ tracked down in The Banquo Legacy and caught in The Ancestor Cell. Compassion, with a mind so totally advanced and alien to Gallifrey, would probably have been just as impossible for them to predict as a Randomiser. And when on the run – or at any other time – you’ve got a FAR greater chance of staying ahead and staying alive with a TARDIS which can pop up anywhere to rescue you, than with one who is brutally handicapped.

Anyway, assuming for the sake of argument that the Doctor was right and that a Randomiser improved their chances, it's Compassion’s choice to make. SHE was the one the Time Lords were after - President Romana wasn't interested in Fitz or the Doctor - and _she_ decided she didn't need a Randomiser. The Doctor had absolutely no right to deny her that choice.

To conclude: You are perfectly entitled not to regard what the Doctor did to Compassion as rape - not that you put forward any evidence for this belief - but please accept that I am NOT indulging in a ‘silly overreaction’ and have more than enough evidence to support my own view of the Doctor’s actions.


By CBC on Monday, January 29, 2001 - 1:19 pm:

Agreeing with Emily comes about, oh, every other millennium, but I have to agree with her. As disgusting as the thought is, I came away thinking that the author intended the Randomiser to be considered a form of rape, something they couldn't possibly have gotten away with on tv, as there would be more than one tv executive raising red flags. Where's Mary Whitehouse when you need her?!
Whew! That wasn't so hard, after all.


By Chris Thomas on Monday, January 29, 2001 - 9:48 pm:

Just for the record, I always sign my first and last names on this board, so I didn't make the above post.

Interesting question, given the discussion above: would it be defined as rape if someone who refused assistance was given an injection to help a life-threatening illness? I'm thinking of many cultures that refuse blood transfusions and so on...


By Luiner on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 2:54 am:

There are many cultures and religions that don't allow the 'penetration' of the needle. I don't know how it is in the UK or Australia, but in the US the patient has the right to refuse any treatment against medical advice, even at the risk of his/her life. We can't even do a simple chest x-ray. To go against that would bring charges of battery.

Admittedly, the US legal system can do a court order to forcibly give treatment against the patient's will, but that takes forever, and many judges are unwilling to give such an order, unless the patient's family gives permission (which brings up the whole mess of the patient's state of mind - children are a different story, if suspected of abuse we have all sorts of legal ways to diagnosing and giving treatment against parental or guardian advice).

If a patient has a DNR (do not resuscitate) order given by the patient (or family if the patient is brain dead) on his/her chart there is not a whole lot we can do except watch that patient die during a medical emergency. Something I have seen more than I want to.

As far as the book goes, I haven't read it. And after Emily's reaction, I not sure I want to read it. And Emily didn't have to go as far as China to find examples of rape by the police. Good ol' New York City Police Department will do just fine.


By Chris Thomas on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 6:04 am:

So, do you count those times when an injection is given against a person's wishes/beliefs as rape?


By Luiner on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 3:38 am:

Yes.

By law, it is just as punishable without a court order (except in children as stated above-but usually they would fall into the custody of the State before that happens, also except if the person is not of sound mind, usually because they strung out on some illegal drug). By my beliefs, if a person doesn't want to be injected, that is his/her right, no matter how ztupid that decision may be, ie to save his/her life. It is battery to do it against their will. The patient of sound mind has an absolute right to refuse treatment. I have to respect that, and I do.

Rape is a crime because of violence against the victim. To inject a person against their will, you would have to strap him/her down and penetrate that person's body. That is rape. The crime may be battery, but it still sounds like rape. Legally it is wrong to inject against a person's will, it is also ethically wrong for me as I took an oath to do no harm. And morally it is wrong because I respect that person's beliefs no matter how crazy they are. Who am I to say that person is wrong.

The only time it is common for a court order to inject a person in the State of Texas is when drugs are injected to kill a person to execute him, which I believe is a violation of basic human rights (I am also a proud member of Amnesty International, which reminds me, I need to pay my membership dues).


