So, Emily, is it true that this book features lots of alternative universe versions of familiar Doctor Who characters disguised by cunning pseudonyms?

Well, _I_ didn't notice that the Pentarch was the Brigadier and Dee was Ace! They were very, er, subtle.

A very odd book that tries and fails to say some serious things. I fear that the opening chapters are going to go down in history as a prime example of idiot plotting (i.e. when characters behave totally irrationally or out of character so that the author can move in the right direction). And it's the third book on the trot to turn Sabbath into a Master-lite generic villain. Admittedly, it's not our Sabbath...

I believe that this book depicts an intolerant and repressive - but not generally totalitarian - democratic society that's overtaken by an internal coup during the book's early chapters to become a fascist dictatorship. Emily would you care to disagree with me here?

Though having the Star Chamber plot to blow up the Tower of London and blame it on terrorists is a bit unlikely. A real totalitarian state would rely on the constant fear of terrorism to keep the population under control - but too many large-scale staged incidents would be counter-productive in the end as people would start to notice that the state wasn't doing that much to protect them.

And on a lighter note: I heard Nicholas Courtney deliver every line of the Pentarch's dialogue but for some reason I can't imagine the Brigadier saying 'bloody'. Though I suspect that'll come out as a line of red dots...

Ah, a pleasant surprise!

I'm not so much disagreeing with you vis-a-vis the nature of the filthy dictatorship, I'm disagreeing with David Bishop. The entire political set-up makes no sense whatsoever. If you have a democratically elected Parliament you simply cannot afford to do things like suddenly announce that university, most jobs, etc, are forbidden to women. That's half the electorate! How can you alienate them like that?! (And for your information this happens long before the book's opening so you can't blame it on a sudden coup.) And if mildly disparaging remarks about the Government from a bunch of harmless ex-academics can get them all cold-bloodedly massacred in the street, how come dissenting political parties, trade unions etc are permitted? (Yes, the massacre happened after the supposed coup that you set such store by took place, but they were obviously terrified long before then that their views would get them imprisoned/tortured/killed. Likewise the disappearance of Dee's teacher, the rape and execution of that 'firebrand' Emily - and no doubt thousands more like them - took place before the book began.)

And the Trafalgar Square massacre is just not on. It's just like David Bishop's gas chambers in Amortality Tale - an utterly pointless and contradictory-to-the-plot attempt to wring our heart-strings. Even the worst dictatorships on the planet hesitate for weeks before publicly massacring hundreds of peaceful democracy demonstrators in the streets - there's always some kind of power-struggle going on at the highest level, and also in the military about whether to obey the order or just shoot the monsters who gave it instead. The vast majority of dictatorships in Africa, Asia and Europe rose up 1989-94, and of those only four dictators – less that 10% - decided to go for public, all-out slaughter to destroy the movements. And of those, two – China and Burma – succeeded, and two - Mali and Romania – ended with the despot killed/imprisoned by his own army. Most dictators just don't have the guts to face odds like that – it's far safer and usually more successful to agree to demands for democracy and then attempt to rig the elections. Suharto of Indonesia had committed genocide TWICE - and even he decided to step down rather than massacre democracy demonstrators. Christ, even the Doctor's good friend Mao Zedong (43 million dead in the Great Leap Forward alone, and don't get me started on the Cultural Revolution) merely arrested democracy protestors (there was a rumour going round that his widow allegedly said after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre 'If we'd known it was permissible to shoot people in the Avenue of Eternal Peace we'd have done it ourselves years ago'). And yet the Prime Minister of Great Britain, this so-called democracy, can just declare marshal law, snap his fingers and the police/army will without hesitation slaughter hundreds of peaceful, legal Trade Union demonstrators at the heart of its capital city? Come off it.

I get the impression that the forces limiting this society have been at work since Sabbath's (native) day, so I don't think that it was a question of an elected government suddenly banning women from certain jobs or imposing a new repression on an otherwise progressive society. They've been retarding progress for centuries.

Ah, but Hannah mentioned that she'd wanted to study science or something at university, but then a law had been passed banning women from studying that subject, so she became a librarian instead.

