OK, those minor inaccuracies. Most of them have already slipped my mind, owing to the supreme unmemorableness of the book, but Messingham obviously hadn't bothered to avail himself of the opportunity to read the rest of the arc, or even just Adventuress (a joy that EVERY human being should be forced to partake of, even if they're not writing follow-ups). I mean, he has Anji and Fitz constantly express astonishment at Sabbath's ship and at the 'monkeys' working on it. Well, I'm pretty sure they were aboard the Jonah during the TARDIS-summoning ceremony in Adventuress, and I KNOW they encountered the babewyns plenty of times - even with so much amnesia going round, how could Anji and Fitz have forgotten the babewyns?

I found it to be a very boring read. Compared to all the other books of the arc, which I enjoyed.

If we're talking about the Sabbath arc (from Adventuress) rather than the alternative universe arc (from Time Zero) then I also found Anachrophobia and History 101 boring as hell. If not quite as pointless as Infinity Race's exciting adventure with boats.

I know it's become common currency online but I think it's stretching things to describe the post-Henrietta books as a 'Sabbath arc'. Technically possible I suppose, but the equivalent of saying that The Time Monster, The Deadly Assassin and Survival are all part of the 'Master arc'.

I found the first half quite enjoyable but when the race stopped so did my interest along with any pretence towards a coherent plot.

Yeah, well, don't expect any sympathy. Not being a sad sports fan, I didn't enjoy the race either.

Messingham claims this is 'light and frothy' in DWM. Lightweight, yeah, but in what alternative universe is it FROTHY? Plus he says it was 'fun to write - maybe too much fun' - SO not fair. He should have SUFFERED like his unfortunate readers.

'The thing is: we screwed up and now there's a boat on the TARDIS console.

'How is this possible I, Anji, hear you ask' - not too bad an opening sentence (if you ignore the fact WE ALL KNOW it's a MODEL boat) but the 'I, Anji' thing just feels like incredibly bad writing.

'Well, obviously Sabbath left it here' - you haven't realised that HE HAS AGENTS? It doesn't occur to you that said agent might STILL BE ABOARD?

'Sabbath, if that is his real name' - of course it's not his real name you cretin! And, DOCTOR, are you REALLY in a position to get into the whole 'real name' debate...?

'This little lost planet, once supposed to be a colony and now locked up tighter than the emperor's mother' - !! I thought the Earth Empire always had empresses? What the hell's it doing with an emperor? What's his mum done to get locked up? Or are we talking about some sort of purdah situation? When the hell is this SET?

*Whips out AHistory* c.2380? You're joking! Earth wasn't even an empire then! Was it?

Oh. Right. Parallel universe.

Sorry, I keep forgetting.

Mainly because this book makes the parallel universe stuff feel so pointless.

In fact, it makes EVERYTHING feel so pointless.

Including this whole breathing-in-and-out thing.

'Not that Banard gave a monkey's' - THAT particular expression has SURVIVED? 'Because in two minutes he was going to stop, see what kind of credit the passenger had on him, kill him and then get the hell off-world. Why not? He had the cash for the job - the transaction had been completed on the stealth ship just before their hike' - so why bother to climb up this mountain then?

'The sparsely populated British Isles were a rare treat' - the WHAT! Oh, are you trying to have some continuity with that stupid Day of the Troll audio? I suppose that would make sense as a) you wrote it and b) no other writer in Who history is gonna touch Day of the Troll continuity with a bargepole...

The Service has pictures of the first seven Doctors, but not any later ones?

'In an empire where ugliness had been abolished....' Aaaaand ten pages later: 'Marius was saying to one of the first-timers, an incredibly boring short, pig-resembling financial director who probably owned several star systems...'

'Even this far down, the sea was still the light blue of a rich man's swimming pool' - rich women don't have swimming pools?

'With its bright sun and the water's famed special properties, these oceans kept their human-friendly azure transparency' - so why, on the previous page, were you talking about 'the wild water, dark blue...Thick, thick water dark as night, dense as ink...this deep angry pitch-black squeezing merciless water'...?

'Selonart had never known such attention' - er, except that 'Every five years, for three months, Selonart was the centre of the universe'.