By Nick Walters on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 10:36 am:

Reading the comments above, I'm glad "The Fall of Yquatine" started off a debate, and pleased to see people go into such analysis of the story.

To put the record straight, yes, I intended for the Doctor's violation of Compassion to be shocking. The act of a desperate man. I fully stand by that and intended it as a comparision to what the Time Lords would do if they caught Compassion, and of Vargeld's treatment of Arielle - one of the themes of the book is male insensitivity. Unfortunately, the complex and loaded plot did not give me time to explore this theme in as much detail as I would have liked.

What I wish I had done differently is the Doctor and Compassion's relationship at the end - true enough, she had reason to kill him and perhaps I should have made more of this instead of tying things up. But that's the trouble when writing for a series... you can't take things too far or you mess it up for the next story in the line.


By Emily on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 11:21 am:

Hey look everyone - a real live author has honoured us with his presence! This is wonderful!* (Yes, I know David A McIntee dropped in, but that was for about ten seconds, two years ago, and he hasn't been back. At least, I _hope_ he hasn't been back, I wouldn't want it on my conscience that he'd actually READ anything I'd said about his work...)

OK, so WHY exactly was the Doctor so desperate? He's been in tight situations before (every 10 minutes, at a rough guess) and it hasn't driven him to behave like this (with the exception of certain parts of the Colin Baker era). He's in a good position - he's well used to being on the run from his own people, and 'It's worked before' as he said at the end of Shadows of Avalon.

What's the worst that can happen if they get caught? He (and by extention the universe, which wouldn't survive for five minutes without him) and Fitz will be fine. Compassion will be imprisoned, raped, and forcibly bred. Naturally he'd go to great lengths to save her, but raping her himself is going that bit too far. After all, all his Companions are constantly facing torture and death - it's in the job description. What's so special about Compassion? (And that's not even mentioning the fact that by PREVENTING her being captured he could well be dooming his own people to destruction at the hands of the Enemy).

*Incidentally I am not being sarcastic - I'm just a sad fangirl who gets immensely excited at the thought of communicating with the godlike beings who hold the Doctor's destiny in their hands...despite the fact that I've met plenty of them at the Tavern and some of them turned out to be almost human.


By Mike Konczewski on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 1:09 pm:

Wow, I have to say, I'm really impressed! I didn't think anyone, other than us devoted few, viewed these pages. I feel like I should be sitting up straight while I'm typing this, or something.

Anyway, Emily, I actually disagree with you ;-). This is definitely not like the other times when the Doctor was on the run from the Time Lords. I got the impression that the 1st and 2nd Doctor wasn't being actively pursued; in fact, there were certain indications that they knew exactly where he was, but didn't care.

After "Avalon", however, we've got a power-mad Romana hell-bent on getting Compassion-the-TARDIS, and she and that group of Time Lords will stop at nothing. So that's why the Doctor took such extreme (but still wrong-headed) measures.

Nick, please feel free to back me up on this. ;-)


By Emily on Sunday, March 18, 2001 - 8:03 am:

Er...Miike, are we talking about the same group of people here? The Time Lords are the ones who surrendered their entire planet to three pieces of tin foil. Who forgot to turn on the force-field when imprisoning the Second Doctor. Who - wait a minute, this is sounding awfully familiar...I've said all this in the Time Lord section, haven't I? Suffice it to say that I do NOT see the TLs as much of a threat.

Admittedly the Time Lords weren't actively pursuing the First and Second Doctors (though god knows why not, seeing as they'd made off with half Gallifrey's arsenal). But the Doctor is well used to being chased by some monstrosity or other - usually along corridors, but that just makes the threat more immediate. Here, he's got all of time and space to run away in! What's the problem?

