The Coming of the Queen:

Rather enjoyable, but suffers numerous lapses in logic and characterisation. And is rather too obsessed by breasts. And completely ignores Roof of the World, but then that's the only sensible reaction to Roof of the World.

'I suppose it is my fault for teaching you how to use the sword and spear. Your father would not approve' - so why did Antranak do something he knew would displease his Living God? Especially as 'She saw Antranak stiffen with discomfort as he always did when she spoke of her father as being anything less than perfect...she knew that if she had been anyone else, Antranak would have long since sent her to the House of Pain to have those thoughts burned from her.' (And why's Erimem so damned fond of the torture-happy maniac anyway?)

If the Pharaoh's so 'warm' and 'genial' how come he doesn't even acknowledge the existence of his daughter and second son when he arrives home from battle? Or for WEEKS AFTERWARDS?

Antranak is interrogating Erimem? And openly questioning her word?

The Pharaoh's eldest son has 'already selected' several wives including a queen. Yet has somehow failed to marry ANY of them? Despite having THREE younger siblings of marriagable age? ('All my children are past an age when they should have been married' says the Pharaoh, helpfully. He just doesn't say WHY.)

Why all this anguish about Mentu having to marry Miral instead of the woman he loves? When his father and elder brother - and, it's later clear, HE - can have NUMEROUS wives?

So the Pharoah was perfectly happy about his eldest son marrying a relatively lowly-born woman for love? AND would have let his second son marry a merchant's daughter had said son bothered to ask him before he was betrothed elsewhere?

Erimem didn't bother talking to Miral EARLIER?

'Desperate to join her father on a lion hunt' - she WOULDN'T! Erimem LOVES cats!

'He served under me in the regular army before following me here. And I persuaded him to join me here. I am as guilty in his death as if I had stabbed him myself' - with logic like THAT it's a wonder Antranak hasn't TOPPED himself with guilt at all the men under his command who've got killed over the decades.

Erimem's never been to the Necropolis before? Though it's just across the river? And it's got a nice temple at which her friend works? And she's a death-obsessed Egyptian?

'I have done nothing useful in my life so far' - really? Maybe she should have tried charitable works like she admired her eldest brother's fiancee for doing, or something.

'When she had returned to the palace and heard of Thutmose's accident, Erimem had forgotten the attempt on her own life' - sure, who WOULDN'T forget SWIMMING FOR THEIR LIFE MILLIMETRES AHEAD OF KILLER CROCODILES WHILE HER SERVANTS WERE RIPPED TO PIECES...once they heard that a brother they didn't know or like had got himself killed?

And why doesn't Antranak investigate it, at least?

'I will not go to war with the Nubians without proof of their guilt' - how sweet the Pharaoh is. He was prepared to go to war with ANY nation in the world who failed to send a big enough pressie for his son's funeral, but when it comes to the same son's MURDER, well, OBVIOUSLY he has STANDARDS...

Yeah, not really convinced by this whole handmaidens-spying-on-murderer instead of just GOING TO ANTRANAK thing.

Why is Erimem using a fishing pole to fight instead of her DAGGER?

Why has Miral got her own (unarmed!) native bodyguards, anyway?

Where are Erimem's and Mentu's bodyguards when they're being attacked?

To be continued...

'Desperate to join her father on a lion hunt' - she WOULDN'T! Erimem LOVES cats!

Well, lions are NOT cats, they are lions. Different beasts.

Nonsense! Of course they're just part of one big happy fluffy feline family!

The Pharaoh casually offers his only daughter to his faithful soldier old enough to be her father? HE casually suggests the Pharaoh marry her off to her brother instead, to 'keep the line pure'? The Pharaoh casually AGREES? If he was so keen on sibling marriages, why not think of this earlier? Why is there no suitable foreign house? 'I wouldn't taint our blood-line with most of them' - well, you're tainting it with your heir's Mitanni wife, aren't you? The one your OWN DAUGHTER will now be coming SECOND to?