'Their creamy brand-new hulls' - did NONE of the yachts on the Most Important Race In The History Of The Galaxy think to have a SHAKEDOWN CRUISE or anything?

'I heard the squik! squik! of the windscreen wipers on the windows' - sorry, what, this high-tech starship-style state-of-the-art brand-new best-yacht-in-the-universe has SQUEAKY WINDSCREEN WIPERS?

'Doctor, what if whatever did this is still here?' 'I don't think we should jump to conclusions. We don't know what killed him. It could even be some kind of plague' - THAT'S supposed to calm Fitz down? He's just stepped over the corpse!

Also, why the hell would a plague have shredded its victim's jumpsuit?

'Those few hours would stay with me' - FEW HOURS? What the hell happened to 'Half an hour and I'll meet you back at the TARDIS'?

'I didn't like to think what could have frightened him so much' - er, the same creature who ripped all his crew-mates into little pieces? Just a thought.

So one minute Bloom says it happened 'yesterday', a few paragraphs earlier it was 'a week' ago, and later we get 'How long? A day? A week?' in an unusual attempt to bother to try to reconcile the petty pointless contradiction.

Fitz has been unconscious for a couple of days and DOESN'T wake up dying to go to the loo?

'A mere two hours ago he had been expecting the self-termination invitation from Earth; now he could safely hope for a medal' - a medal for WHAT? HE didn't cure the power-cut and he still has no idea was caused it or what could stop it happening again. And he hasn't worked out what nuked a ship and 'sent waves of panic around and above Selonart' on his watch EITHER.

'The prisoners had been in such a physical state when he arrived it had been difficult even to get a word out of them' - what, even the DOCTOR? Cos he'd spent a couple of days floating in a luxury lifeboat?

'How were they supposed to work out just what they were supposed to exploit from Selonart if they spent all their time making sure this game ran smoothly?' - why should it take all your time when it only happens every five years? And why doesn't Selonart making a fortune from the race count as usefully exploiting Selonart in Peck's eyes?

To be continued...

'Even this far down, the sea was still the light blue of a rich man's swimming pool' - rich women don't have swimming pools?

The do, but theirs are pink, duh!

Less than a hundred years ago, it was pink-for-a-boy, blue-for-a-girl so I don't see why the current bizarre set-up should endure for CENTURIES. Especially when Olympic-sludge-green is OBVIOUSLY the colour any fashionable rich woman should go for...

'God is in the details, Fitz' - since when has ANY Doctor said ANYTHING quite THAT stupid?

'History had always shown that blood spilt early was never blood wasted' - no it bloody hasn't. And since when has Governor Marius shown the SLIGHTEST awareness of history?

'Fitz and Bloom waited patiently for a couple of secretaries to walk in through the revolving door and made their way outside' - and you know they're secretaries HOW, exactly? They're wearing BADGES?

'We believed the woman, Valeria she told us to call her, right up to the moment she bundled us on to the little speedboat' - WE? Fitz might be naive enough to be all sweet and trusting (despite his unfortunate press-ganging into Communist China for a few years in Revolution Man, well, maybe he's forgotten it all, it seems safest to assume that EVERYONE in the EDAs has amnesia all the time) but Bloom has ALREADY been press-ganged once in this book, there's no way HE'LL believe that Valeria's not out to kidnap him.

Also, as all the yachts obviously knew all about Bloom's extraordinary powers to win them the race, why did they rely on just bumping into him and then press-ganging him? Why didn't they have agents on the planet kidnapping him (or, hey, ACTUALLY HIRING HIM FOR MONEY) months in advance? Instead of 'Sixteen billion IUs and countless man-hours spent on this boat. One of a kind, four years training and a crew selection process that made a jihad look like a hobby' WITH NO ONE TO STEER IT?

'I was convinced that short of a miracle the Doctor and Anji were dead' - sorry, WHAT! If Fitz believed that the Doctor and Anji were DEAD every time he was temporarily separated from them he'd've gone MAD by now! Or at least hurled himself around sobbing in a frankly worrying manner a la Sarah-Jane-in-Monster-of-Peladon.