And this 'power-mad Romana hell-bent on getting Compassion' - well, you'd THINK having an ex-Companion after you would be more dangerous than just having the usual thick-as-two-planks-and-riddled-with-traitors Time Lords in hot pursuit - after all, she knows how he operates. *Hollow laughter* Have you read Shadows? She corners Compassion, Fitz and the Doctor. Naturally the Doctor rants and raves about free will and what a monster she's become and THEN he suddenly says 'OK, you win, you can have Compassion. Just let me and Fitz and our new TARDIS a few moments privacy to say a touching farewell'...AND SHE FALLS FOR IT! Has the Doctor _really_ got anything to fear from this woman? If the Time Lords ever did catch up with them they shouldn't have much trouble escaping again...in fact, when the TLs _do_ finally get their hands on Compassion (fat lot of use the randomiser was!) it's not _Compassion_ that gets hurt - she whizzes off happily in the Vortex with the Companion of her choice. It's the whole of Gallifrey that goes splat.

As I've already said, Compassion's in no more danger than any other Companion. When Nyssa was ripping off her clothes and joining a leper colony, the Doctor said 'I've been so worried.' He did NOT say 'I've been so worried that I've ravished every woman in the vicinity.' Likewise when Adric had his intimate encounter with prehistoric Earth, the Doctor - far from running amok with an axe to express his concern for his Companion - said 'Oops what a shame...look, just SHUT UP ABOUT IT NOW Tegan, I am NOT going back to save him.' And when Peri was faced with a 'constant stream of galactic gropers' (as the Completely Useless Encyclopedia put it) somehow it never occured to the Doctor to use drastic measures like mutilation to 'save' her. So why should he overreact so much when it's Compassion in danger? It's not as if they even LIKE each other.

And let's face it, the future of Gallifrey is at stake, in those circumstances even _I_ might be prepared to produce a few kids. If the Doctor's suddenly decided that the ends justify the means, why is it OK to commit rape to stop one person falling into enemy hands, but not OK to commit rape to save an entire race from destruction?

I realise that having a fully-in-control Compassion would have ruined the suspense in just about every story she appeared in, but the authors should have come up with something better than the Doctor deliberately crippling her. (Don't ask me what - _I'm_ not an author). I mean, it's almost as bad as K9 and his space laringitus (I know I spelt that wrong...no spell check option on the new board :()


By Nick Walters on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 2:47 am:

My view was at the time, that the stakes WERE high... not only would Compassion be forcibly bred, they were going to use her children to fight the Enemy... what was probably left out of "Yquatine" was, just how desperate and terrified the Doctor was. [SPOILER ALERT!] He was responsible for the war, and he became Grandfather Paradox, so his actions in "Yquatine" were a desperate attempt to avoid this future. Perhaps, with hindsight, it was too extreme... but no-one in the read-through crew or at the BBC thought so at the time.


By Emily on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 12:12 pm:

WHAT!!!! Since when has the poor old Doctor been responsible for the War? It's not HIS fault the TARDIS got destroyed in some extra-dimensional rupture thingy, or that it was able to put itself back together again, or that the Time Lords let their bottled universe leak all over the place. More to the point - unless he was bluffing very well in Ancestor Cell - he didn't KNOW about these things. He seemed somewhat surprised to find that his old TARDIS was alive, that the Time Lords had been mucking about with the bottled universe, AND that he'd 'become a Grandfather again.' So how could he possibly be desperate to avoid a future he was ignorant of?

