God, to think I LIKED Cartmel's other books. Actually this started off mildly intriguing - I like it when the timeline is a bit jumbled up, as long as it's not Creatures of Beauty. Then I started to notice that nothing was happening. Then things DID start happening, and they were unbelievably stupid.

Ace is TEARFUL about wearing the wrong (admittedly VERY wrong) clothes to a party. She hasn't heard of the Manhatten Project OR Uncle Sam. She doesn't like classical music (thanks, we got that the first several times it was mentioned, no need to go on and on about it. And while I'm on the subject of unnecessary repetition, SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT DR JUDSON).

When Ace thinks her bag's missing she feels 'terror', even though worst case scenario it'll mean that people think the Doctor's brought her along to have sex with rather than to perform mathematical calculations. (Yes, I realise this won't be pleasant, but for someone who must face death on a daily basis, terror seems a bit of an overreaction.)

Ace doesn't work out that Rosalita's trying to kill her and the Doctor despite the fact that - when the Doctor mentions they'll be sharing the Rosalita's chilli with Ray - Rosalita bangs her head, starts shaking, tips the chilli over, and a dead rat is found the next day by the bin where the chilli was thrown away. Even after Rosalita's body is found where the body of the dead assassin who'd just been firing at the Doctor and Ace should be, she needs to have things spelt out for her in words of one syllable.

And this is AFTER Ace's brain has been enhanced to genius levels by the magic fish-oil!

And after - we're told TWICE - the Doctor and Ace have been travelling together for YEARS!

As an encore, Ace gets herself beaten to a pulp by a little old man. She can't even scream to warn the Doctor, which displays a tragic lack of the most basic Companionly skill.

Oh, and when told to get rid of a rail ticket by the Doctor, she even has to ask how. And get handed a box of matches. To say she has no initiative is putting it mildly.

If I liked this book any better I might not mind so much, but...that scene where the Doctor and Ace torment Henbest almost to death is not particularly in character.

Why, exactly, does the Doctor go so overboard with back-up? Not only is Zorg - not to mention the Apache - utterly superfluous, but their mindboggling pointlessness is highlighted when (presumably to pad out the page count) Major Butcher is lured out to the desert, dragged aboard the spaceship, and then spat out again. Uh?

And funny, isn't it, that the Doc arranges all this back-up, the credentials, even whizzes off to another planet to fetch Ace some brain-enhancing magic fish oil - yet forgets to brief her on the most obvious matters, like what they're doing at the Manhatten Project or, indeed, what the Manhatten Project WAS.

God, I hate this infinity-of-universes stuff. The occasional Inferno-style trip - great. But this multiverse rubbish renders the Doctor's adventures almost as pointless as N-Space's existence of an afterlife does - there are billions of other Earths! So who cares if he saves this one or not! And why couldn't he just leave the universe-saving to some alternative Doctor, who was presumably - given that Earth was still ticking over - around somewhere? And having doubles can be fun, but NOT if your near-identical double inexplicably comes from another century as well as universe.

So Cosmic Ray helps attempt to destoy a universe in return for a record collection? Hmm. Did he repent of his evil ways at the end or was he working for the Doctor all along? Why isn't it clear? And why don't I care?

Are Americans really so bad at accents they can't tell an English one from a Scottish one?

The 'catholic' religion (p122) should be spelt with a capital 'C', by the way.

The big mystery about Rosalita is actually why she's trying to kill the Doctor and Ace in the first place...

Major Butcher's detective and literary career is clearly modelled on Dashiell Hammett but nothing is ever made of this. I kept expecting a subplot where Butcher turns out to be a closet communist - but the big twist is that he isn't!

Similarly, Cosmic Ray's involvement with the Church of the Red Apocalypse seems to echo the real life occult activities of John Whiteside Parsons, but again this doesn't go anywhere in plot terms. Unless Ace really was supposed to be the Whore of Babylon...

The big mystery about Rosalita is actually why she's trying to kill the Doctor and Ace in the first place...

Either she got large bribes from Silk/Imperial/Cosmic (though how large would they have to be to transform a cook into a professional hitperson? And why would aforementioned Silk/Imperial/Cosmics be so worried about the Doctor n'Ace so soon?) or she's from another universe (the catch-all solution to people's attitude problems).

This episode title sounds like a song by Nitpicker Adam Bomb

Why didn't the Doctor mention to Ace that they were in an alternate universe? Wouldn't that be an important thing for her to know?

So what happens to the alt-Manhattan project when the "real" Cosmic Ray returns? He's just a high school math teacher, not a genius.

Ray's hip slang was ludicrously anachronistic, especially considering he's from the 21st century. I don't care how big a jazz fan he is.

Imperial Lee's plan is not insane, it's stupid! It's so dumb, I think even a James Bond villian would make fun of it.