'"All we've managed to do is get captured lots of times." Which is when the men with guns appeared and we got captured again. No, it's OK. I can hear you. Hear you sighing as you think: not again, how many times? One boat to another, cells, backwards and forwards all over the place. It's wearing a bit thin, isn't it?' - YES IT IS, and guess what? The Messages From Fred aren't helping any.

And who ARE Fitz and Anji addressing in their sudden unexplained desire to narrate this stupid book, anyway?

'For a moment I'd swear the Doctor looked tired' - HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE. When is this gonna end? And how come something so pointless manages to spew out an endless supply of nits?

'Now, the Doctor does not turn pale very often. When he does, it's either because he's eaten kedgeree or he's very, very worried' - oh, PLEASE don't try to jazz this up by claiming it's got THE DOCTOR running scared.

'The Doctor found himself breathing too quickly, on the edge of... what was it? Panic. Him?' 'Suddenly all his panic and claustrophobia came back to him' 'He was in a bad way, shaking and hyperventilating' 'He felt his hands shaking' - or, hey, you could just ignore me...

So the amnesiac Doctor knows all about Demigest because *drumroll* 'I know things.'

Sorry, the (HAVE I MENTIONED HE'S AMNESIAC) Doctor claims he hasn't read Trudeau's book and then proceeds to regurgitate exactly what Trudeau SAID in said book?

'Mikron Systems ComSat #451 was a pretty sophisticated piece of machinery. Hell, its neural capacity probably exceeded the brainpower of a newborn baby' - HELL, you mean the thing scanning an entire planet for racing yachts and assessing prevailing conditions is actually SMARTER than a DROOLING SCREAMING IMBECILE?!

'ComSat #451 had no idea of how much radiation it was passing into the water as it swept around the planet' - why would artificial satellites be totally radioactive in, um, whatever-year-this-is? And, sure, who cares about Solonart glowing in the dark (certainly not ME) but surely such things are used on INTERESTING planets, LIKE EARTH, and there would therefore be LAWS?

'Considering the messages of congratulation coming in from Earth Central' - why the hell would THAT famously ruthless organisation congratulate Marius for doing bugger-all aside from preside over a near-catastrophe for which he STILL has no explanation?

'"If you've got any ominous music," said the Doctor softly, "now's the time"' - I'm sorry, when exactly did Our Hero NOTICE that he's pursued wherever he goes by a SOUNDTRACK? (Well, obviously SOME time before Hell Bent where he accurately strummed Clara's Theme Tune, but surely not as early as THIS, especially as, let's face it, McGann is more of a dead-tree Doctor and not the type to be relentlessly persecuted by the efforts of Murray Gold/Keff McCulloch/whatever.)

'Once you've located the sub, we can bring in the local boys to do the actual rescuing' - yeah, cos GIRLS just can't rescue stuff.

'The mouthpiece slipped out of his teeth and he tasted the warm Selonart ocean' - haven't they invented BETTER diving suits by now?

'I need information. Information concerning the destruction of the MikronCorps yacht. And I need this information now' - so instead of interrogating Fitz properly about this, they just pack him off to be the 'serf in the minefield' and attract the killer? Are even Communist dictatorships THAT thick?

'Someone needed to tell her about the dangers of passive smoking' - but Valeria's the one DOING said smoking! It's EVERYONE ELSE you should be warning about the 'passive' variety!

'I caught a glimpse of Valeria, stained black and covered in blood, scrabbling with cartridges as she rushed to reload' - they've got prehistoric guns with bullets and cartridges and suchlike?

'If it could survive a nuclear blast, how the hell could I kill it?' - good question. Why didn't you think of it sooner. Also, how DID it survive a nuclear blast, exactly?

'I could hardly believe that just yesterday I had been thinking that if I got any more bored I was going to kill myself' - YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE.

To be continued...

'God is in the details, Fitz' - since when has ANY Doctor said ANYTHING quite THAT stupid?

And isn't the expression "The DEVIL is in the details"?

'History had always shown that blood spilt early was never blood wasted'

The soldiers who died on the beaches of Dieppe might disagree.

And who ARE Fitz and Anji addressing in their sudden unexplained desire to narrate this stupid book, anyway?

Well, the reader of course.

'Someone needed to tell her about the dangers of passive smoking' - but Valeria's the one DOING said smoking! It's EVERYONE ELSE you should be warning about the 'passive' variety!

