You might be a bit premature with point f. My reaction to the 'tag scene' was to wonder how Mike Tucker will reconcile the revelation of Ace's imminent death with established NA continuity, rather than just assume that he's thrown it out of the window. We'll have to wait for his next book to see. It might even explain away the Gale/McShane contradiction somehow.
True enough, and if there's a REASONABLE explanation - as opposed to some messing around with the timestream/it's a clone!/it's all a trick by [insert enemy here] then I'll return to this section and declare that it's a great cliff-hanger to end the book on (and a great way to start the book - I spent a LOT of time wondering why the Doctor was grave-robbing). But I'm not getting my hopes up. The way 'Gale' was mentioned, and the unrelenting references to Tucker's previous works - even some short story about a pigeon for god's sake! - made me think that he's trying to break with the NAs - 'Who needs those old Virgin books when you've got all these lovely works by ME to constitute your canon?!'
7th Doctor and Peri!
Oops; my bad! Corrected 11/24/03--MJK
Ah. Good point. Whilst the Seventh Doc and Peri met, it was in Bad Therapy, and is unlikely to be repeated (what with her slapping him around the face! Just because he'd abandoned her and she'd been stuck with Ycranos for 20 years!! Honestly, the woman has no sense of perspective. He had more important things to worry about, like saving the universe, or at least getting a really good exercise bike.)
My reaction to the 'tag scene' was to wonder how Mike Tucker will reconcile the revelation of Ace's imminent death with established NA continuity, rather than just assume that he's thrown it out of the window. We'll have to wait for his next book to see. It might even explain away the Gale/McShane contradiction somehow.
And never has 'Be careful what you wish for' been so appropriate...
Mike Tucker in DWM: 'That was a mistake on my part, not realising that a three-part story in book form doesn't mean it's only three-quarters the length of a four-part story in book form. So the three-part structure didn't quite work, and Prime Time needed a bit of padding' - well, I like an honest author.
Even more honest, he admits 'A bit of me says "a gap-filler"' before Robert Tucker chips in 'No, no, no - it's all about Mike's fundamental and deep-rooted frustration at the BBC.'
You can always tell a poor writer by the way they repeatedly reference their own past stories. In this case, getting Coralee shoved in one's face, not to mention Kar-Charrat. (And speaking of Kar-Charrat...don't. Trying to pretend the books and audios are part of one big happy Whoniverse is SO not gonna work.)
Ace is 'raring to go, as always' after hours of dangerous, exhausting rock-climbing?
'It was only since his tussle with the Master in Perivale' that the Doctor truly believed his TARDIS was 'home'? Boy is HE playing hard to get.
Ace is growing out of most of her clothes? She's been with the Doc YEARS, she must be in her early twenties, she can't be getting taller, surely? And there's no mention of her getting fat...
'She was the perfect companion in many ways, never complaining' - NEVER COMPLAINING! She complained loudly enough when you put her through hell in Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light and co.
And THE DOCTOR'S idea of a 'perfect companion' is simply one who never complains? Did he invent the Surrendered Wife movement or something?
'What are we doing here, Professor? Why can't we just get back to the TARDIS?' - OK, which bit of the Doctor (unusually!) telling her about the evil signals embedded in TV transmission has she already forgotten?
Ace has been with the Doctor for 'years' but still talks like her Dragonfire teenaged self?
'Joonas was well known at the Allegro. Cheap-rate cargo pilot and professional drunk' - doesn't this planet have breathalyser tests for pilots?
'Even when the commuter was a twelve-foot-high octopus there were the various trappings of the office worker - briefcase, mobile phone' - oh how cute! Ace thinks 'mobile phone = office worker'! Has she not BEEN to the future before?
'Ace remembered her grandmother telling her that if she watched too much television she would go goggle-eyed' - WHICH grandmother? If Kathleen, why didn't she also happen to mention her war-work and dead husband and anything else that might not have left Ace so clueless in Curse of Fenric? If her father's mother, why was she allowed to go ANYWHERE NEAR the child her son had ABANDONED and the mother who'd had her ickle son KIDNAPPED? (OK, maybe we should just ignore The Rapture...)