Talking of Hannah, isn't she just the most implausible traitor ever? I mean, I'm all in favour of shocking twists, but she had no REASON to be a traitor, it was just totally meaningless (up to and including her being bashed on the head by her traitor-boss, who, incidentally, more than fulfils the quota for 'perfectly nice resistance member unexpectedly turns out to be filthy Government spy', thank you).

And talking of Sabbath's initiation, I think the date's about 20 years out.

Personally I find it more unconvincing that she played along with the Doctor for so long, apparently because she wanted the prestige of capturing 'big terrorist leader' the Doctor... but couldn't she have done that in Scotland?

Well, of course! Just as the entire Government-riddled resistance could have been arrested at any time. Not only was practically every one of them a traitor, but their idea of cunning secrecy was to refuse to tell each other their surnames...whilst supplying ecah other with full addresses.

If I recall correctly, Hannah is able to make contact with the London resistance because both she and its leader were filthy traitors. So that's not too inconsistent.

On the other hand, it might be that the security services were keeping an eye on these groups but could only act once martial law had been imposed. It's not like the academics in the pub were busy blowing things up. (Though I wish more could have been made of Dee/Ace's explosives fetish! - though that might have given the game away about who she was!)

Don't be silly, the security forces could arrest, torture, and execute anyone they felt like arresting, torturing and executing, long before martial law was declared.

As for Hannah - you're probably right about her getting the London address from the Government rather than from the Edinburgh resistance. In which case, either our all-wise Doctor OR the extremely suspicious London resistance woman who answered the door ought to have said 'Wait a minute, our people never hand out addresses...you are a filthy Government spy and I claim my five pounds.'

And another thing, surely if she wanted to make sure the Doctor didn't get suspicious and try to escape, she could have surgically removed his legs...

I should never have let you listen to Jubilee, you now have an obsession with the Doctor's legs.

Oh, on the Companion-acting-totally-out-of-character-and-incredibly-stupidly front (see 'Anji' section for several thousand other fine examples from this book) what is Fitz doing abandoning her to be crushed/suffocated to death whilst chasing after the culprit? Yes, very brave and public-spirited of him to try to catch the nasty terrorist, but for god's sake! Anji could have DIED thanks to him not being bothered to dig around in the rubble for her any more.

It's called 'idiot plotting'.

And the Doctor's legs are fine useful things. Without them he'd keep falling over.

No, he'd just climb into a wheelchair, a la Castrovalva, and get his Companions to wheel him around all the time. It would suit him, actually.

Oh, and what's all this about the Doctor claiming he was 'more than friends' with Alan Turing? I hope to God that's not implying what I _think_ it's implying...

I hope not, too.

Other than that, I found it to be an enjoyable book.

Very reminiscent of SLIDERS, or what would usually happen to them.

Yeah, it IS an enjoyable book. That's what's so infuriating. Something this atrociously bad ought to have the decency to be boring as well.

Sliders is...a television programme, right? I've never seen it.

A comment on a point you made earlier, Emily. You thought that keeping women out of academia would have automatically alienated women voters. Given the long-term repressive nature of this society, it's very likely that women were never given the vote in this timeline. Also, since everything is controlled by the Star Chamber, most elections would be shams, anyway.

I'm not sure I buy the idea that killing Babbage, et al would have drastically slowed down the development of computers. It's fashionable to point to Babbage's "difference engine" as the proto computer, but it's not like he single-handedly invented the PC. It's overkill on Bishop's part to have both a Star Chamber controlling all, and a mysterious force killing all the earlier computer geniuses.

Why did Alan Turing have such a drastic (and convenient) physical affect on the Doctor?

BTW, this has to be the 3rd EDA I've read with someone named Emily. Is there some sort of Cult of Emily amongst the writers that hang out at the pub????

Sadly not. David Bishop doesn't go near the Tavern, which is a wise precaution if he wants to avoid shrieks of 'WHAT THE HELL DID YOU LOBOTOMISE ANJI FOR YOU MORON!' Neither does Nick Walters, what with living in Bristol, and anyway he's assured Nitcentral that it was sheer coincidence he hideously tortured a poor innocent Emily. Likewise, Lawrence was very keen to stress a complete lack of resemblance between Emily the prostitute and myself. The only Emilies who have the honour of being named after me are of Cabinet of Light's Blandish variety.

