John Peel got the descriptions of the two factions of Daleks backwards.

Frankly, that would be the LEAST of my problems with this book.

I think I'd better leave it to the Twelfth Doctor to come up with a synopsis, since mine would consist mainly of 'LIES! LIES! BLASPHEMY! HOW DARE HE!!!' And you certainly have got to read more Who books...why should I be the only one to suffer?

Why such a love/hate relationship with the Doctor, Emily? Or should I say, with BBC Enterprises?

Well...my relationship with the BBC is easily explained. They are my greatest heroes - they gave me the Doctor (and the BBC World Service). And then they took him away again...EXTERMINATE! ANNIHILATE! DESTROY!

My relationship with the Doctor himself - I worship the ground he treads on. (Well, I would if he didn't make such a habit of treading on boring old Earth ground.) And I also despise him as a male chauvenist pig.

About the books in general - I didn't mean it about the suffering, honest. Most of them are OK, and a few are brilliant. It's just that, although I'm a bookworm, Doctor Who will always mean television for me, and anything else is a very inadequate substitute.

My relationship with John Peel, however, is more straightforward. Whilst struggling with whether Virgin and BBC books are canon, I do NOT need someone playing God and declaring that all the Dalek stories from Destiny onwards are fakes. I don't mind having my beliefs shaken up sometimes, but this is going way too far. And it's stupid, too. Even if Davros did mistake some other planet for Skaro, that doesn't explain why the Doctor managed to wrongly program the Hand of Omega.

Twelfth Doctor - I've been reading Andrew Vogel's review of this book, on the Terminus website

http://www.erols.com/vogel1/

(Excellent site! Go there NOW!)

And he said the same as you - that in Remembrance the Imperial Daleks served Davros, but here they served the Dalek Prime. John Peel's response was that 'I did it...to show that Davros was lying in the earlier stories. But also because the Dalek Prime is going to evolve (over several stories, probably) into the Dalek Emperor from "Evil". It's foreshadowing.'

Um...does this clarify things at all?

John Peel just has too much time on his hands. I wish he would stop reminding us how cool the Daleks are, because they're not! Bring on the Cybermen!

Whatever anyone says about this book, bad continuity or otherwise, it still made a bloody good read. Better than any of that Vampire rubbish. This book has restored my faith in the BBC books, and I may have to get hold of some more.

The only really annoying thing about this book was the faction mixup.

It did bugger up a lot of Dalek history, but then it isn't made very clear if the Dalek Prime is telling the truth. And its good to see Davros finally getting bumped off. They even wiped the transporter buffer, sorry the disintigrator thing.

The Cybermen are good until you actually watch some of their stories ;-). Ok, the Invasion and Earthshock are quite good, but Silver Nemesis and Tenth Planet are rubbish. The rest are ok.

But basically this book is a fun read that pays little or no attention to continuity. This is more like Doctor Who!

P.S. Is the other Dalek novel any good? Oh yeah and is John Peel the same John Peel that is a radio 1 DJ, just out of vague interest.

Edje, I always knew you had weird tastes. But for War of the Daleks to restore your faith in BBC books...well...let's just say you're unique. But don't let that stop you reading all the other BBC books. Starting with Alien Bodies and Seeing I.

Legacy of the Daleks - well, it's better than War of the Daleks. What isn't? I'm not convinced that Earth would have fallen so quickly into feudalism after the dalek invasion, but it makes for interesting reading.

I'm not saying its the best book ever, or even particularly good. Its just fun to read. It's sort of in keeping with Doctor Who tradition- style over content. Vampire Science just seemed not to be Doctor Who. If I were to be cynical (perish the thought) I might say that it is like the telemovie in that respect. One of the main problems with Vampire Science was that the plot was almost too convulated, trying to pack too much in. It wasn't particularly clear about what the plot was about.

Anyway, you all think I'm delusional, so I'll be off.

Curse you gran for making me wear this jumper this way!

I see Vampire Science as straightforward, traditional Who - apart from it being set in America, of course :(. The Doctor, his companion, and UNIT fight to prevent blood-sucking monsters taking over. The Doctor wants to convert them, the military to kill them; the Doctor saves the day by fooling most of the vampires into killing themselves. How much more traditional can you get?