EVERY SINGLE ONE of Erimem's maids decides to risk a brutal death to protect a fellow maidservant accused of the vilest treachery? Alright, so it turns out she was innocent, but her story was incredibly thin, and even if everyone inexplicably believed it, why would they risk their lives for her? AND why would they need to remove all Erimem's wigs/make-up/clothes for the next day from the wardrobe rooms in order to hide her there? THEY'D'VE been the ones to go in there to fetch them the next day (the Pharaoh's daughter surely doesn't fetch her own wig), so having them laying around Erimem's bedroom merely tipped her off.

So Erimem gives Hanek a statue to sell, not some coins. I guess that means they realised their mistake in Eye of the Scorpion.

Rather sloppy proofreading throughout. Especially when getting Antranak confused with Amenhotep.

I'm quite surprised the Pharaoh agrees to bring both his daughter and his daughter-in-law to the battle - and then leaves them with one charioteer apiece to guard them.

'He was confident, determined and completely at ease. His mood would have been very different if he had known that just before sunset on that day, his youngest son Teti had been forced back to bed by another wave of the fever' - no it wouldn't. He didn't give a toss about his half-witted youngest son.

'When Miral eventually became queen of the Mitanni' - what made them think the Mitanni would accept a female ruler? Sure, all her brothers were dead but Erimem had immense trouble claiming HER throne even though this was also the case with her. And if she was his only heir, why the hell would her father seek to buy peace with Egypt by offering her as a servant? As HE was the one constantly provoking the battles he lost, why not just try not provoking Egypt first? Sure, they had this secret plan to use her to slaughter most of the royal family but THAT was insanely risky - for starters, murdering Teti SHOULD have led to weeks of mourning that would have resulted in the Egyptian soldiers NOT being roaring drunk on the night the Mitanni staged their take-over.

Blimey, Erimem's mum is a total non-entity, just as she was in Eye of the Scorpion. It would probably have been better to have her dead than alive but so non-existent - and so little cared about by her daughter.

Mentu was stung by FOUR lethal cobras but still very nearly survived...?

When and why did Miral become an expert at fighting? It's stretching credulity enough for ONE king's daughter to be a warrior, let alone two.

'By now Hanek would have given birth to Mentu's child and that baby was the true heir' - I'm sorry? The Pharaoh's bastard grandchild by a serving-girl would take precedence over his only living child?

'But why should he run? He was a god...A god would never run from bandits' - with an attitude like THAT it's astonishing the Pharaoh lived so long.

Erimem has 'coffee-brown' skin? She certainly seems to in Blood and Hope, but she certainly doesn't on the cover...

Hmm. Guess I feel better about Fayum usurping the throne now that we know he and Erimem were best chums (not an impression I got from Eye of the Scorpion) and that he adopted her bastard nephew, thus restoring the true line (even though obviously as a republican I don't even BELIEVE in this 'true line' nonsense).

Ironic, isn't it? Erimem deserted her throne because the Doctor had never heard of a Pharaoh Erimem, and she decided to sacrifice everything to respect the Web of Time. Yet HERE the tomb of her three brothers has been unearthed - in a find richer than Tutankamun's tomb - that 'captivated the world's press for months'. And said tomb specifically mentions the Pharaoh Erimem. And yet the Earth-obsessed Doctor has never heard of it till now...

"And yet the Earth-obsessed Doctor has never heard of it till now..."

It's almost as if someone makes all this stuff up as they go along!

You know, Emily, I admire your devotion to these novels. They may be no longer canon, but at least they get lively discussion, mostly thanks to you.

I've posted a few times in the Star Trek Novels area at Nitcentral, but I've given up. I was just talking to myself there.

As I said, in most of Nitcentral, I feel like the guy who's arrived at the party long after most of the guests have left. Thank the dead gods of Krypton for you lot here in Doctor Who.

It's almost as if someone makes all this stuff up as they go along!

BURN THE BLASPHEMER!

You know, Emily, I admire your devotion to these novels. They may be no longer canon, but at least they get lively discussion, mostly thanks to you.

You're too kind. I just HAD to drag every thread on Nitcentral into the 2010s and once I'd more-or-less achieved that (curse Torchwood: Pack Animals! Still, I'll think of SOMETHING before the 23rd...) I noticed that the Novels only needed another 30 or so posts to reach an average of 13 posts each, so I promptly whipped out my pile of unread books and got stuck in. Frankly even I regard this as unmitigatedly sad.