Ace's fish oil pills only make her a mathmatical savant, not a genius, Emily.

The Doctor poinst out to Butcher that alt-Lee has been dead for days, and Lady Silk has instantly changed clothes, and Butcher brushes him off. Later, he sees Silk instantly change from wet to dry clothes, and he still doesn't listen to the Doctor. What kind of detectives do they train at the Pinkertons? You're supposed to notice details, not dismiss them. And losing a body, especially that of a major Japanese spy, is an important fact, not something to shrug at and dismiss.

Why would General Groves be so interested in publicity from claiming to capture Lady Silk? He's the head of the super-secret Manhattan Project; wouldn't he want to keep a low profile? Or at least wait until the A-bomb test is complete?

And speaking of top-secret, is Butcher the only security man on the project? The MPs don't seem to do much, and Oppenheimer is awfully lackadasical about the Doctor, Ray, and Ace going off on a late-night jaunt in the desert.

Why did Ace bother to come up with such a stupid fake name if the Doctor was just going to call her Ace anyway? Why not use her real name?

If Butcher had done a real background check, he would have found that the last time the Doctor and Ace appeared at a secret military research center (The Curse of Fenric), everybody got killed but them. Or that the Doctor once ran a speakeasy with a fellow ex-Pinkerton (Blood Harvest).

After all the running around, the bad guys are defeated when they get their dates wrong? Are you kidding me? Talk about an anti-climax.

If I were the Doctor and Ace, I'd leave Ray behind. And smash his records before I left.

I'm not sure I buy the Doctor's explanation for why Teller became so pro-bomb. Surely his concerns about the Soviet Union using the bomb against the US might have come into play, too.

The nittiest of nitpicks--"Los Alamos" actually means "the cottonwoods", not "the poplars." Yes, I know cottonwoods are a member of the poplar family.

Gee, sure would be nice if the Doctor had that knockout drug shooting umbrella in his other adventures...

Why didn't the Doctor mention to Ace that they were in an alternate universe?

It might have been one of his little tests for her. Or maybe he's just rather absent-minded these days, what with forgetting to tell Ace about the Manhatten Project too.

If Butcher had done a real background check, he would have found that the last time the Doctor and Ace appeared at a secret military research center (The Curse of Fenric), everybody got killed but them.

But then, the fact that everybody DID get killed but them (and Kathleen) would have resulted in a distinct lack of witnesses to testify to their arrival. It's like Fang Rock - no-one's gonna pin THAT one on the Doctor.

If I were the Doctor and Ace, I'd leave Ray behind. And smash his records before I left.

You are too kind. Were I the Doctor I'd have a momentary regression to my last incarnation and chuck him in an acid bath.

How does a human - come to that, how does the TARDIS - skip dimensions so easily?

OK, so Rise of the Cybermen informed us that in these Good Old Days the TARDIS had no problem whatsoever skipping from one dimension to the next.

Though as this is BLATANTLY NOT TRUE, I'm sticking by that nit.

She hasn't heard of the Manhatten Project

Say what you like about Helen Raynor's first misfortunate two-parter...at least it taught me how to spell 'Manhattan'.

And why couldn't he just leave the universe-saving to some alternative Doctor, who was presumably - given that Earth was still ticking over - around somewhere?

Alright, so Rise of the Cybermen, not to mention Inferno, rather imply that various alt-Earths inexplicably survive sans Doctor. Though for obvious reasons I find this distinctly unbelievable.

Unless Ace really was supposed to be the Whore of Babylon...

She certainly is in the NAs, not to mention the PDAs...Of course, on-screen Ace's boyfriends always turn out to be hideous traitors and/or die horribly before she has a chance to prove to them that she's not a little girl...

Why did Ace bother to come up with such a stupid fake name if the Doctor was just going to call her Ace anyway? Why not use her real name?

Because she hates 'Dorothy' and has no idea whether her surname is 'Gale' or 'McShane'...?

It's like Fang Rock - no-one's gonna pin THAT one on the Doctor.

Except Rodney, obviously...

Cartmel in DWM: 'It's my best Doctor Who book and my best shot, and it also has a built-in elegiac quality. If it does indeed have to be the last in the series, I think it's a worthy capstone' - how can ANYONE be so SPECTACULARLY WRONG on ALL COUNTS?

'"I need to find out about this Doctor bird," said Butcher impatiently' - BIRD? The Doc's not a woman. Yet.

'At least I know enough to know I haven't got the first clue [about the Doctor]' - well Ace bloody well SHOULD have a few clues, by now.

The Doc's too stupid to remember he should be calling Ace 'Acacia'?