I have a feeling women DID have the vote...I'll have to drag this wretched excuse for a book out of the library again and check up...I'm sure if they hadn't someone would have mentioned it as a pretty obvious sign that the country was only PRETENDING to be a democracy.

I'm just not sure why you're having a hard time believing a "democracy" would act so high handedly, given that we have so many examples of such in our world. And we can't even blame those country's behavior on Chronovores or evil time travellers.

What I also can't fathom is why Anji is still keen on returning home. She's already been home in "Time Zero", and she hated it. Yet in this book, she's even willing to return home 2 years after she left. If she thought coming home after three weeks was a tough adjustment, how awful will two years be?

Speaking of two years, Anji has tremendous faith in her credit card. She hasn't paid the bills or used the card in two years, yet she still expects it to work at the train station.

I'm just not sure why you're having a hard time believing a "democracy" would act so high handedly, given that we have so many examples of such in our world. Actually, democracies are - generally speaking - extremely good at safeguarding the rights of their own citizens. It's the rest of the world who has to look out.

Have flicked through this book in a vain attempt to discover whether women had the vote. Hannah's little speech to the Doctor about how women should be able to do anything they like - even become scientists! - seems to indicate that women WERE enfranchised - it's unthinkable that she wouldn't have added the vote to her list, were they deprived of it. On the other hand, the Prime Minister refers to his fellow MPs as 'gentlemen'. Though I suppose, with so many jobs barred to them, it's quite possible that females could be permitted to vote, but not to be voted for.

What I also can't fathom is why Anji is still keen on returning home. She's already been home in "Time Zero", and she hated it. Oh god, the writers have ALWAYS made a mess of Anji's tendencies in this regard. She didn't exactly volunteer for the TARDIS crew, but when, quite soon after she joined, the Doctor offered to try to get her home, she said no. (Eater of Wasps.) She then spent several books whinging for her former life in what can only be described as a Tegan-like manner. She gets home, as you say she hates it, she goes travelling again because she has no choice (alternative universes and all that) and then she inexplicably insists on staying on boring old Earth, despite the fact she's jobless, behind on the mortgage, lumbered with a godawful dog and a child with psychotic tendencies, AND is bitterly resentful of that ***** Trix stealing her place in the TARDIS. Oh, and despite heavy hints (Time Zero) that she has feelings for Fitz. (Though come to think of it, that would be quite a good reason to run a mile.)

Anji has tremendous faith in her credit card. She hasn't paid the bills or used the card in two years, yet she still expects it to work Anji's a financial expert. She no doubt paid off all credit card bills immediately, unlike every other member of the Great British public, who are currently borrowing on plastic like there's no tomorrow. Or maybe Anji's just lucky - I seem to remember a similar but far less explicable incident in Trading Futures involving her mobile phone.

Alternatively, the card wouldn't stand a chance in hell of working (even if they'd HEARD of credit cards in that reality) and Anji's just being incredibly s t u p i d to think it will. After all, this IS The Domino Effect we're talking about. The book which Anji spends acting as if she's the lobotomised offspring of Jo Grant and an Ogron.

In the Reviews section of Outpost Gallifrey for this book, a guy called Finn Clark states;
"...on page 207 the Doctor asks a question so stu-pid it's almost Zen"..."...we just get a screamingly stu-pid question."
Can somebody fill me in on what it is? I don't have access to this book, and it's got me curious, thanks to the so-called techno-babble ending and Clark's first sentence of his review;
"What the hel is this?"
Is he being too harsh or does anybody concur?

No no, he's absolutely right, in fact, if you look at David Bishop's own recent interview on BBCi even HE admits that the ending's rubbish and the Anji-not-noticing-she's-in-an-alternative-universe stuff is even worse ('every reviewer has commented on it' he says, which does rather beg the question of why HE, not to mention Justin Richards, remained blissfully oblivious.)