So Compassion's descendants were going to be used to fight the Enemy. Well, what's wrong with that? Those future TARDISes were _supposed_ to exist - the Doctor had met Marie, who didn’t seem too unhappy with her lot (well, not that the Doctor knew about - she didn’t regale him with stories of her lost kids) not to mention meeting dozens of them in Taking of Planet 5. It was grossly irresponsible of Time's Champion (OK, the 'Champion of Life and Time' as he is in this incarnation) to attempt to change future history. Running off with Compassion like that was even worse than getting Adric off that freighter - which he refused to do. Let's face it, it wouldn't have made much difference whether or not that little prat had been on it when it crashed (apart from to the long-suffering fans) whilst stopping Compassion from becoming a mummy-TARDIS would have thoroughly messed up the Web of Time. OK, so the Doctor's the compassionate (no pun intended) sort who's incapable of sacrificing an innocent life for the good of the majority (well, he is sometimes - certainly in his softie pre-amnesia Eighth Doctor mode) but, whilst he's duty-bound to make a token gesture to help Compassion, he really shouldn't feel that his 'duty' extends to drastic measures like rape.

Yup, Yquatine certainly forgot to mention how 'desperate and terrified' the Doctor was at the time. So did Shadows of Avalon.


By Nick Walters on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 - 3:14 am:

Oh well, it wasn't my story arc...

People do •••••• things they regret for the rest of their lives. Even the Doctor. He's only (half) human, and far from perfect.

Seriously, Emily's got a very valid point - but it depends on whether you see what the Doctor did as 'rape'. She clearly does, others do not. What people read into your books is beyond the author's control, and I had no idea that I'd provoke such a strong response. A lesson learnt here, I'll be more careful next time I venture into such a serious, controversial area.

Bye for now and thanks for all your comments.

Nick Walters.


By Emily on Wednesday, March 21, 2001 - 12:48 pm:

No, don't - I love controversy.

Even if you don't regard it as rape - as GBH instead, or enslavement, or battery, or something - it still seems so utterly beyond the pale. I remember waiting with bated breath for the Doctor to come up with a brilliant, with-one-leap-he-was-free kind of explanation for his actions - like the Seventh Doctor after he'd wrecked Ace's life in Curse of Fenric. I just couldn't believe he was doing what I saw him do. But he did. And I've got to live with the knowledge that my greatest hero (well, bar Aung San Suu Kyi. And Chai Ling. And maybe Melchior Ndadye, but then they have the unfair advantage of being real) is a rapist. But what the hell, I love him anyway. I just try to blame you instead of him ;)


By Chris Thomas on Wednesday, March 21, 2001 - 10:23 pm:

So Nick - was this a Simpsons reference?

... We hear the second part of a name of a news reporter "-ockman" and all I could think was that he was possibily a descendant of Channel 6 news anchor Kent Brockman.


By Nick Walters on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 5:05 am:

Ggggggghhhhhahahhahharrrrgle...

What a horrible dream!

Yes, that was a Simpsons reference.


By Emily on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 11:11 am:

Hello Nick! Am really looking forward to Reckless Engineering. And you can take that as a compliment to your writing skills, or as a devastating indictment of practically everything else in this year's line-up, whichever you choose...


By Nick Walters on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 9:52 am:

Emily,

I choose the former, but the truth is probably the latter.

Reckless Engineering is my Bristol book, and is "Doctor Who Meets Isambard Kingdom Brunel", which I have ALWAYS wanted to write!

This year, it's the Return of the Cole-era: successive books from me, Paul Leonard and Steve Cole! We're BACK - and it's about time! No, really, it is...


Nick W


Nick W


By Emily on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 9:13 am:

Whilst the current state of the BBC books under Justin Zombie-lover Richards will no doubt soon have me campaigning for a return to the (non-existent) Golden Age of Cole, there's no way I'd welcome a book by him. Unlike the rest of Earth's population, I did actually mildly enjoy Vanishing Point, but it wasn't enough to atone for Ten Little Aliens or Gods of the Underworld, let alone The Ancestor Cell, an abomination which would require a Dead Romance level of reparations. As for Paul Leonard...for every Dry Pilgrimage (for which you get AT LEAST half the credit), there's three or four Speed of Flights which should never have seen the light of day.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel...he invented trains or something didn't he? God, you'd never know I had a history degree.

Pretty good cover. And I'd say the blurb looks really promising, but I have the feeling I may be sick to death of alternative universes by the time it comes out...