Thank the dead gods of Krypton for you lot here in Doctor Who.

I'll thank you to thank the gods of Ragnarok. Or Sutekh. Or the White Guardian. Or (this being the books section) the goddesses Time, Death and Pain.

The Last Pharaoh:

'A man who should have ruled the world' - OK, Ibrahim's an Egyptian, but he's also a historian who should know that Egyptian Pharaohs, no matter how hard they pretended, never REALLY ruled the WORLD.

'If you are lying, I swear I will cut the tongue from your mouth and feed it to the jackals' - OK, so Erimem has (convenient) amnesia and has reverted to her pre-Doctor persona but I got the impression from Eye of the Scorpion that she was unusually NICE for an Egyptian royal and DIDN'T go round feeding people's tongues to jackals.

'She had been tracked through the ages' - only the ages? Not across space, all the way from Peladon where she'd settled down...?

Why doesn't Erimem ask about Helena before - like when Ibrahim's on the phone to her?

OK, if Erimem's ultra-convenient amnesia has ultra-conveniently lifted to allow her to remember her pre-Doctor life, why the hell is 'a place called America' chucked in there with all the battles and chariots and crowns and suchlike?

That machine-operating acolyte seems to have had a rather quick sex-change.

Why didn't the Roman soldiers loot the bodies of their fallen enemies?

'A bird, pecking at an eyeball...' 'He didn't flinch at the sight of a half-eaten eyeball...' - anyone else getting that warm fuzzy feeling that this is a REAL Doctor Who book after all? The bad proofreading and the eyeball-mutilation are unmistakable signs.

'If you don't remember why you were in the metal corridor, what do you remember before then?' 'Everything.' - But you DON'T. Which bit of 'I remember nothing at all of the time beyond the Battle of Giza' are you, well, not remembering?

'My brothers were raised to be pharaoh. I never wanted that life, and so I left Egypt' - no, you left COS THE DOCTOR OPENED HIS BIG GOB AND SAID YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE PHARAOH. How come you remember your decision but you don't remember HIM? (I mean, it's only the Davison Doctor, but still...)

'I am sorry, I do not know your name' says Erimem to Andy. Despite Andy introducing herself a few hours earlier and Erimem claiming to have an excellent memory (well, the non-amnesiac bits of it anyway).

'Our brothers are special to us. Sometimes we are more mother than sister to them' - an odd thing for an Egyptian princess to say - she narrowly escaped being WIFE to one of 'em.

'They reached for their cloaks' - it was clearly stated that only Ibrahim got a cloak, on the grounds that he was an old man.

Erimem didn't bother to measure their feet and they didn't have much money and surely their footwear wouldn't be THAT noticeable and they're not pretending to be natives so why the hell are they all wearing sandals? Presumably ill-fitting ones. When they may need to run fast at any time.

'Andy searched her memory for everything she could dredge up on the end of Cleopatra's reign. "She dies in Alexandria. I think it's maybe a year from now"' - wouldn't she think of the snake-suicide thing first and any other details later? And kudos for said details, I don't have the foggiest when n'where Cleopatra died and unlike this canteen worker I've got a history degree. And then there's her knowing that Thebes would have been Erimem's capital, and all...

'To you it's Mr Hadmani' - what the museum director doesn't even have a doctorate?

'I myself was hailed as the most beautiful woman in the world for half a year and then my successor became the most handsome man in the world and his principle wife the most beautiful woman' - well I don't remember anyone calling her beautiful in Eye of the Scorpion. A whole SIX MONTHS was spent arguing about Erimem's succession? That teenaged priest had multiple wives? Erimem knows all about her successor and his wives' despite the fact she scarpered in the TARDIS before he was crowned?

'Two thousand years after she died, Cleopatra was still being touted at [sic] this stunning beauty' - really? Unlike Andy I'm no expert but I've definitely read stuff suggesting she was pretty plain.

Gladiuses were 'razor-sharp'? I got the impression that swords in those days were more for bludgeoning your opponent with, that you couldn't get them particularly sharp?

To be continued...

Why didn't the Roman soldiers loot the bodies of their fallen enemies?