Anyway, I'll look up page 207 as soon as I can get my hands on a copy (actually, I MIGHT have one out of Fulham Library at the moment...my getting-every-Who-book-out-of-Libraries-several-times-to-show-how-popular-they-are policy may just come in useful at last). I have a feeling, though, that the problem is Bishop's ludicrous attempt to have a Genesis of the Daleks-style 'Have I the right?' moment by asking if this alternative Earth is any worse than the real one (YES! Call me parochial, but...England's a Fascist Dictatorship for god's sake! With no Internet!) and if he's got the right to destroy it (YES! Given that alternative universes have a tendency to destroy the whole of reality, themselves included!).

I'll save you the trouble, Emily:

"[The Doctor] sighed....'If I manage to reset history to what I believe is its proper course, what will the consequences of that be? Who's to say this history is any better of worse than the one we already know?'"

I agree, it's a dumb question, since the person asking it has experienced both histories and should be able to make a reasonable comparison to the two. IMHO, a history that includes the death of almost 90% of the Earth's population would be classified as a bad history....

As to the reviews at Gallifrey One, I find them useful only in providing non-spoiler summaries of the novels. In general, the reviewers opinions of the books vary so widely that I sometimes wonder if they've read the same novel (or finished reading it).

Hmm, I accidentally referred to "Reckless Engineering" in my comparison, but I would still say the racist, sexist, culturally and technologically retarded Earth of TDE is less preferable to ours.

Hear, hear. And HALF A PAGE earlier a peaceful democracy demonstrator had just been slaughtered in front of the Doctor's eyes by a policeman. Pretty s t u p i d time to start having doubts over which is the best reality.

What was REALLY distateful, though, was Sabbath's claim that a forerunner of the computer helped the Nazis identify, and therefore exterminate, Jews more easily (and hence - rather dubiously - that he'd saved hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives by preventing such a machine). Everyone who sighed, rolled their eyes and said 'Grow up, moron!' when they got to the 'which is the best reality' bit (i.e. everyone who read the book, I strongly suspect) is suddenly made to feel like they don't care about the Holocaust.

Incidentally, since when has the Doctor cared about which is the better, rather than the correct, reality? The ones in Genocide and Cold Fusion were infinitely superior to the 'real' universe, that didn't stop him from offing them.

Thanks, everyone!

David Bishop in DWM: 'I certainly learned much from the failings of The Domino Effect. For example, I was guilty of rigorously sticking to my original plot synopsis, even though it forced characters to act stupidly or illogically, such as Anji taking so long to realise she was on an alternate Earth' - well, it's a refreshing change for an author to be saying how lucky they were to be recommissioned after THAT instead of just going on about how ACCLAIMED their books are. And really, where the **** was the EDITOR?

'I put the idea in the back of my brain, where it festered for five years' - Bishop in DWM. LOVING the use of the word 'festered'. Slightly more disingenuous is his 'Readers will know from the back of the book what's going on before the TARDIS crew does. But that's just as true of TV stories like Planet of the Daleks' - well, only if Jo and the Doc had spent the first five episodes wandering around proclaiming 'Daleks, what Daleks, no Daleks here, mate' (and even THEN they'd've had more excuse, what with Dalek INVISIBILITY and all...).

'His health had been an issue for some time' - HE HAD HIS HEART RIPPED OUT WITHOUT ANAESTHETIC! AND he got squished flat! Why are you being so...euphemistic about it?

'Look after yourself, Anji. It may take a while to adjust to life in one place and one time, but if anyone can do that, you can' - er...Doctor...you DO remember she's already done it, right? She WAS back living a perfectly normal boring post-TARDIS life until she got dragged off to Siberia the other day.

Why would Fitz CRY to see the back of Anji? Don't recall him doing so on the various other occasions they were SUPPOSED to be parting forever.

The Doctor SERIOUSLY thinks that looking 'dizzy spells' up in HUMAN medical reference texts is gonna help diagnose him?

Why was Fitz after a traditional fish supper in the MORNING?