By Emily on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 11:35 am:

Uh-oh. Have just seen the extract of Reckless Engineering so considerately provided by the BBC and...um...how can I put this? That innocent child you were so hideously torturing...any particular reason why you called her Emily?


By Nick W on Friday, February 14, 2003 - 6:11 am:

Emily, dear!

No connection with you at all, honestly. I'm not the sort of writer who uses real people's names to get at them. Please don't think that of me. I chose the name because it seemed to fit the character and the era.

As for alternative universes - yes, that's unfortunate. RE is bound to be criticised for it, but it really ain't my fault - it was one of the *first* alternative universe proposals Justin looked at and which (among others) prompted the idea of an arc!

I first pitched Reckless Engineering 2 years ago, way before Justin had developed the 'alternative universe arc.' It's just my bad luck that RE comes at a time when that idea has been rather done to death of late. Oh well, that's the danger of writing for a continuing series.

I'm sure people will find other things in the book to criticise as well though.

And maybe a few things they like!


By Emily on Friday, February 14, 2003 - 11:41 am:

Hey, I wasn't COMPLAINING. It would have been an HONOUR to have a Who character named after me, even a character like that. Luckily Daniel has obliged, and my namesake will finally be unleashed on the Whoniverse in The Cabinet of Light.


By Mandy on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - 7:18 pm:

I, too, was a bit shocked at how the Doctor forcibly and so intimately attacked his own ship. It just felt wrong, out of character. Rape is as good a word as any, but since it contains sexual as well as violent meanings, perhaps "attack" works a little better. Unless you consider the console an erogenous zone? (eww, just think of all those years the Doctor's had his hands all over it...) And how do you breed a TARDIS anyway? It might not involve rape. Maybe there are test tube TARDISes?


By Emily on Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 7:11 am:

There OUGHT to be test tube TARDISes, but the impression I got from Shadows of Avalon was that the Time Lords were in a big hurry (War coming up and all) and weren't going to mess around experimenting with test tubes for years - they were going to forcibly mate and breed Compassion.

The Book of the War - and the fact that the Time Lords eventually DID acquire TARDISes like Marie (Alien Bodies) - suggests that Compassion and the Time Lords did eventually come to some sort of agreement, presumably a non-invasive way of Compassion reproducing.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 - 5:29 pm:

Unless you consider the console an erogenous zone? (eww, just think of all those years the Doctor's had his hands all over it...)

SARAH JANE SMITH: Does he still stroke bits of the console?
ROSE TYLER: Yeah, I'm, like, 'Do you two want to be alone together'?

:-)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, December 19, 2019 - 6:20 pm:

And it looks there is an explanation for what happened to resurrect Grace and Chang Lee in the telemovie. A surge of artron energy, something they try on Arielle as she is dying.

Except that it didn't work on Arielle - even though she was merely dying - whereas it *shudders* brought Grace and Chang Lee back to life...

Speaking of descendants, was Trooper Jones related to Sam in some way?

Of course the EDAs totally screwed up multiple Companion deaths with Schrodinger-cells or some such nonsense, but I'm kinda left with the impression that Sam is one of the unlucky ones - viz, dead. (But not THAT unlucky - there's absolutely no sign that she reproduced first. Plus Jones is a very common name, plus kids usually get their father's name for some incomprehensible reason.)

If Arielle was carrying the Omnethoth spores and Compassion absorbed her dying body, does that mean she is now infected?

There's no sign of it, presumably all the Omnethoth left her on the moon and it was merely the damage they left behind that killed her...

I kept wondering how "Time Lord gift of translation" worked in this book, given Fitz was a month in the past, the Doctor was in the present (relatively speaking) and Compassion was stuck in the vortex for 10 or more years. Surely it has to be more than telepathic TARDIS circuits?