I was not aware that Roman soldiers had any misgivings about looting of any kind. Of course, most of it made its way to the empire's treasury but I'm sure they were allowed to take and keep "souvenirs" as they saw fit.

OK, if Erimem's ultra-convenient amnesia has ultra-conveniently lifted to allow her to remember her pre-Doctor life, why the hell is 'a place called America' chucked in there with all the battles and chariots and crowns and suchlike?

Even at its best, human memory has a tendency to mix up and embellish memories.

I was not aware that Roman soldiers had any misgivings about looting of any kind. Of course, most of it made its way to the empire's treasury but I'm sure they were allowed to take and keep "souvenirs" as they saw fit.

That's a point - even IF they'd had scruples about looting, they could have taken the purses of their fallen enemies to their bosses for the empire's treasury rather than leave them there for the locals (or, as it ultra-conveniently happens, Erimem) to loot. Should have taken the weapons as well rather than let Roman arms fall into local hands. (These are Mark Antony's men killing Augustus's. Or, um, vice-versa.)

'He is a eunuch. Other than her husband, no other kind of man would dare touch a Pharaoh' - haven't we already established that Cleopatra had lovers? (Doctor included, if you believe Mickey-the-Idiot.)

Isn't it a bit stupid to whip your slave while he's carrying all those jars? What d'you THINK is gonna happen?

Oh-kay. So Erimem surrenders her rightful throne to a usurper rather than upset the Web of Time...yet she's prepared to destroy said Web to save Cleopatra, even though a) she personally despises her and b) Cleopatra comes from the line of Pharaohs that overthrew HER family? OK, nothing should surprise me after she gets engaged to Dracula (Son of the Dragon), betrays the entire human race because a nasty alien makes her cry (Roof of the World), attempts to screw up the Web of Time for the sake of a minor Christian heresy (Council of Nicea) or marries a homicidal wimp of a Peladonian King (Bride of Peladon) but all the same...

'Having never seen guns before, the Egyptians had been surprised when some of their number had dropped dead for no apparent reason' - Erimem didn't think to WARN her new troops about this danger?

'Sorry. Forgot to mention that it seems to hurt like ••••' - how would Andy know? She saw Erimem dematerialise using the magic ring but all Erimem felt was it heat up and tighten on her finger and anyway she'd hardly have wept and wailed even if it HAD hurt like ••••.

'I was born when the historical records say I was born and I died when the records say I died. But I was also born another time and another place...' the really annoying thing about Erimem's magic granddad who's haunting her in a distinctly implausible and unWhoniversal way is that this stupidity is all so UNNECESSARY.

How can her illegitimate nephew have slipped Erimem's mind? And never entered the cult's minds? Even though HER BROTHER HAS A SON! was spelt out in hieroglyphs of one syllable on Erimem's tomb?

Why does Erimem think being slipped a magical dematerialisation ring as she's about to be sacrificed is a 'cruel joke'?

'Brave but not bright. A sword against a gun? That's never going to end well' - but he didn't KNOW the guy had a gun!

Mentu having a child is 'a line of history nobody knows anything about' - what, even though ERIMEM'S BROTHER'S SON is mentioned on her tomb and you're the guy so obsessed by said tomb you're in charge of its removal to England?

'"I'm done. I didn't want to try to come after you." He nodded angrily in Ibrahim's direction. "They forced me into it."' - How the hell would a half-dead man force a (comparatively) healthy young man to rescue Erimem?

'We have [blood from] three times which do not belong together. The universe will not allow such a thing to exist' - leaving aside the fact it's pretty risky to feed Ibrahim's blood to a creature-who-just-needs-Ibrahim's-blood-to-be-released...the Whoniverse can cope with a petty little thing like people being in the wrong places at the wrong times thanks to time-travel! Or it would have exploded/got eaten by Reapers eons ago.

So the priests just invented their magic-ring-time-travel? Or what?

'He had also been busy, making the most of having a powerful old family to get a birth certificate, passport and visa for his cousin from the Egyptian government' - wouldn't she need a British visa to stay in Britain?

So Erimem's Pharaoh grandfather fought and vanquished an all-powerful evil alien (without anyone noticing) who only Erimem can bring back from the darkness to rule the world?