'There were a lot of antique cars on the roads. I guess retro must be the in-thing this year? Even the clothes people wore looked old fashioned...the strange thing was the chippie taking the old money – pounds, shillings and pence' – ET TU FITZY! I have, over several decades, gradually come to accept the fact that Anji had some sort of lobotomy for the duration of this story but five minutes earlier Fitz had been pointing out in words of one syllable that this may not be the correct reality…

Honestly, I swore to myself I wasn't gonna waste hours typing up every one of the several dozen times Anji inexplicably failed to realise she was in an alternative universe (especially as I did my duty fourteen years ago in the 'Anji' section) but I just can't help pointing out a few choice lines - 'If this was some sort of elaborate hoax, it was incredibly well-constructed', for example, shortly before Anji agrees to pay five shillings and sixpence to stay in the luggage compartment of a steam train to London because no one likes to smell darkies. In 2003 Britain.

And it's all so UNNECESSARY. The book would be shorter but not materially altered by everyone realising AT ONCE that they were in The Alternative Universe Arc that started a couple of books ago, whereupon they could have sat down for a nice cup of tea and got blown up more-or-less on schedule.

The Doctor refers to Fitz as 'my travelling companion'. And not, say, MY FRIEND?

'If anyone could deduce what had gone wrong, it was the Doctor' – so even when the penny drops, it doesn't ACTUALLY drop. She's STILL not thinking ALT-UNI!!

'I started pulling at the rubble, hoping to find her, but it looked hopeless. I yelled for Anji but got no reply. I thought she must be dead or buried in the explosion. Then I remembered the man who had been fiddling with the Gladstone bag – that must have been the bomb...If I couldn't help Anji, maybe I could still catch the man responsible' – SERIOUSLY? You'd abandon an almost-certainly-injured Anji to suffocate underneath a building while you played the hero?! (Don't try to convince me that Fitz thought Anji was dead, they're COMPANIONS, it's their duty to very-nearly-but-not-quite die on a daily basis.)

'I decided to go back to the tearooms and help search for survivors...I thought I could help dig [Anji] out and save some others' – oh, how belatedly gracious of you, jolly well done, Fitz.

'"Now I know what an angry mob looks like," Fitz said to his new captors' – all those years with the Doc and he hadn't seen an angry mob before?

So for over SIX HOURS after the explosion, the Doctor has just been 'wandering the streets, looking for Anji, trying to figure out what's really happening'? He knows Fitz has been arrested, shouldn't he have broken him out of jail (and overthrown the regime) by now? Not to mention realise that Anji was (just about) smart enough to return to the cafι rendezvous and get blown up rather than try to make a life for herself in the wrong universe?

'Your hands are frozen!' - how can Hannah tell, given that the Doctor briefly grabs her GLOVED hands?

'Hannah got the Doctor a single malt whisky' – why, for heaven's sake! He hasn't gone in for that sort of stuff since he was PERTWEE, why wasn't he asking for a glass of water ('Make it a double!') or cup of tea ('But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.')?

'I'll be amazed if she's still alive in the morning' – Anji doesn't react to this charming declaration about herself? (Of course, in another book I'd assume she's brilliantly deduced that the nurse is lying to protect her from the security forces, but in THIS book she couldn't count up to five using her fingers. (Still, at least she's got badly concussed so FINALLY has an excuse. Now if only someone could invent retroactive concussion, rippling back through her timeline...))

'She felt self conscious about the glances the other patients were giving her. Good, she thought. I won't apologise for the colour of my skin' – GOOD?

'No doubt [Anji] had soon realised there was something awry' – HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh, and apparently the Doctor is incapable of having this thought AND listening to Fitz label him a terrorist ringleader on TV at the same time. I know he's just a man but honestly, I'd expect the Doctor of all people to be up to a bit of multi-tasking.

Why do the rebels struggling against the lying dictatorship automatically believe said lying dictatorship when it parades an obviously-tortured man on TV to accuse the Doctor of being a terrorist?

'I thought I was getting somewhere with them' – er, given that they just voted to reject your call to action...no you weren't.

Shouldn't Fitz have realised that the crying woman wasn't Anji? He must have heard her cry often enough by now.

To be continued...

'The elderly professor peered at him in the gloom, searching for reassurance. "Do you promise?" "I am a man of my word."' - Blimey, the Prof must be as stupid as Fitz ('No, Mr Kreiner, I said I was a lawyer. I never said I was your lawyer') not to notice that he hadn't GIVEN said word...

'The old man was shaking, his body quivering with rage and frustration' - what, not with fear, even though he's facing a firing squad?