There's a bit where Fitz reads an 'Yquatine English' book where there's one word per sentence he just doesn't understand - of course, the Old Who novels/audios/TV never really made it clear if the TARDIS/Time Lord Gift/magic applies to the written word. But let's just assume that everyone's speaking a thirtieth-century version of English that's perfectly comprehensible without Sexy-assistance (albeit mysteriously missing the incomprehensible one-word-per-sentence).

Seriously, Emily's got a very valid point - but it depends on whether you see what the Doctor did as 'rape'. She clearly does, others do not. What people read into your books is beyond the author's control, and I had no idea that I'd provoke such a strong response.

But you had FITZ of all 60s chauvinists use the word 'rape'...

'The palace security systems were renowned for their ruthless efficiency' - and yet they don't have any way of telling if someone's personal invitation has been passed on to someone else?

'Arielle fully expected to be fried to a crisp that very second' - well she recovered from this fear fast enough.

Fitz has acquired his own bedroom on the dark side of Compassion, but has no idea if she has a toilet? ('Fitz boggled at the thought of performing his bodily functions inside her body' - too much information, not to mention Interference said the Companions didn't need to go to the loo, albeit this has since been undermined by Jack's 'what a time to take a leak' comment in Parting of the Ways...)

'"A TARDIS and its tenant are linked in ways that a human could never understand." Tenant. The Doctor would love that' - QUITE. Try 'thief' or 'husband' or something instead. (Also, this is blatantly untrue or the Doc would have noticed that Sexy ISN'T ACTUALLY DEAD.)

'"Oh sorry, introductions," said the Doctor. "Fitz, Compassion, this is Lou Lombardo, an old friend"' - which bit of THEY'RE ON THE RUN has the Doctor somehow failed to comprehend?

Oh, and now he's getting Compassion to open up and let him and Fitz in IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLOODY PIE-SHOP. Does he secretly WANT the Time Lords to catch them? (NB: obviously not, which is a shame cos THAT would actually make sense, the Time Lords badly need to catch Compassion to win the Time War and New Who makes it clear that the Doc's prepared to do anything, up to and including genocide, to win a Time War (um, sort of).)

'Where are the ducks? There really should be ducks' - the LAST thing Who needs is ANOTHER missing-duck-mystery...

'She may be totally unique' - apologies for the pedantry, I've got a friend who's as fixated by 'unique' as another friend is by 'less' and 'fewer' but...'unique' is...unique. 'Totally' is tautologous.

'We have to find her. I have to apologise. I've seriously miscalculated. But Fitz, it's not going to happen again' - a) why do you say 'It was for your own good' instead of apologising when you see her again and b) you're not going to force ANOTHER Randomiser into her? MY HERO!

'That's why everyone's stuck inside in front of their media units instead of celebrating' - these people don't have smartphones?

'What was Lou wearing?' - I'm no expert, but if I suspect he's dressed as Elvis, the Doctor CERTAINLY ought to, a) he can SEE Lou, b) he's much more of an expert on popular culture than me (notwithstanding his momentary pretences in The Lodger and Last Christmas) and c) the Doc gives the impression in Star Tales of having a SERIOUS Elvis fixation.

'He'd been secretly hoping to find Fitz and Compassion waiting for him. A happy reunion, a rushed explanation, and off they'd go' - HAPPY? You've just raped her. EXPLANATION? You've downgraded from 'apology' fast enough...

WOULD an escape-pod drifting helplessly away from one planet really head straight for another one in the solar system?

The Doctor's response to rebels bursting out of a pie to assassinate the king was 'And I was hungry'? Frankly if he thought so little of said king he really shouldn't have been attending his coronation.

Why does the Doctor unquestioningly blame the Anthaurk for the genocide?

I'd demand some PROOF of the Doc being a pathetic spaceship-spotting anorak but, unfortunately, we have Max Warp...

Show some bloody sign of MOURNING THE TARDIS why don't you.

To be continued...