I'm sorry, aren't we forgetting Roof of the World, in which Erimem's Pharaoh father fought and vanquished all-powerful evil aliens (without anyone noticing) who only Erimem can bring back from the darkness to rule the world?

Alright, there's a basic difference in that The Last Pharaoh is actually rather enjoyable and Roof of the World is a festering pile of ••••, but that's entirely beside the point.

The Coming of the Queen: why no mention of Erimem's death-mask in her tomb - the one that's described in The Last Pharaoh?

'I myself was hailed as the most beautiful woman in the world for half a year and then my successor became the most handsome man in the world and his principle wife the most beautiful woman' - isn't she forgetting 'Her beauty is eternal as the moon' carved on her tomb? So much for out of sight, out of mind.

Free Erimem Short Story

In Search of Doctor X:

It should be Professor X, not Doctor X, at least according to the novels which invented such a concept.

'I grew up in a palace surrounded by only the sweetest of smells' - I find that hard to believe, unless the guards you trained with bathed several times a day.

'It looks very cramped in [the police box],' Erimem said. 'There wouldn't be room for two people in one of those things.' - ouch. She really HAS lost her memory. I though she was supposed to be getting it back?

They REALLY didn't check the dates on their 1960s coinage before trying to use it in 1964?

Well, that was CONSDIERABLY better than those short stories the BBC site used occasionally to inflict on us in their advent calendar. Could have done with a proof-read, though.

Another Free Erimem Short Story!

Life on Mars on Mars:

'Red through dark hair'?

This Habitat seems at least as smart and powerful as Sexy, not to mention considerably more helpful. Which is just WRONG.

Doesn't Sarah Jane stop Mars probes spotting anything interesting? Like Ice Warrior Tombs or Bowie CDs?

So...Helena is a good and loyal friend of Erimem's who just (understandably) loves exploring space and time? There's nothing sinister about her behaviour at the end of The Last Pharaoh?

The Beast of Stalingrad:

'How bad must things be if they have to do something that •••• to their own people?' asks Andy, of the Soviet Union making the population of Stalingrad stay put during the siege. IT'S STALIN you cretin. He'd genocide his entire population soon as look at 'em.

'What do you want the wood for?' - which bit of 'No food, no fuel. The question was whether they're [sic] starve or freeze first' does Andy just not get...despite the fact SHE was the one bestowing this information?

And Andy didn't think to BRING FOOD to the siege of Stalingrad either, the imbecile.

Oh gods, now she's asking Erimem 'All that food you brought... how did you now to bring it?' when SHE WAS THE ONE WHO TOLD ERIMEM STALINGRAD WAS STARVING. (Mind you, Erimem replies 'Google?' so SHE seems to have forgotten this recent conversation too.)

Since when would a university start its term two weeks late just because its Vice Chancellor had dropped dead (been stabbed in the back while trying to destroy the universe. Whatever)?

'She didn't fit in, but how could she? I was amazed [Erimem] was doing as well as she was. Of course, punching a Fresher with wandering hands in the Students Union... it had taken some effort to smooth that one over' - firstly, why did Erimem merely punch him rather than break his arm like she did in a similar situation in The Kingmaker, secondly, why does Andy think smoothing the situation over is the thing to do rather than, say, call the police to report said Fresher for sexual assault whilst simultaneously expelling him?

'Depression? Or PTSD?' 'I don't think it's bipolar or PTSD' - he didn't mention bipolar!

'Yuri held out a pistol to Erimem' - but he gave her a pistol earlier! Did she give it back? Why?

'After a moment she hauled a toppled table a bit close to protect herself from the wind. Honestly. She was offering herself as some kind of monster's dinner but she was more worried about catching a cold' - right. Cos CATCHING A COLD is what you have to worry about, lying around for hours out of doors in the Russian winter.

'We'd been given one simple job to do and somewhere in the snow and rubble we'd screwed it up' - it's hardly SIMPLE, pursuing a super-fast, super-jumpy alien across a city without being spotted.

'I thought of using our rings to escape but Yuri and Isabella didn't have that option' - actually, Isabella DOES have a time-ring. Erimem keeps giving them to her for some reason.