'"I thought it was not only a gripping thriller but a devastating portrait of labour relations in America." "A portrait of what?" said Ace. "Labour relations." "Sounds like something that goes on in a maternity ward"' - Ace MUST have, by this point (whenever-the-hell this point IS amidst the NAs, PDAs and audios) encountered some, y'know, WORKERS with labour relations problems...? (Weren't there some such creatures in Happiness Patrol, for starters?)

Why is Ace so obsessed, humiliated, blushing, tearful, wanting-to-make-a-run-for-it etc etc etc about her sodding costume? She seemed pretty immune to worrying-over-social-norms during her time on-screen and if she's suddenly developed the concept of EMBARRASSMENT, she has quite a lot of clothes in her luggage she could, y'know, CHANGE INTO BEFORE THE PARTY...

'"Uranium?" said Ace. "So the Manhattan Project wasn't about renovating the architecture of New York?" The Doctor shook his head. "Regrettably not. It was about building the atom bomb"' - he didn't think to mention SOONER that he n'Ace had come here to BUILD BOMBS TO SLAUGHTER HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI??

The Doc has 'the most ordinary of boxer shorts' - no question marks?!

'The comments written in the margin were things like Excellent. Vivid. Sharp. Hilarious! Wickedly subversive! Concise and beautiful. Verging on the profound' - blimey, those must be some pretty wide margins.

'The doors and windows were all open and the warm breeze from the mesa blew through, thankfully dispersing the incredible toxic miasma of cigarette smoke that greeted Ace, causing her eyes to water' - so not thankfully dispersed AT ALL then.

'Ace had seen a documentary about Hiroshima' - which had somehow failed to mention the words 'Manhattan Project'?

'Some kind of depressing classic garbage' 'Ace winced at the loud, loathsome pomposity of the classic music' 'as much as she loathed the classical music' - ALRIGHT WE GET THE MESSAGE ACE HATES CLASSICAL MUSIC. Look, I don't want a repeat of Year of the Pig's Peri Loves Proust! fiasco, but do you HAVE to play up Ace's working-class credentials to SUCH a cliched, classist extent? Oh, and she seemed to care passionately about classical music in the Nocturne audio...

'"I understand," [Kitty Oppenheimer] said, her eyes gleaming wickedly. "He's like a father to you." "No. More like a combination of best friend, teacher and comrade in arms," said Ace.' - Well thank the gods for their mercy...(After Evelyn came over all 'her friend, her father, her life itself, never-ending perfection' about THE SIXTH DOCTOR I'm a bit paranoid.)

'You do know who the Nazis are?' - since when has the Doctor denigrated her/his Strays to such an extent? Also, didn't Seven n'Ace MEET Nazis in Timewyrm: Exodus, Colditz, Illegal Alien, not to mention neo-Nazis in Remembrance, Silver Nemesis...

Why are Ace and the Doctor happy to (drunkenly and therefore presumably loudly) discuss future-events like the atom-bombing of Nagasaki IN PUBLIC? When they KNOW they're being spied on, to boot...

Funny that the Protect and Survive audio doesn't get mentioned when Ace is thinking about the consequences of nuclear war - y'know, the story where she LIVES THROUGH THE AFTERMATH OF A NUCLEAR WAR.

To be continued...

'Ace felt sorry for [Oppenheimer]. She tried to imagine what it was like having the weight of such decisions on your shoulders, and her mind shied away from the concept' - oh FFS like SHE hasn't had the weight of planets on her shoulders, she's a COMPANION.

WOULD Ace be thinking in terms of CDs not tapes *checks* Yup, it's sign-my-tape in Silver Nemesis...

'Several couples began to dance. Even the Doctor was swaying' - what's so surprising about the Seventh Doctor dancing? He's not NINE, he's ice-hot for an old one!

'Oppy's old flame was deeply involved in radical politics and under her influence Oppy drifted into similar circles. Since his marriage to Kitty, however, he has foresworn any such associations. Fortunately for the US government.' 'Why fortunately?' - how thick IS Ace? Does she think the US Government would want their atomic bombs in the hands of a Communist?

'She was upset by the terrible experience. Her knees began to tremble and her stomach felt loose and queasy' - should Ace be so upset at being shot at a bit - after YEARS with the Doctor?

Ace 'was fed up, had sore feet and generally felt like crying. She had been shot at, seen a dead rat and received a mash note from a detestable boffin' - what's a mash note? Unless it's really really bad she shouldn't be reduced to TEARS. She's ACE.

Why is Ace slagging Ray off as a spy...in front of Ray?

'His right-handed counterpart from an alternate universe lived in the twenty-first century' - alt-unis have RULES. None of which involve getting your double born decades after you are. Given you're the same person, and all.

'If he busted an axle out here it would mean a long walk back to the Hill and, worse, missing out on any chance of catching up with the Doctor' - A LONG WALK? It's A DESERT. It was several hours' driving in a jeep from said Hill, surely he'd be DEAD OF THIRST long before making it back?