By Francois Lacombe (Franc0is) on Thursday, December 19, 2019 - 6:56 pm:

WOULD an escape-pod drifting helplessly away from one planet really head straight for another one in the solar system?

No. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. The chances of an escape-pod randomly aiming itself on the correct trajectory are astronomically small.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Friday, December 20, 2019 - 3:13 am:

HA! I knew it!


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Saturday, December 21, 2019 - 12:50 pm:

'Vargeld nodded and began to don the spacesuit stored behind the pilot's seat' - but a page earlier 'President Vargeld was already donning a spacesuit'.

Why is Val calling Arielle 'love' a few moments after pouting with jealousy at her?

'The shields were holding, but only just' - I'm astonished they were holding at all, given what happened to the LAST ship that flew through the Omnethoth.

There's only one female Senator? There's only one Senator who dies in the fall of Yquatine? And yup, you've guessed it...

Sorry, Fitz takes off with Arielle just like that? No discussion of whether she wants this strange man to accompany her? Who pays for the luxury cruiser they go on - her, presumably?

'The Grand Gynarch looked forward to blinding and torturing her later' - well, I suppose that's a fairly civilised way of meeting your Who Novel Eye-Gouging Quota, seeing as the victim escapes.

Speaking of which, what the hell happened to the real M'Pash?

Also, would EVERYONE in a dictatorship this ruthless have the guts to plan a betrayal? (Or was the Gynarch's overthrow-and-murder entirely spontaneous?)

'The prospect of looking like an Anthaurk for the rest of her existence didn't bear thinking about' - um, but she's ALREADY 'reverted to her default appearance'.

The Doctor doesn't believe in prophecy because 'predestination cannot exist'? He's changed his tune since he was Hartnell and will change his tune again come New Who (well, with regards to knocking four times anyway, when it comes to destroying a billion billion hearts to heal his own, not so much).

'The Doctor closed his eyes. Another companion gone. Hope was a stupid thing. The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that was either the oncoming train or the torturer returning for another session' - that's a bit unDoctorish, or at least un-Eighth-Doctorish. Of course, he HAS just seen his TARDIS die, it would be quite understandable if only he'd shown any OTHER sign of giving a .

'Love and jealously [sic] had guided [Vargeld's] hand. The Doctor could forgive that - it was human - but he could never fully understand it. What was it like to be in love - and then to have that love taken away?' - This Time-Lords-are-incapable-of-love stuff may have seemed perfectly reasonable in 2000 (the presumed existence of Susan's Granny notwithstanding) but it's looking a bit silly now...JODIE! mercifully restoring the Doctor to her rightful asexual state doesn't erase those centuries when Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve were loving and/or shagging their way through the universe...

'Look, I am truly sorry. We've both lost someone. I think that means I can trust you now' - that would be a bizarre thing for Vargeld to say even if he WASN'T personally responsible for the Doctor's best friend being agonisingly destroyed cos he saw fit to unjustly lock him up.

'Compassion. The thought of her almost hurt worse than the death of Fitz...what had he done? Panicked. Inadvertently violated her. How could he have been so insensitive?' - oh, NOW you suddenly care about what you've done? Yet by the time you actually SEE Compassion again it's all 'for your own good'...

The Doctor spends A FEW HOURS wandering around looking for his chum Lou? Even though he has 'a bad feeling' about the President's plan to deal with the Omnethoth - the plan that results in the destruction of the entire fleet? Whereupon 'The Doctor felt numbed, appalled. "I tried to warn them," he whispered' - really? Cos you had that very long heart-to-heart with the Pres about Arielle and somehow forgot to mention the whole DON'T SEND THAT FLEET TO ATTACK YOU MORON thing?

'If unchecked, the Omnethoth infestation would certainly destroy New Anthaurk; that was proof enough of Anthaurk innocence' - no it bloody wasn't! Plenty of instruments-of-genocide have destroyed their moronic creators, INCLUDING THE OMNETHOTH.