'I couldn't imagine how Isabella felt. Tom could' - actually, I DON'T think that seeing your one-night-stand killed in front of you compares with blowing out the brains of your own beloved husband (plus three other innocent men) because they've been so hideously tortured and semi-eaten by aliens...

'How the hell did [Erimem] know anything about 1940s Russia?' - er...research?

firstly, why did Erimem merely punch him rather than break his arm like she did in a similar situation in The Kingmaker

Maybe she's learning to be more measured in her responses

why does Andy think smoothing the situation over is the thing to do rather than, say, call the police to report said Fresher for sexual assault whilst simultaneously expelling him?

That would qualify more as sexual harassment, a notion that did not exist in Russia at the time. Heck, I don't think it exists there TODAY.

Maybe she's learning to be more measured in her responses

Ah, but she's (apparently) suffering from (ultra-convenient) amnesia that's wiped out all memories of the soothing, pacifist effects hanging around with the Doctor and being Queen of Peladon would have had on her. (OK, I'm almost certainly exaggerating the soothing effects of hanging around with the Doctor OR being Queen of Peladon but hey, it IS that wimp Davison we're talking about not, say, Old Sixie.) BECOMING A WARRIOR PHARAOH OF EGYPT, however, seems pretty clear in Erimem's memory and you don't start groping the Pharaoh without some REALLY serious consequences.

That would qualify more as sexual harassment, a notion that did not exist in Russia at the time. Heck, I don't think it exists there TODAY.

Sorry, I wasn't being clear enough, that all happened when Erimem was attending a modern-day British university rather than when she was sado-masochistically nipping back to Stalingrad (she's conveniently just acquired a time-machine infinitely superior to Sexy in all respects, plus such an enormous number of time-rings she can give 'em away as souvenirs).

And obviously I don't expect the UNIVERSITY AUTHORITIES to lift a finger to stop the university rape epidemic but why was ANDY all in favour of 'soothing over' (presumably with grovelling apologies on Erimem's part) the...er...incident? Andy's best friend was driven out of university after getting her reputation trashed by a boy she refused to sleep with, after all.

that wimp Davison

Yes, to mis-quote Time-Flight, the Doctor lost his equipment about the time he last regenerated...

You seem to be forgetting that Davison stuck a dirty great gun in Davros's face in a really, REALLY macho way...

...oh, who the hell am I trying to fool.

Still, at least he didn't DELIBERATELY SAVE DAVROS'S LIFE, unlike a certain CapaldiDoc WHO FRANKLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.

The One Place:

'I shouldn't have hated Dad for leaving. Losing Mum broke us. It broke him, too. He had the same guilt I did. He hadn't been able to cope' - oh for heaven's sake, they have nothing to feel guilty about, the wretched woman died a perfectly natural death and by the way, BILLIONS of people actually manage to lose well-loved spouses without betraying and abandoning their children...

'I found where Dad was buried' - how? Do councils/the police really go to the trouble and expense of burying unidentified corpses and making a record of it, instead of giving 'em a cheapo cremation/keeping 'em on ice till they can be ID-ed?

'I found where Dad was buried' - how? Do councils/the police really go to the trouble and expense of burying unidentified corpses and making a record of it, instead of giving 'em a cheapo cremation/keeping 'em on ice till they can be ID-ed?

I did a little digging (no pun intended, ok, maybe a small one) and apparently it is a widespread procedure for the state to pay for burial and to keep a record as in any other funeral, plus of course the police will keep all evidence pertaining to any criminal case, making it possible to identify unidentified people long after they died.

Blimey.

All those suckers actually PAYING inflated undertaker-prices for a proper funeral, take note...

Of course, the police SHOULD probably have got a WEE bit suspicious when Andy started inquiring after the location of the corpse she had sworn ABSOLUTELY WASN'T her dad, no sirree...

Prime Imperative:

Staggeringly badly proofread. 'Alan ignored the curioua mention od "sailors"' '\john Milton' etc...

'This ship was designed for a twelve man crew' - MAN? 'Tell the smart boys down on Earth - BOYS? - the guys - GUYS? - up here are already claiming at least a Nobel Prize each' - I wouldn't be complaining about this ghastly vision of a dystopian patriarchal future if only there weren't so many female astronauts around...