'Security? We have unwelcome guests at the gate. Please remove them'- er....you might try DESCRIBING them, there's quite a queue out there.
"I don't think that you're a girl." The Doctor shrugged. "I could be, one day." Ace stifled a giggle' - to think we've been looking to Missy and the Corsair and 'I can be anyone', all these years...
'According to all my research this version of the Doctor should be accompanied by a redhead by the name of Melanie Bush' - Mel really makes more of an impression on history than Ace? Especially given the obsession with Coralee, where Ace was the Companion...
'His predictions had been right. The transmitter was far more powerful than was needed for simple television transmissions' - given that you've already received weird encoded signals, I don't think that's a prediction so much as a fact.
'Ace lay back in the hot soapy water of her first real bath in what seemed like years' - the TARDIS DOESN'T HAVE A BATHTUB?
'The Blinnati girl had been right - it had been a long time since Ace had done any serious rock climbing' - it was't Gatti who'd said that, it was ACE who'd told her it'd been years since she'd rock-climbed.
'There's something familiar about this area of space. Something about that nebula...It's just on the tip of my mind' - you could always try looking it up in the TARDIS databanks.
'What I didn't know was that they were a camera crew!' - after hours of being chatted up by 'em in a café, you didn't bother to ASK?
Vogel and Roderik seem incredibly hands-on and in-each-other's-pockets for a TV-station owner and his star.
Ace gives Ashby a peck-on-the-cheek for being journalistic scum after her secrets? Rather than, say, a punch on the jaw?
'The local cab firm is going to miss you when we go, Professor.' 'I've got spend my money somehow' - WHAT money?!
What kind of moron puts their flagship drama on at 3 a.m.?
'Lukos sang inside. Treeb congratulating him. Unheard of' - Treeb DIDN'T congratulate him, he said 'All right, Lukos, you've made your point. You were right.'
So ALL the board are 'gentlemen'? And yet this doesn't seem to be a supress-women culture, just a suppress-everyone one.
'The Zzinbriizi are likely to wait until dark before they attack' - combined with the Doctor's ability to hurt them with a brolly, I'm not exactly getting that ULTIMATE KILLING MACHINES vibe.
Why the hell does Ace expect Greg or Eeji to be hanging around in that café after they've all said their goodbyes?
'I'll tell you all about it inside, OK?' - Ace is awfully trusting for someone who's spent years fighting the scum of the universe in the company of a master-manipulator.
OK, I feel like a traitor for asking this, but...why IS Doctor When so popular that everyone in the galaxy is watching it? When it's a bog-standard being-chased-by-mindless animals, starring the Master ('a ham') and the Seventh Doctor ('Not a leading man...overblown emotion...gabbles his lines...emphasis in all the wrong places...no star quality').
A piton gun is hardly a 'weapon of mass destruction'.
'It was always the same argument between her parents, mum always goading dad to enter more and more competitions' - cos, what, women are incapable of dong so themselves?
'Everywhere there were books, hundreds of thousands of them' - the guy couldn't get himself a KINDLE?
'Vogol Lukos presents the secrets of the Time Lords' - and no one's scared that any of said Time Lords are gonna turn up and obliterate your planet for such a crime? Or that the Doctor, with his track record of toppling tyrants, will deal with you himself?
Why is the Doctor 'bellowing in horror' at being sent on pre-set coordinates? Why is he 'tired and confused, drained by deception upon deception'? What kind of wimp IS he? Ace also seems incredibly easy to break. A TV talk show host can reduce her to a snivelling wreck.
'A frail old lady, haunted for most of her life by the loss of her daughter' - really? What happened to their Happy Endings reunion?
SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND people vanish near the Brago nebula without trace EVERY YEAR? And yet people STILL GO NEAR IT?
'We built a civilisation unrivalled in this galaxy' - funny we've never heard of you, then.
The Fleshsmiths can use ANY species' flesh to renew themselves - even DALEKS?
'We break down so quickly these days. The atmosphere becomes ever more corrosive' - er...did it never occur to you to MOVE HOME instead of torturing millions in order to continue living here in disfigured agony?