'You promised - you gave your word!' 'I lied. Promises given to terrorists and those who assist them have no validity' - but he DIDN'T give his word! And how come the Professor has to learn the hard way that the security forces he was leading a resistance cell against were actually capable of lying and killing?

'We have to find Anji, dead or alive. If she's dead, she deserves a proper burial' - since when has the Doc cared about this 'proper burial' nonsense? He couldn't be bothered to hang around for his own daughter's funeral!

'We must find her before the authorities do' - they already HAVE found her. And then, er, they went away and left their Most Wanted Terrorist alone.

'Won't your family be worried about you - staying out all night with a strange man?' - since when has any Doctor thought of himself in terms of being a 'strange man'? And how are Hannah's (non-existent!) family to know, anyway?

'"But you promised. You said you would never..." "Lie to you?" Hastings chuckled. "Sadly, that was untrue"' - how naive IS Fitz? After all those years fighting dictatorships at the Doctor's side?

'This might be 2003 but I didn't realise the National Health Service was in such a state. They don't even have enough money for basic equipment' - no. Please please please just DROP IT, you're OVER A THIRD INTO THIS ACCURSED BOOK, you don't have to keep up the whole 'Anji hasn't realised she's in an alternative universe!' thing going FOREVER...

'Fitz shook his head, astounded at the all-pervading racism in the courtroom. What was the world coming to? The year might by [sic] 2003, but the social attitudes were like something from Fitz's childhood' - aaand it's now nearly halfway through the book and FITZ - you know, the guy who started this abomination warning Anji that this might be an alternative universe still hasn't realised that, um, this is an alternative universe.

'Growing up during World War II with a German name had taught him how to hide his origins' - er, how and SINCE WHEN does he hide his origins?

'He produced a Gladstone bag and began fiddling with a dial set into its lock. I believe this to have been a timer for the explosive device within the bag. Realising what was going on, I left the premises and began running toward the nearest telephone kiosk, so I could raise the alarm and prevent this tragedy' - and no one asked the member of the security forces why he hadn't tackled the bomber to stop him setting the dial or yelled a warning to everyone else in the cafe, who promptly died as HE ran away?

'We need to discover when the divergence in reality happened. Then we can go back and try to prevent it' - sorry, is this a rewritten version of OUR history rather than one of billions of alt-unis? Or what? And why does Anji add 'When we get the TARDIS back', surely a statement too blindingly obvious to need saying?

Hannah has a nice chat about the weather before suddenly collapsing in tears cos her chums have all been executed? And the Doctor and Anji don't find this at all suspicious? (In their defence, Hannah being a filthy treacherous spy makes no sense whatsoever and hey, Anji HAS got concussion. And obviously a lobotomy too.)

'Three bored guards were staring at him, their faces filled with contempt and loathing' - surely you can't be bored at the same time as feeling contempt and loathing?

'Anyway, he confessed - I saw it on the television' - SERIOUSLY, the Resistance's chief bomb-maker believes everything the dictatorship tells her on the television?

'"Don't eat too fast," Alan warned. "If you haven't eaten for several days, your body is likely to reject anything you swallow too fast." Now he tells me, Fitz thought, one hand clutching at his stomach' - quite. Genius Alan Turing is pretty slow off the mark. And Fitz seriously didn't know that? He MUST have starved plenty of times before during his adventures?

'The last vestiges of resistance to the Empire will be swept away. Britannia rules eternal!' - so, er, why bother with Martial Law, then?

'The Doctor just glared at her, hurt in his eyes. "Don't tell me what I am and am not willing to do, Anji Kapoor. I've done things you couldn't possibly imagine, thing you don't want to know about"' - rather an odd thing for the Doc to say seeing as HE can't imagine 'em either, what with the amnesia...

'"I'm going out!" "You can't, it's too dangerous." "I don't care. If I have to spend another minute in this place with the fumes from your little bomb factory, I'm going to scream...I'm going to the nearest pub, I need a bloody drink...One pint won't be the end of the world, will it?" Dee smiled despite herself and unlocked the door. "All right,but just one"' - I'm beyond caring about Anji's pathological insanity but for the Doctor and Dee to go along with unnecessarily displaying the VERY NOTICEABLE faces of Britain's Most Wanted down the local pub...WHY GODS WHY!