By the way...how ARE you wearing your jumper?

Yeah, well I'll never liike Vampire Science, ever, ever. I can think of only one reason right now, the Vampires are a bit rubbish. They seem to be trying to be 'modern' vampires (like Ultraviolet, which was dead good, whatever anyone says) only ending up just as boring villians. Maybe I'm comparing it to Goth Opera too much. Anyway.

About the jumper thing. If you get the reference and are being pedantic then I'm not actually wearing a jumper, however if you don't get the reference, then why haven't you:

"Wake up, get out of bed, put on your clothes, another day is dawning
Turn on your TV. It's time to watch This Morning
With Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiichard, not Judy.

For better or worse, it's live not rehearsed
Made for no money. Not very funny.
Please welcome your hosts, they are called Rich and Stu
They have no idea, so let's see how they do
On This Morning with Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiichard, not Judy!"

Anyway. You've just missed the last in the series. If you have no idea what I'm going on about or what it has to do with Doctor Who, then check my posting in the Who News section.

"I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe!"

I take everything back. All that effort spent trying to track down a copy of this b*****d, only to find that the memory does indeed cheat.

Ben Aaronovitch doesn't understand the Daleks, according to nice Mr. Peel. Well, I'm surprised Mr. Peel understands the concept of language.

Well that's what you get for reading books far too quickly.

Oh and Legacy of the Daleks is w**k too.

I'm still trying to sort out the Dalek Prime's extremely complicated plan. He went to all the trouble of creating a fake Skaros, leaked info about the Hand of Omega, allowed dozen of killcruisers to be destroyed, all to find Davros' supporters?

Edje, where does this fall in the chrnonology? I figured about 10 years after "The Dalek Master Plan."

I heard somewhere that it was set just priot to 'Masterplan'. Don't quote me on it though, this is from a rather hazy memory.

And no, John Peel the Destroyer is not the same as John Peel the DJ

The prologue has someone thinking about his friend Marc Cory which gives an idea of the date.

Cue posts of outrage from Emily ( ) but I quite liked it. It's the first book in which Sam isn't annoying which immediately makes it better than any of the previous ones. The Dalek plot (and counterplot and the plot after the counterplot and the one after that - and the Dalek in the TARDIS) does go on a bit long and get uneccesarily convoluted but the book moves along at such a decent clip that it can be forgiven. I kept thinking it would make a great big budget B-grade movie.

I was on rec.arts.drwho around the time this book was still being written. Some very bitter arguments abounded and JP copped a lot of undeserved abuse. It's a shame he didn't write more for the range.

No it bloody isn't! He had MORE than enough chances with Genesys, War and Legacy (of the Daleks, obviously) and he screwed them up. How many people were put off the NAs by that mediocre little Genesys? How many innocent members of the public thought 'Ooh, Daleks!' and bought their first (and, thanks to Peel, last) Who book? Oh, and then there was that worthless Evolution, but I don't hold it against him, honest, it was an MA and therefore couldn't help being a waste of space.

If War of the Daleks hadn't gone on so bloody long it might almost have been enjoyable in a rubbish-but-fun kind of way - like Warmonger or Independence Day - but as it is, boredom is added to its list of crimes.

Boredom didn't come into it when I was reading it, unlike quite a few others books. I think it was because the story was linear; there weren't a multitude of characters; there weren't numerous multipage infodumps; the characters changed in response to their environment; Sam wasn't annoying; the author never gave the impression of trying to show how clever he was; the Doctor wasn't blumming emoting all over the place; and the Daleks were given some credibility again.

As a book it's like a good 50mph drive in the middle line which survives better than all the inexperienced authors trying for 100mph and frequently crashing.

the author never gave the impression of trying to show how clever he was

He attempted to retcon Destiny, Resurrection, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks!!! If THAT'S not trying to be clever, I don't know what is! (Not that clever is the first word that pops into MY head whilst reading this thing, but I can just picture that smug look on the Peel creature's face.)