'The computer predictions are of 100 per cent of the audience share when we finally announce the continuation of the Doctor's exploits with the Zzinbriizi. Everyone in this galaxy will be watching Channel 400' - what, including the Draconians? And the billions who'll be ASLEEP?
'Every viewer watching your discomfort is another few pounds of flesh to add to our stores. A resource to be collected, harvested' - er, people weigh more than a few pounds, you know. And you disintegrating ghouls have really got the capacity to harvest and store 160 billion bodies?
So the Doctor is too thick to notice that the 'Master' is (somehow!) actually a homicidal alien jackal?
Why would the Fleshsmiths believe that Lukos is happy to betray the entire population of the galaxy - HIS audience! - to agonising deaths in exchange for, um, nothing, really?
And how exactly is Lukos planning on shielding said audience from the Fleshsmiths' signal when the time comes?
The Fleshsmiths don't search the Doctor's pockets before locking him up?
'What if I kill the Doctor?' - oh great, now the CHARACTERS are pointing out the flaws in the - well, one can hardly call it a PLOT. 'That would be most unwise' - yeah, THAT will TOTALLY convince the Master not to off Our Hero.
'I'm letting the Fleshsmiths take all the risks, while we just sit her in comfort and watch' - er...you don't think that tormenting Ace constitutes a risk?
'We will need a diversion to allow me to set it up though' - er, you do remember you're being filmed, Doctor?
Why would an audience frantic (albeit inexplicably) to follow the Doctor's Exciting Adventure With The Zzinbriizi CHEER when told they're getting a tour of the TARDIS instead?
'I know you almost as well as you know yourself. I've researched every facet of your character, delved into every nook and cranny of your past' - and you did it REALLY REALLY FAST seeing as you hadn't even heard of her a few days ago. And yet you STILL didn't foresee that Ace would *drumroll* smash a window? ('I didn't think you'd have the guts for that' - SERIOUSLY? It was all well and good when the baddie in Lanyon Moor was shocked that HISTORY PROFESSOR Evelyn Smythe smashed a PRICELESS MEDIEVAL stained-glass window, but HERE the only surprise should have been the fact he HAD smashable windows.)
'Ace whipped the piton gun from Gatti's backpack, aimed and fired' - all without the very efficient woman holding a gun on her FIRING?
'With a scream [Trasker] launched herself at Lukos. Ace and Gatti caught her, holding her back as she tore at them. "I'm going to kill him." "No," said Ace. "That's my job."' - UH? Ace SERIOUSLY goes around murdering the baddies in cold blood instead of neatly and Doctorishly letting the baddie's own henchpeople do it after seeing the error of their evil ways??
Why does Ace use the piton gun to (fail to) execute Lukos when she's just swept up a REAL gun?
'The final episode. The death of the Doctor' - you've got the most popular programme EVER and you're planning on killing off its star in the SECOND EPISODE?
'He had lost too many people, been responsible for too many deaths. Katarina, Sara, Adric' - oh, and half the universe in Logopolis but hey, OBVIOUSLY you care more about the brother-killer who hung around with you for a week or two cos, after all, if the Radio Times says she's an Official Companion, It Must Be True.
'The final episode. The death of the Doctor' - you've got the most popular programme EVER and you're planning on killing off its star in the SECOND EPISODE?
Won't most of the viewers be harvested by then anyway?
Well, apparently Lukos has a Cunning Plan to stop the Fleshsmiths harvesting anyone. Despite the fact that only HIS building is shielded against this. Leaving him with some pretty irate all-powerful flesh-eaters AND 140 billion pissed-off Who Fans...I get the impression he REALLY hasn't thought this through...
oh how cute! Ace thinks 'mobile phone = office worker'! Has she not BEEN to the future before?
Well, she went to 2012 in Relative Dementias but a) she sadly didn't notice the existence of the magical telephonic device and b) I've no idea where the two stories exist in relation to each other.
'Ace lay back in the hot soapy water of her first real bath in what seemed like years' - the TARDIS DOESN'T HAVE A BATHTUB?
'So that's who blew up my TARDIS. I thought I'd left the bath running' - Matt in Time of the Doctor.