'Peyote is unique among these plants in being considered to be utterly evil. The only corresponding evil to be found among the animals [sic] spirits is the owl' - what the hell is wrong with owls! Has Paul Cornell seen this?!

'"Are they going to probe him?" said Ace eagerly..."it's the done thing, isn't it, with UFOs?"' - shouldn't she be a UFO EXPERT by now? And none of 'em probe you in the Whoniverse (King of Terror aside).

Why bother dragging the Major aboard the ship? And pretending he's having hallucinations? Come to that, why would THE DOCTOR bother with this ship and its stupid pointless jellyfish?

'The most dangerous part of our mission is yet to come' - well, your 'mission' so far hasn't been particularly dangerous, give or take all that cigarette smoke and, OK, so a cook did take a pot-shot at you...

'"Time loop?" said Ace. "Yes, exactly"' - er, nipping back in time is absolutely not a time loop.

'The Doctor had forced him. That little limey weasel. Well, he'd deal with him' ''It was all the Doctor's fault. He would deal with the Doctor' ''He was going to nail that little bastard good' - yeah, it's a stupid risk for the Doctor to •••• Butcher off so completely, capturing him and feeding him fake-drugs for absolutely no reason. (Not that it actually has any unpleasant CONSEQUENCES for the Doc, not-particularly-convincingly.)

To be continued...

what's a mash note? Unless it's really really bad she shouldn't be reduced to TEARS. She's ACE.

From Webster dictionary: The meaning of MASH NOTE is a usually sentimental or effusive note or letter expressing affection for the recipient.

I'll let you decide if it's bad enough to reduce someone to tears.

The guy in question definitely isn't the type you want love-letters from but, at the risk of repeating myself, this is ACE. Hitting him with a baseball bat would surely be a more natural reaction than crying.

Hitting him with a baseball bat would surely be a more natural reaction than crying.

Even decades and decades later...

'"They're all coloured fellows of course." "Of course," said Ace. "So naturally they've got their own Pullman car." "Naturally," said Ace' - what, not DIE RACIST SCUMBAG! or anything?

Ace considers the Duke's 'considerable girth' to be the problem? Not his fanatical god-bothering?

Why bother wrapping the TARDIS to make it look like a parcel, for heaven's sake.

'There were trees and bushes all around, and these provided useful concealment for the incongruity of the blue police box' - again, what's with the Sexy-disguising obsession? Whatever happened to Eccy's 'No one'll even notice it'?

'"I always wanted to be in the FBI," said Ace' - well, why didn't she join the FBI rather than the Time Lord Academy then...

'"The Missus and I didn't know what kind of people they were when we started working here. Then by the time we found out..." "Don't castigate yourselves," said the Doctor. "You're making amends now"' - since when has SEVEN of all Doctors been so understanding? In one of THIS WRITER'S other novels he practically MURDERS a cleaning lady with words because she knew what was going on in the offices she was cleaning... (Warhead)

The Doctor can't wriggle out of being tied to a chair? When EVERY Doctor obsesses endlessly about her/his good friend Harry Houdini...?

'How long have I been out?' 'Almost twenty-four hours' - and yet Ace isn't dying to go to the loo...?

'The energy liberated by the destruction of this universe will cause a wave of change to sweep the multiverse so that Japan will be swept to victory in every other dimension...She will be triumphant, supreme and serene and beautiful throughout every level of existence' - um, and WHY would said energy be so...pro-Japanese, exactly? Move over Professor Zaroff, I think we have a decisive winner in the Craziest Motivationless Maniac category...

'She is a woman. She is not required to make the ultimate sacrifice' - but every other woman in THIS UNIVERSE...is?

'We've discovered that the duplicates are drawn to their otherworldly brothers....drawn inexorably to us by links of blood and energy and fate' - that would certainly explain quite a few alt-uni 'coincidences'.

'When in close proximity the doubles create a cosmic disturbance, one that threatened to send Lee and Silk back to their home world' - well I didn't notice THAT happening with, say, Mickey n'Ricky in Rise of the Cybermen...

Why does the Doctor spend ages desperately signalling to Ace when he doesn't actually need her to DO anything?

'"Teller will become the 'father of the hydrogen bomb'...And I hoped all that could be avoided." "If you could have changed his mind?" "Yes, if I only could have convinced him his chain reaction was impossible"' - so the ENTIRE POINT of this INCREDIBLY POINTLESS (if not-as-bad-as-I-remembered) novel was for the Doctor to CHANGE HISTORY in a distinctly unDoctorish fashion? AND HE FAILED?

You know, you didn't have to have to drag out your non-existent plot for 280 pages, should've taken a leaf (or forty) out of Paul Leonard books...