But OK, I have to agree there are a LOT more boring Who books out there. *Much embittered glaring in the direction of Parasite*

He attempted to retcon Destiny, Resurrection, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks!!! If THAT'S not trying to be clever, I don't know what is!

That's just bad plotting (helped by Terry Nation only giving him permission to write the book on the basis that the retcom happened). The 'overly clever' stuff consists of techniques such as the stream-of-consciousness (usually in italics) writing; unsubtle links to other stories that add nothing to the current one; books where the story is shoehorned into the writing style rather than growing from it; and those where a single idea is meant to dazzle you with such brilliance that it hopes you don't realise that the book is in fact rubbish. Most of the books suffer from at least one of those problems but that doesn't condemn it like those whose authors tend to suffer from at least two of those in every book. JM, PL, JB and ML I'm looking in your direction...

Terry Nation did that?! I had no idea. OK, I remove SOME of the guilt from the Peel creature's shoulders. Though he should have just told Nation to bog off. This isn't the TV series, Daleks aren't totally necessary to our happiness and well-being, and anyway, Benny's Dalek dream in Also People was approximately fifty billion times better than War and Legacy combined.

Jim Mortimer is obviously guilty as charged, but what crimes did Paul Leonard commit? (I have slight problems remembering ANYTHING about his books afterwards.) And I'll ignore the 'JB' as obviously being part of your Vampire Science vendetta (been to a Sydney Tav, yet, btw?). But who's 'ML'...?

Miles Lawrence, of course. I suspect Graham is baiting you, given your love of all (okay, most) things Lawrence.

ML is someone Emily has frequently torn into rags...

I ASSUMED it was Lawrence, I was just preparing to rip Graham into a thousand little pieces and jump on the pieces, when I luckily noticed the initials happened to be the wrong way round.

Mick Lewis! Of course, I wouldn't have thought of him in a list of authors, owing to the fact he's not an author, he's a festering pile of ****, and his abominations are not BOOKS, they're just pretending to be books by dressing up in paper and print and things.

Huh. Skaro's alive and well in the Blood of the Daleks computer game. SOMEONE has obviously been reading War of the Daleks...

'John Peel has published entire books devoted to the sole task of re-establishing this story as the true end of the Daleks...' - TARDIS Eruditorum re Evil of the Daleks - after pointing out that at the end of Evil Maxtible says that Daleks will never die, AND there's a lone survivor, AND Terry Nation was launching his Dalek spin-off series.

'...and has opted to inanely retcon huge swaths of the television series in pursuit of this task...to go to such lengths to preserve a supposed point, which self-evidently isn't actually in the episode...makes War of the Daleks even dumber than it had originally appeared' - oh. Usually I'm quite gleeful on such occasions, but honestly, War was QUITE dumb enough already, thanks.

DOCTOR: 'How did you get [Skaro] back?' DAVROS: 'The Daleks, they made it' - HA! Take THAT, War of the Daleks!

And we all know Davros never lies, Emily

Having just re-read it I still stand by my comments from a dozen years ago. Slows a bit in the second half but an enjoyable romp overall. Like a lot of books in the ranges at that time it is noticeable when read now how awkwardly some pop culture references were shoehorned in. The only one that stuck out here was 'singing Daleks would sound even worse than the Spice Girls' but there's more books from initialed authors (mentioned above) to be re-read and I'm sure they'll be bringing an industrial strength shoehorn.

And we all know Davros never lies, Emily

Well, if Davros DID lie, what was his motive? And when you're trying to manipulate the Doctor into doing something insanely generous for you, would it be wise to lie when he'll probably catch you out? And if War of the Daleks HAD happened, why would the Doctor OR the Master be surprised that Skaro's here? (Admittedly if Asylum of the Daleks had happened, why would the Doctor be surprised that Skaro's here, but, um, never mind.)

'She didn't really need to know that there were exactly six hundred and thirty-eight Daleks advancing' - 638!! When ONE DALEK can wipe out Utah (Dalek) or Arcadia (Last Day)...

'She tried not to think that they were statistically bound to lose at least two-thirds of the squad in this fight. Since most of them were in their first fight, those were the likeliest casualties' - um...has it never occurred to the Thals to just INVENT ROBOTS to fight wars for 'em, or something? Devoting twenty years to rearing-your-own-cannon-fodder seems...a poor use of resources.