'They had to keep Earth safe...but they also had to keep space safe for future astronauts' - um, in THIS case I'm kinda leaning towards the side of DON'T BRING THE FATAL MYSTERIOUS KILLER-PLAGUE BACK TO EARTH YOU BLOODY MORONS. Space is really really big and I'm sure, once warned, astronauts could avoid one hazardous comet.

'Erimem shrugged. "He has chosen to distance himself from the rest of us"' - so why is he still flitting through space n'time with you, then?

'"The boy is undisciplined, not military but the woman is intelligent, as are you." Her hand cut off Erimem's protest' - and why is Erimem protesting, exactly? Tom IS undisciplined, she and Andy ARE intelligent, and she's never exhibited an over-abundance of modesty before.

Why is the crew so confused and bemused at being told not to bring stuff from the blatantly contaminated ship aboard their own ship?

Shouldn't the spacesuit gloves of Dzenko and Erimem have got contaminated when they opened/shut the panel hatch?

Should Erimem have been able to open the door to the room where the hull-breach took place? Doesn't this spacestation have SECURITY FEATURES?

'If things become too dangerous here, return home.' 'And leave you on your own? Not bloody likely.' - Shouldn't you be more concerned about bringing the contamination back to your own time?

Erimem remembers leading her troops but has totally forgotten about that DOCTOR guy who was around at the time?

The autopsy seems like a massive risk for very little prospect of rewarding information.

'This message will repeat every three minutes' wasn't actually on the message we heard recorded.

Couldn't Erimem's team have brought walkie-talkies or something with them? To let each other know what's going on and whether they need rescuing at enormous risk to their comrades' lives or are merely about to disappear back to the student bar.

Using fire extinguishers successfully against the zombies? HOW many times does that make in the Whoniverse, now?

Destroying the spaceship (station. Whatever) is vital for the survival of every lifeform on Earth and frankly it's grossly irresponsible to prioritise saving two lives over using said lives to make •••• sure said station is destroyed rather than leave it in the hands of a mysterious stowaway who happens to be good with computers (rather surprisingly, given how far they're ahead of her time).

Erimem and co could always have time-ringed 'em out of there anyway, the Captain and her boyfriend wouldn't even have had to DIE to save Earth if they hadn't scarpered in the escape pod.

A rather mediocre Waters of Mars rerun.

Three Faces of Helena:

Quite good, though the travelogue gets a bit tedious at times.

'We are four gorgeous, stunning women. Unfortunately for those gents, Helena was off limits because she had Ibrahim and she loved him to bits, Olivia and I weren't interested because we're only interested in each other' - and what about Erimem...?

'It is quite a feat to survive the interrogation you have endured over the past week' - but you really need information from her, so why torture so severely you assumed it would kill her?

Look, I can take ONE immortal Captain Jack and maybe a Guardian or two and a few Eternals, but frankly Ashildr was a step too far, Rex was SEVERAL steps too far, and the last thing the Whoniverse needs is ANOTHER person who can't be killed thanks to bloody alien tech.

'I remember [my grandfather] lifting me onto his knee when I was only five years old so that he could tell me that I was his favourite. I remember the smell of the incense in his rooms. I remember the way he caught my nose between two of his knuckles...I also remember that my grandfather died many years before I was born. None of my memories of him are real. Except that they are....My grandfather was the Pharaoh of all Egypt but he was also a man from the far future...' - oh-kay, I get the feeling this is valiantly attempting to reconcile various books and audios, but I'm not sure it's helping...

'Bringing the blade down hard in a wide arc. Cutting hard across the crocodile's near eye. A fountain of blood and pieces of eyes flew as the enraged and injured creature swung its head' - yup, just because the Doctor can't be bothered to appear in these books doesn't mean you can't do the traditional Who-novel-eye-gouging...

Their magic translation doesn't cover the written language? (Fair enough, just noting for future/past reference.)

'I honestly think one of us would have ignored our Helena's request' - it wasn't a request, she made you PROMISE.

I get it! You don't care about the loss of supplies compared to the loss of men! You can stop going on about it now!

'While we had quickly despatched five of the dozen who had shown the intention to harm us, seeing their brethren killed had emboldened several more' - why the hell would it EMBOLDEN them?