Telling HER might evoke enough empathy to make her stop smoking and thus solve the problem at the root.

And isn't the expression "The DEVIL is in the details"?

I KNEW there was something wrong with that line, over and above my USUAL reaction to the 'G' word!

The soldiers who died on the beaches of Dieppe might disagree.

This IS an alternative universe, is it possible that it evolved in an extremely similar manner to our own, whilst nevertheless invariably rewarding anyone who massacred the opposition first...?

...No, probably not.

Well, the reader of course.

Reader, WHAT reader!

We don't EXIST!

Telling HER might evoke enough empathy to make her stop smoking and thus solve the problem at the root.

Her JOB is killing people, she's the last person on Earth to cavil at a bit of collateral damage.

'Oh yes, and I hadn't eaten or slept for two days' - what, apart from all that coffee you drank and all those nuts off the bar you ate - you know, the ones you told us all about in-between saying how you couldn't get a single morsel?

'Who said time travel wasn't exciting?' - anyone who's read a Simon Messingham EDA?

'Shame the swimming pool had been drained' - for heaven's sake, this is the ONCE-EVERY-FIVE-YEARS tourist season! Why the hell would you drain the swimming pool?!

'I won't bore you with any more details. When you've been involved in one life-threatening mob thing, you've been involved in all of them. There aren't that many variations on the riff' – really? Why, then, a couple of pages ago, were you going into detail about how a mob comprised of RICH PEOPLE is so much scarier than any OTHER type of mob?

'I'm looking for him.' 'Not here. Gone. Gone to sea.' 'I figured' – so, er, why are you looking for him on land?

'Come on Doctor, work it out. [Sabbath] smiled wryly to himself. Could it be that he was actually going to have to wait for him to catch up? There was a first time for everything' – sorry, WHAT! The Doctor's ALWAYS playing catch-up with Sabbath! Look at Adventuress! Or Anachrophobia!

'Guiltily, he just hoped the burning of the Marina hadn't been Anji's, and by association, his fault' – why the hell would the Doctor assume it's her fault?! Why isn't he WORRIED for her SAFETY in said burning Marina instead?

'The Doctor wondered whether the Governor's own staff had turned on him. The way he acted it would not have been a surprise' – so why DIDN'T his staff turn on him? OR the mob?

'A great fragile work of art, that was what this boat was. And that was what it would become, rotting in some naval museum somewhere, never having fulfilled its function…' - someone obviously hasn't realised that this race is run every five years. And also that museums are quite good at PRESERVING stuff.

'From pre-history to late twentieth-century Earth when the planet got itself invaded by just about everybody, to post-history, he was always there' – so this universe has its own Doctor? Where the hell IS he, then? Do ALL the alt-unis that end up getting destroyed in this alt-uni arc have Doctors that get destroyed right along with them? And what's this nonsense about 'late twentieth-century Earth', we get invaded ALL THE TIME in the early twenty-first century as well...boy did YOU not see New Who coming…

Why didn't the first communications black-out result in everyone slaughtering each other?

Oh, so FINALLY the Doctor stars worrying about Anji – 'She had to have become embroiled in the anarchy outside and was perhaps now lying injured somewhere, waiting for him. He didn't like to think of the other possibility' – not that he bothers to go looking for the supposedly-injured Anji or anything, still, it's the thought that counts, eh?

'Not for the first time, the survivors of the wreck of Beta Marina panicked. They rushed and fought for the few boats still undamaged' – there were boats still undamaged?!

'The Doctor remained absolutely still. He shook, as if containing some great and violent rage' – how can be be absolutely still AND shaking at the same time?

'The Doctor felt the loathing that always accompanied contact with this foe. Absolutely inimical to the concept of murder, it was odd how he felt so numb after this one. It was as if instinctively he understood just how anti-life Sabbath had been. Everything about his existence had felt like a violation of himself' – for heaven's sake, Adventuress set Sabbath up as THE DOCTOR for a Gallifrey-free universe, NOT as the Doctor's opposite. And even that awful Sometime Never had Sabbath condemn himself to eternal torment to SAVE the universe…

'With a sinking feeling in his empty stomach, he realised he'd been put out of the way' – why the HELL would ANYONE bother to put MARIUS out of the way?