'Electronic death splashed harmlessly off her hardened armour. It was built so that it could withstand direct fire' - genius! Why did the Time Lords never think of hardened armour...

'The Special Weapons Daleks must have fired at the launcher and destroyed it' - and didn't think to do that SOONER?

'"It's all right, it's dead," he announced. "How can you be sure?" "Because we aren't." The Doctor gave her one of his chilling, penetrating stares. "If it were alive, we'd be smoking corpses by now"' - oh what rubbish, the Daleks NEVER exterminate you! Well, aside from Stolen Earth and Eve of the Daleks where luckily there are...interesting circumstances.

'"Harmon's down in bay eight," Chayn informed him. "He's guarding the pod, and says he's got a customer coming to collect it"' - that's an oddly euphemistic way of not-saying that HE OPENED FIRE ON HER.

'"The ship will be ours in minutes," she reported. "Shall I contact Harmon?"' - don't give your pet traitor's name away! You're not to know he's already blown his cover with all the shooting...

'I thought they were pacifists' - Doctor re Thals. After Planet of the Daleks?

'If you are the Doctor then you've changed again' - again? I don't think they REALISED he'd changed from one white-haired bloke to a different one in Planet Of...

'"We are what we must be. And what we are, you created." "I?" The Doctor frowned. "You were the one who taught us to fight, Doctor"' - actually that was Ian...

'Two humanoid species on one world... and the inevitable happened' - the Doctor's the LAST person in the universe to regard war as inevitable.

'The Thals, appalled by what they had done, and now knowing that the Daleks still lived, swore that they would never fight again' - what rubbish! Bettan knew PERFECTLY WELL she was sealing Daleks in that bunker when she...sealed that bunker.

The Doctor's 'a thousand, give or take a few weeks' - it hasn't been A FEW WEEKS since Set Piece! Also, he was a thousand and twelve in Vampire Science.

'I helped to destroy it' - Doctor re Skaro. Helped?!

'Alydon! Temmosus! Ganatus! I brought with me Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, and Susan!' - the Doc actually REMEMBERS the names of those ghastly Thals, all these centuries and regenerations later?

'"You've always managed to turn up when we've most needed you, haven't you?" He laughed' - um, no s/he bloody hasn't.

'Cathbad, open it up' - without taking any precautions?!

I don't recall any other SSS agents managing to act as if they're armies of one...?

'"Without strengths," the Doctor countered. "Without a future." He sneered. "Without a hope."' - sorry Doc but the Daleks are about to beat the hell outta the Time Lords in a universal Time War...

'You unleashed [the Hand of Omega's] power and destroyed your world and your army. You're powerless now' - it didn't occur to the Doctor that there were plenty of Daleks not on Skaro at the time?

'This war of theirs with the Daleks has dragged on for centuries, maybe even millennia' - MAYBE? He can't honestly think it's only a few centuries since The Daleks?

'"No!" the Doctor snapped, starting forward. Harmon held up the rifle threateningly. The Doctor halted, his face torn by emotions. "Harmon, killing Davros won't solve anything."
"Wrong, Doctor." The man sighed. "It'll stop some of my worst nightmares. And he'll never cause the death of another living being"' - aaand yet again the Doc's just plain wrong. Even leaving aside the entire stupid novel being based on the premise of the Doctor's wrongness.

'Ayaka hung her head in shame. "I'm sorry, sir," she replied in a quiet voice. "I neglected to search them"' - there, there, dear. It's the Whoniverse, 90% of people who lock the Doctor up inexplicably fail to search him/her.

To be continued...

'Ayaka hung her head in shame. "I'm sorry, sir," she replied in a quiet voice. "I neglected to search them"' - there, there, dear. It's the Whoniverse, 90% of people who lock the Doctor up inexplicably fail to search him/her.

A thought occured. Aren't Timelords mildly telepathic? Maybe the Doctor is subconsciously projecting "don't search me, don't search me" on the people who capture him/her, you know, a kind of natural perception filter? He/she may not even be aware of doing it.