'This had all the hallmarks of an escape attempt' - can't your super-duper tracking-nanobots tell you when a MAN IS DEAD?

'Just an accident. Just bad luck. Sod's law. Life's like that. No such thing as fair or unfair, depends on your point of view. Road accidents, disease, famine, plague, whatever - all part of the grand scheme of things and you have to put up with it, or go under Life is unfair - kill yourself or get over it' - look, I GET IT, I AGREE, I'm an atheist for heaven's sake, but could you just STOP having the Doctor, Fitz, and everyone else quite so relentlessly drum home the message of the 'chilling indifference of the universal process'...?

'The sombre beauty of the grand scheme of things always comforted the Doctor' - it DOES? - 'Even without him, the process would carry on, in this universe and the next' - a) no it bloody won't (see: Name of the Doctor) and b) the NEXT universe? Wasn't TennantDoc completely befuddled by the concept of other universes in The Satan Pit...?

'Maybe Compassion would appreciate it, if she was still out there somewhere. A worthy companion-TARDIS to share in the immensity of things' - what, AS OPPOSED TO SEXY, YOU MEAN??

'"You still want to proceed? The anti-ionisation shields we have installed are untested." The Doctor nodded. "We haven't got any choice"' - you really, really HAVE got a choice, you could leave the evil Omnethoth to get killed, for heaven's sake, instead of risking your sacred Doctory life for what unsurprisingly turns out to be an entirely pointless gesture...

'Why was it so scared? They were hundreds of miles from the source of the ionisation - it hadn't reached this part of the cloud. Then he realised. They were a gestalt entity, of course: the fear of the units under attack was being communicated to the rest of the cloud' - well, DUH. Never a good sign when the Doctor is slower-on-the-uptake than, well, ME.

'They were still flying through the Omnethoth cloud' - Unharmed? (Except by the ionisaton cloud not the Omnethoth cloud) HOW?

'The Doctor closed his eyes and muttered an Ancient Gallifreyan curse' - ah yes, one of THOSE Ancient Gallifreyan curses the Doctor is always mysteriously emitting in the novels even though it's never been seen on-screen...

'They couldn't dematerialise for fear of being trapped in the space-time vortex' - um, no, you wouldn't be STUCK you just wouldn't know where n'when you'd emerge. As Fitz well knows, as he later refers to 'an endless magical mystery tour'.

'The Doctor had been foolish to be so free with such information. They were supposed to be fugitives, after all' - oh, YA THINK!

Fitz wonders if the President knows what happened to Arielle? He's KIDDING, right? Fitz didn't tell him she was Omnethoth-infected, genocided Yquatine, and dissolved into a TARDIS-leaf and it's not like many OTHER people were in a position to inform him of these developments.

'What was the best moment to tell her? How would she react?' - um, didn't you already TELL Compassion you were planning on abandoning her and staying here? Which bit of 'This is our home, now' did you think failed to convey the message? (Also - why aren't you worried about what the President will do to you for eloping with his girlfriend? And why aren't you worried what the Time Lords will do to Compassion if SHE settles down here?)

'"It's the Doctor!" Compassion raised her eyebrows and tutted. "Well, duh."' - hey, YOU were the one who told Fitz THE DOCTOR IS DEAD cos you couldn't sense him despite a) him being alive and b) his biodata being ALL OVER the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

'And don't think I've forgotten about you and Arielle. There's still a lot I don't know about what you were doing with her' - and you didn't think to ASK when you were interrogating Fitz?

To be continued...at inordinate length...in the Fitz and Compassion sections.


By Judibug (Judibug) on Saturday, December 21, 2019 - 8:02 pm:

Does anyone else think we should have gotten a Doctor Who book called "The Fall of Yorkshire"?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, December 22, 2019 - 5:18 am:

We've got two Northern Doctors, presumably the aliens will notice and adjust their invasion plans accordingly...sooner or later.


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