Ace gives Ashby a peck-on-the-cheek for being journalistic scum after her secrets? Rather than, say, a punch on the jaw?
To be fair, Ace does react to Kedin drugging and enslaving her by attempting to leave the Doctor for him, so...
'The local cab firm is going to miss you when we go, Professor.' 'I've got spend my money somehow' - WHAT money?!
OK, so Happy Endings and The Crystal Bucephalus also make ridiculous claims about the Doctor having MONEY.
'He had lost too many people, been responsible for too many deaths. Katarina, Sara, Adric' - oh, and half the universe in Logopolis but hey, OBVIOUSLY you care more about the brother-killer who hung around with you for a week or two cos, after all, if the Radio Times says she's an Official Companion, It Must Be True.
Admittedly An Ordinary Life suggested it was months not weeks, however unconvincing THAT was in the middle of Masterplan...
Ace thinks 'mobile phone = office worker'! Has she not BEEN to the future before?
When this novel was published, mobile phones were not as common as they are now.
When this novel was published is irrelevant and uncanonical.
My comment stands.
'The local cab firm is going to miss you when we go, Professor.' 'I've got spend my money somehow' - WHAT money?!
OK, so Happy Endings and The Crystal Bucephalus also make ridiculous claims about the Doctor having MONEY.
And of course Instruments of Darkness saw fit to spew out the immortal line 'Recently, on a visit to London in the 1920s, the Doctor had made Mel a cosignatory on this Coutts bank account'...
How many times have I started my comments here, either in audios or novels, by saying something like, "I wanted to like this one, but...?"
Emily lists the roots as being reality TV shows, and I can certainly see their influence. But I also see a similarity to a couple of televised adventures. The obvious one is Vengeance of Varos with home audiences being able to watch people die, and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, in which characters also have to perform for an audience, although said audience is just three gods.
So, it's been awhile since I read the NA First Frontier, but didn't it have the Master regenerate immediately after his encounter on the Cheetah planet? Which book do we believe?
Having just re-watched The Power of the Doctor yesterday, in which the Ace taunts the master with mentioning his partial transformation in "Survival," saying that was the last time she saw him, I would say that First Frontier is the contradiction.
The Doctor speculates he might become a woman someday. Hmm, I wonder if that will happen.
I may have missed something but what happened to Rennie Trasker? Did she get killed and it somehow didn't register in my brain? I was looking for a punishment for her, because of the way she deceived Ace.
How many times have I started my comments here, either in audios or novels, by saying something like, "I wanted to like this one, but...?"
Your persistent optimism is...sweet.
What's your next disappointment?
Emily lists the roots as being reality TV shows
Mike did the 'Roots' thing, personally I regard Who as springing into the world fully-formed like Minerva, or, um, something...
So, it's been awhile since I read the NA First Frontier, but didn't it have the Master regenerate immediately after his encounter on the Cheetah planet? Which book do we believe?
The Doctor Who Reference Guide says so (obviously I can't REMEMBER much about First Frontier).
Having just re-watched The Power of the Doctor yesterday, in which the Ace taunts the master with mentioning his partial transformation in "Survival," saying that was the last time she saw him, I would say that First Frontier is the contradiction.
Ooh, excellent spot, screw YOU, First Frontier!
The Doctor speculates he might become a woman someday
Prime Time has suddenly gone massively up in my estimation.
I may have missed something but what happened to Rennie Trasker? Did she get killed and it somehow didn't register in my brain? I was looking for a punishment for her, because of the way she deceived Ace.
Don't ask me. Given that the EXISTENCE of Rennie Trasker doesn't register in my brain...
Trasker was Lukos's employee who was ordered to pretend to help Ace, but in reality lure her to the studio so they could do a show about her. Ace vowed revenge and I was sort of waiting for it.
Well, to be fair, Ace never got round to revenge on Mike-the-fascist-heart-throb, the Seventh Doctor, Helen A, Gwendoline, the Master, etc etc...and that's just the TV stories...honestly, I'd dismember more people than Ace if I happened to have a can of Nitro-9 about my person...