Maybe the Doctor is subconsciously projecting "don't search me, don't search me" on the people who capture him/her

THAT is a brilliant idea, especially after Sky Pirates! made it perfectly clear that the Doc is happy to influence his Strays' minds ALL THE TIME.

And would really help explain why the Thals...lock the Doctor up with his sonic screwdriver AGAIN later in this very book...

'Ayaka caught Sam's look and said, "It is our traditional fighting costume, handed down from the time of our ancestors who first fought the Daleks"' - wrong! Bettan certainly wasn't wearing thong-leggings and Y-shaped tunics when SHE first fought the Daleks.

'This was totally unprecedented. In generations of warfare, the Daleks had never before demanded surrender. They simply annihilated all opposition or died trying' - that's weird, they usually enjoy a good surrender so they can make you do some lovely digging. Maybe this doesn't apply to Thals? Except the Daleks were happy enough to just lock 'em up in Planet Of... 'What was going on?' - Er...they want Davros back alive? Just a wild guess...

'All we have to do is to get out of this cell and we've as good as escaped' - er...providing you don't bump into any Daleks/traitors on your way to the TARDIS, of course. And d'you mean you'd just leave Davros behind for the Daleks to rescue? Tom was prepared to cold-bloodedly execute Davros in Destiny rather than let that happen, and even DAVISON grew a spine for long enough to wave a dirty great gun in Davros's face rather than let that happen...

'We can't hold out much longer. If we don't surrender, they will destroy us. And if we do, then we'll be slaves for however long we live...I can't decide, Ayaka. What should I do?' - Thals aren't trained for the whole death-before-dishonour thing? Also, JUST KILL DAVROS first and worry about the death/slavery choice afterwards, moron.

'Of course, as soon as they realise who I am, the Daleks will exterminate me. It's their standing orders' - since WHEN! (Alright, so there were Stolen Earth and Eve of the Daleks, but there were fifty billion OTHER times when the Daleks...resisted temptation at the sight of the Oncoming Storm.)

'Ayaka had saved the ship - but condemned the Doctor to death' - whereas he'd've survived the ship getting blown to smithereens?!

Draconian ears turn yellow with pleasure? Draconians measure time in units? Not nits, just a reminder to self to keep my (non-yellow) ears and eyes open...

'"Surely the Daleks have not developed mercy?" He almost spat the word out. "No," the Red Dalek acknowledged' - not sure how this fits in with Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar, but then I'm not sure how that fits in with anything...

'The trial is of the entire Dalek species' - er...?

'I may have been instrumental in killing millions of people, and that's something that my soul couldn't bear' - SOUL? You should listen to the Reverend Magister on this topic. And anyway, you bear the whole mass-slaughter thing JUST FINE in New Who.

'Destroying that planet was probably the most difficult decision I've ever had to make in my entire life' - what rubbish Doc, you were cheerily taunting Davros about rice pudding as you did it...

'Daleks have no interest in anything but conquest and war. Art, decoration, poetry, music - it's all irrelevant to them' - what a lie, look at that lovely statue Ian blasphemously toppled down a liftshaft...

Everyone's just assuming the Daleks are politely not bugging their cells as they plot their escape.

'Once we are free, we will return to our ship' - and, what, just HOPE the Daleks don't shoot it down?

Dalek Prime: '"As a matter of precaution, we scanned the records for anything relating to Daleks...there were entries relating to two previous human contacts with the Daleks." "The Styles business and the Hand of Omega," said the Doctor' - HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Not the time millions of 'em fought Cybermen in the skies above London? The time they moved Earth to the Medusa Cascade? The time they killed the Prime Minister when she tried to make 'em her security drones?

'The Doctor learned over to whisper to Sam, "That was the work of my last incarnation. He wiped most references to me from the computer records. He was a paranoid chap at times, but then often with good reason"' - I'd complain about how stupidly unconvincing this is, if only we hadn't seen the Doc actually DO this in World War Three.

To be continued...

'"In other words, you murdered the lot of them." The Doctor glared angrily at his foe' - shouldn't he be overcome with joyous relief that HE hadn't murdered the lot of them?