Major Kallison of the Imperial Security Service, who's trained all her life to take down the man who wants to end history...gets herself KILLED by a tearful pathetic plump orange-permed wreck of a clown?

'Never been my style, you see, playing the hostage….and on Selonart that seemed to be all I did. I mean, didn't people have better things to do than chase me, lock me up and give me a good kicking?' - yet another desperate Message From Fred…

'Anji was clearly stunned by this. "But... but, if Sabbath wanted it to happen, then it must be, like, a bad thing."' - what, like saving the Doctor's life with heart-surgery, you twit?

'She had missed her last chance' - the communications might come back on again, like they did before. Your people will, sooner or later, send a ship for you. Missing a boat is hardly your 'last chance'.

'The same smell I had first had forced up my nostrils back on the MikronCorps yacht, what seemed like an eternity ago' - YES DOESN'T IT.

'Nothing but goodness in Doctor. Different, more complicated, not like Bloom. But goodness' – oh, come off it. Our Hero has ALWAYS had a sliver of ice in his hearts, and – hello! - now he's got the entire Time Lord race stuffed into his head you grossly incompetent mind-reader.

'I can undo all that Sabbath and the Warlocks have damaged. I can even take Selonart back to the start of the race and run it properly' – yeah, when you've got absolute power over time and space and infinity and stuff you should TOTALLY concentrate on rerunning a sporting event till it has a clear winner.

At this point I'd REALLY LIKE to have a good sneer at the ridiculous concept of the Doctor glowing and awesome and turning back time as planetary-sized power flows through him but – THANKS SO MUCH LAST OF THE TIME LORDS – I can't, can I.

The Doctor assumes the Selonart shake-up has got the ENTIRE PARALLEL UNIVERSE BUSINESS sorted out WHY, exactly?

Sorry, so now the Selonart natives are immortal and all in one group-mind (or something) along with the immortal minds of all those Earth rapists and murderers? And this is portrayed as a HAPPY ENDING?

Oh, and thousands more nits, mostly in the Companions: Novels: Anji section....

'Shame the swimming pool had been drained' - for heaven's sake, this is the ONCE-EVERY-FIVE-YEARS tourist season! Why the hell would you drain the swimming pool?!

Maybe it was damaged or contaminated in some way.

'I'm looking for him.' 'Not here. Gone. Gone to sea.' 'I figured' – so, er, why are you looking for him on land?

He suspected but he wasn't sure, he just got confirmation

this is the ONCE-EVERY-FIVE-YEARS tourist season! Why the hell would you drain the swimming pool?!

Maybe it was damaged or contaminated in some way.

This is the, um, whatever-century-it-is. With spaceships and everything. It should have grasped the basics of fast swimming-pool-filling by now. Also, it's one tiny speck of land on an ocean planet without the ROOM for many swimming-pools, catering to the super-rich (who will throw you into said empty swimming pool when they get pissed-off). GET IT FILLED YOU IDIOTS.

'"Is there anything I can do?" Anji asked, wanting to help. If he says make a cup of tea, however, I'll brain him, she thought' - Escape Velocity. I KNEW IT! So why the hell doesn't she brain Sabbath when he says 'Get the tea on, darling?' There are probably YEARS of TARDIS-travel between the two incidents but surely that would make her MORE likely to attack Sabbath, not less?

Though on second thoughts...New Who Docs make you better, Old Who Docs reduce you from spirited female to screamer by the end of your first episode, I s'pose McGann could qualify as the latter...?

Oh, and also from Escape Velocity: 'Spear wasn't the only one feeling queasy: Anji had never really liked boats' - don't remember THAT being mentioned during her interminable Infinity Race sea-voyage? I mean, not that I'm claiming to actually remember Infinity Race...

'"Is there anything I can do?" Anji asked, wanting to help. If he says make a cup of tea, however, I'll brain him, she thought' - Escape Velocity. I KNEW IT! So why the hell doesn't she brain Sabbath when he says 'Get the tea on, darling?'

To be fair, Adventuress does mention that 'When he spoke it was in a low rumble, the words rolling around in his stomach before finally arriving at his mouth, something which led many people to follow his commands without stopping to think about them.'