Hannah doesn't bat an eyelid when the Doctor tells her 'I've considered going back to the past, trying to find out what took place'?

'The shroud - it's become like the Holy Grail for the resistance, hard evidence that science can be used to make lives better. If we could get the shroud, use it to make one of these universal machines - we could rove progress should be embraced, not feared. We could prove human development s being suppressed for all the wrong reasons' - you could? Cos the initial human reaction to inventing the computer in THIS universe was to dismantle the useless/dangerous thing, not - with criminal carelessness - to bestow the Internet on all humanity.

'Someone probably saw you in the pub last night and decided to call the security forces, hoping to grab the reward' - well, DUH but why did the security forces decide to wait all night before paying a visit?

'"Even though you closed all public transport yesterday, we believe thousands of men" - only men? - "had already arrived in the city by then. Even more have arrived since, mostly in trucks and other private vehicles." "Why didn't you stop them?" Merrell asked. "They hadn't done anything wrong yet, sir," the commissioner replied' - SERIOUSLY? You're a filthy dictatorship who can summarily execute academics in the street for even TALKING about criticising your regime, and then boast about it in the press, and that was BEFORE martial law was declared, now you can't even stop people blatantly obviously on their way to an illegal rally where you're going to gun them all down? Blimey, we had stricter laws in Thatcher's Britain, people were constantly being stopped by police under SUSPICION of going to join a miner's strike picketing line.

Alan Turing lived to be ninety-one - in appalling conditions in a primitive society and in PRISON being force-fed?

Chris had tuberculosis but was still allowed to attend school? Was no one worried he'd infect the other boys?

'What things? Make what easier?' - Even lobotomised-Anji has finally realised that resetting history onto its correct path would wipe their new chums out of existence so why is she now acting like she's already forgotten this fact?

'My friends are coming for me. And there's nothing you or your tinpot little army of thugs and bullies can do to stop them' - well, um, there probably is now that you've WARNED the bad guys, Fitz.

To be continued...

'They had weighed it three times, only to discover its apparent mass and density were different each time. If Sutton didn't know better, he could have sworn the box was altering its mass and density just to confuse him' - why would Sexy BOTHER?

Dee has made THOUSANDS of bombs? And she sure as hell isn't afraid to use them. And yet the Government have to use their own security forces to fake terrorist attacks?

'The TARDIS was crying out in agony.' 'Like a distress call?' 'More a cry for help' - I'm sorry, this subtle distinction is eluding me.

'"But I'm not going with you," he said. "What?" Anji was bewildered' - hasn't he already told her this? Why is she bewildered?

Why not sonic the shop's lock open?

So Anji suddenly decides for some reason that the Doctor's gonna abandon her and Fitz, and announces that 'When the going gets tough, the Doctor goes missing. Running away again, just like you did before!' - i.e. taking his amnesia as a cowardly act and deciding that 'Maybe you don't want to remember. Maybe it's just another way of running away from the truth' even after the drastic attempts he made to recover his memories in EarthWorld.

'I always thought sorry ought to be a four letter word' - uh?

Why exactly are the Resistance hanging around with these two hysterical idiots screeching bizarre personal accusations at each other (including treachery, which any Resistance group should be REALLY wary about, frankly) like they're in a soap opera...minutes after thousands of peaceful democracy demonstrators were massacred practically in front of them?

'Well, I guess this is all about priorities, isn't it? You've got yours and I've got mine' - er, yes, Anji, and yesterday your priority was to get yourself a nice pint in the local pub EVEN THOUGH THIS RISKED SEVERAL LIVES.

Why is Anji so anti-the Doctor finding the TARDIS anyway? Doesn't she want to get off this appalling world?

'She should go back and find the Doctor, apologise for the worst of it. But her anger kept pushing her forwards' - her anger and not, say, RESCUING FITZ from certain death or the fact she doesn't know where the Doctor is...?