Contrary to War of the Daleks' claims, the Movellan v Dalek war seemed pretty real (The Pilot)...

And the HUMANS thought that Skaro was, y'know, Skaro (Destiny of the Daleks)...

And it was Mark Seven who created the Movellans, not the Daleks...(Dalek Universe)

'You are gambling on this revolution failing so that you can eliminate the rebels and purify your race for you. But what if it succeeds?' - yeah, this whole thing is a TERRIBLE idea, just exterminate Davros already!

Why doesn't the Dalek Prime realise the Doctor is a far greater threat to Dalek supremacy than Davros, and just exterminate HIM already?

'The Daleks were quite likely to be monitoring the room' - oh, NOW you think of this!

'Davros's own carriage' - he thinks of it as a CARRIAGE not a chair?

Davros is insisting that he - oops! - destroyed Skaro whilst simultaneously insisting that Davros Knows Best?

'Davros was always a monster' - how would you KNOW, Doc?

'This is Professor Rachel Jensen, recording for Military Intelligence' - not for the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group?

'The Dalek Prime could not afford to allow Davros the opportunity to escape. This civil war had to end here and now, one way or the other...If Davros were to flee, everything the Dalek Prime had planned for would be for nothing' - gosh, you mean your brilliant let's-have-a-civil-war-it'll-be-fun! plan isn't working out too well? Colour me ASTONISHED.

'"Almost everything they've got will be coming at us if they don't fall for this." "Then start praying that they fall," the Doctor suggested' - or you could all just get into Sexy instead of trying this PRAYING thing.

'"An escape attempt from the Dalek home world, where their greatest power is concentrated?" the Doctor countered. "We should never had been able to escape"' - come off it Doc you're ALWAYS escaping. Except when you're JODIE!, obviously.

Look, are we supposed to CARE whether Davros or the Dalek Prime/Gold Dalek/whatever wins a sodding Dalek civil war?

About time the Doctor thought of using Sexy to scan the Thal ship. Pity he's still behaving half-wittedly, thinking she's too sophisticated for the Daleks to muck about with AND thinking they won't be able to get in even though he dismantled the lock.

'It's the Odysseus Stratagem. The Trojan Horse. The Daleks have hidden a complete factory ship inside this craft' - it was YOUR stratagem not Odysseus's you mass-murdering hypocrite.

'Potentially an entire army of Daleks. That's what we're taking back to Thal space!' - so get the Thals inside the TARDIS and blow up their ship, no biggie.

Daleks' transdimensional engineering is 'a lot cruder, taking a lot more power and with inherent instabilities' than the Time Lord version? Didn't notice THAT in The Chase?

'Once it reaches its target, it begins operations and starts churning out fresh Daleks to begin their wars all over again when everyone assumes that they're dead' - look, we're talking THALS not VULCAN COLONISTS, they'd probably NOTICE...

And why would everyone assume all the Daleks are dead? Presumably SOME would emerge victorious from a Dalek Civil War, even if Troughton foolishly assumed they wouldn't in Evil...

'Davros's forces were slowly, yet certainly, being decimated' - only decimated?

Oops, just found a few more notes mislaid in the Sam section...

How is the Doctor so sure THIS is the factory ship from Power of the Daleks?

'You have lost, Davros. Your folly has taken part of the Dalek race with you. But we who survive are stronger for it' - no you're not. Cretin.

Since when do DALEKS have a chameleon circuit?

'The Dalek was trying to decide which of them to go for first' - so much for the supposed standing orders to EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR!

'She realised that the Dalek was working its way down towards the alien altar at the far end' - Sexy has an ALTAR? To whom, THE DOCTOR?

'For a split second, she stared into the barrel that held her death. And then the Doctor leapt from hiding, scooping up the screwdriver and slapping it against the Dalek's dome' - all in a split second? I'm not buying it.

'You just sit down and I'll make you a nice cup of tea to steady your nerves. I'm going to repair the lock before I do anything else' - so which ARE you doing first? Tea or lock?

'The Daleks won't simply give up, you know. If you stay with me, I think I can guarantee you a return match some day' - that's a lie, he'd mislaid her before Legacy of the Daleks.