'The Doctor looked down and noticed a steady trickle of water and detergent mixing with blood on the footpath...Something terrible had happened here, an atrocity. He was about to investigate further when...' - er...you KNOW what happened. You heard it. You saw some of it. What the •••• is the MATTER with you that you've already forgotten the slaughter of thousands of democracy demonstrators in Trafalgar Square? (Also, why go off playing detective when Sexy is screaming in agony and, hey, you're planning on wiping out this timeline ANYWAY?)

'She decided against taking a weapon. There would be enough bullets flying without her adding to all the death in the air. Besides, if she wasn't carrying a gun, she hoped it was less likely she'd be short on the spot' - after the massacre of all those unarmed civilians! When SHE'S attacking the centre of the dictatorship's power?!

'Now they were approaching the Tower of London, Anji was regretting her decision' - wow, FINALLY Anji's done something so stupid that even SHE - with her one remaining braincell - is having second thoughts? 'It was all very well being noble, but that didn't protect you from random gunfire' - you don't say! 'But it was too late to change her mind now' - NONE of the Resistance has a spare gun?

'"Where were the bombs?" Anji asked, sickened by the woman's blatant enjoyment of the spectacle' - so Anji's absolutely fine about blowing up civilians (even after being caught in such a blast herself a day or two ago) but actually enjoying it - that's just not on!

Anji 'found a guard slumped on the ground, blood oozing from a gaping head wound. "He won't be trying to get the better of me again," Dee commented. "Ever."' - surely the fact that blood is still oozing means he's still alive?

'It was Hastings, an edge of panic and disbelief in his voice. "Get more men and get out there. This is the Tower of London! It will not be taken by some rabble!"' - Hastings hadn't been warned about the attack despite the Resistance being riddled with spies?

'The beast reached inside Harris's mouth and, with a dainty tug, ripped the tongue out. A gout of blood emerged from Harris's mouth, slashing down over his clothes. The ape held the tongue in front of Harris's weeping eyes, dangling it in the air' - hmm. It SHOULD make such a refreshing change from the Who Novel Tradition of people getting their eyes gouged out but somehow...it doesn't.

'Come on, help me look for the shroud' - er, you didn't think to ask Hastings where it was before you executed him?

The GOVERNMENT are going to blow up the Tower of London - the symbol of their own authority - to convince people that Terrorism Is Bad? Frankly this is an incredibly stupid plan even WITHOUT taking into account the Trafalgar Square Massacre's effect on the British people...

'Anji was disgusted. "I've met people who were willing to stab their own mothers in the back to get ahead but you take the cake"' - shouldn't it be the biscuit?

'"Kill [Turing] and Earth will be safe for eternity." Sabbath offered the gun to the Doctor. "I'll even let you have the honour."' - Seriously? I've met some pretty stupid villains in my time but you take the cake. Biscuit. Whatever.

'Now the Vortex is coming apart, fraying at the edges - nobody knows why. Whatever once sustained it has been removed from eternity' - yeah, maybe the Doc should've thought of THAT before destroying Gallifrey.

'There are an almost infinite number of possible Earth histories, possible realities in the quantum universe' - um, do you mean real existing alternative universes or WHAT? 'By destroying one of them - the effect reaches out, changing, altering everything around the point of impact...One reality is destroyed, causing the death of all the others around it' - why? Aren't they separated by the Void? Unless you've deliberately found a weakness like the Medusa Cascade, which you haven't as universal destruction wasn't actually your aim. And surely SOME planet must have had a nasty accident before now, so why didn't every reality ever promptly collapse?

'Like the Absolutes of the System' - like the what of the what?!

'Finally Anji asked the question they were all thinking. "How long before the end?" The Doctor sighed. "It's only a matter of time..."' - well, DUH. Also, the end of every universe ever was WAY more exciting in Journey's End.

Blurb: 'The Doctor must choose between saving his friends or saving Earth in the past, present and future' - MUST he? Or was he just faking it about not rescuing Fitz for some reason I've already forgotten? Also, they're not his friends, they're his 'travelling companions'. Apparently.

Well, _I_ didn't notice that the Pentarch was the Brigadier and Dee was Ace! They were very, er, subtle

Still not convinced, but for what it's worth, Ace is calling herself 'Dee' when she's President of Earth in The Last Day audio...