Love the cheeky Vesuvius Who-reference. (Yes I AM easily pleased.)

'Christ, how bloody smug do I sound? "I'd say it was at least the Twenty Sixth Century before we'd have anything like that."? I deserve a punch in the •••• just for being so far up myself that I said that' - Yeah, I don't think real women actually say stuff like that.

'He was still carrying the older Helena' - the younger Helena, surely? It's not like there are Hartnell-style issues to confuse this matter.

Did none of the smart, time-and-space travelling friends and fiance of Helena notice there was something a bit off about their two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old chum? Alright, so Helena's been holding back demonstrating how brilliant she is in unarmed combat - thus RISKING THEIR LIVES REPEATEDLY TO KEEP HER SECRET - but still...

Who was responsible for posting Ibrahim all the info about his immortal bride-to-be, anyway? As Helena was obviously expecting it, presumably her, but why do it behind her own back when she's off on her hen-night instead of sitting down and explaining it all to him herself?

To be continued...

Look, I can take ONE immortal Captain Jack and maybe a Guardian or two and a few Eternals, but frankly Ashildr was a step too far, Rex was SEVERAL steps too far, and the last thing the Whoniverse needs is ANOTHER person who can't be killed thanks to bloody alien tech.

Where do Heather and Bill fit on that spectrum?

Ooh yes, Heather n'Bill, I KNEW there were other irritating immortals about the place...(Oh, and Clara too...bet she spends thousands of ageless years with her lovely diner before Facing the Raven)...yeah, the amount of MAGIC POWERS they obtained from a SPACESHIP OIL SPILL is, frankly, embarrassing.

These immortals should all get together.

Clara would be way too freaked out by the Black Guardian's headgear.

I wonder if Clara's diner has working machinery - can she froth up a Blue Heaven milkshake for a hapless soul that wanders in?

Course she can.

She doesn't just get years of happiness with a Doctor who loves her so much he tortures himself for four and a half billion years to prove it, she doesn't just get immortality and her own TARDIS and tons of lesbian sex, she gets milkshakes AS WELL.

Life is so ••••••• unfair sometimes.

'I knew Jane Austen and bought a first edition of Pride and Prejudice' - Helena wasn't (at that point) a time-traveller, she'd come on the slow path, she had no way of knowing who'd become famous so frankly befriending an obscure parson's daughter (or whatever Austen was) is a bit weird.

'Did you think I would allow age to wither my perfect love' - but it's been MILLENNIA, and Faction Paradox: Of The City of the Saved... implied no marriages lasted more than, oh, I don't remember but it was a couple of centuries, max.

So Quatermain goes from 'I could not believe this insane talk of immortality' to 'I could not but believe that there might be some flavour of truth to their statements' in two seconds flat for no readily apparent reason.

Erimem is 'scarcely more than a girl'? (To someone from the nineteenth century who'd regard teenagers as grown women?) YEARS after she stupidly married that never-mentioned-in-these-books Peladonian King? Eeek.

'So the fabled Pharoah Erimem is real' - she's fabled?! That makes the Doctor's pig-ignorance of her existence in Eye of the Scorpion even weirder (and, let's face it, the very public excavation of her treasure-stuffed tomb already made that PRETTY weird).

'I was dumfounded [sic] as I saw that a gelatinous head had formed over the injury. It was already well on the path to being healed. It was quite unbelievable' - well it SHOULDN'T have been, given that two pages earlier you saw something similar happen to Helena ('I could scarce believe that the wound on her cheek had already begun to close').

'You know nothing about that Bible. If all you get from it is hate and the urge to torture, then you're too •••• stupid to understand that it's about love and kindness' - REALLY HATE to side with the torturing murderers but SERIOUSLY, Helena? Cos I'm not really feeling the love when the Bible commands a father to sell his daughter to her rapist for fifty shekels, or when the Angel of Death slaughtered all the Egyptians' first-born sons (the sexist git)...[cuts list of about fifty million other examples of genocidal 'love']...I don't remember Helena being a Christian in any previous book, wouldn't this have caused issues with her fiance (presumably Muslim) or best friend (presumably worships herself as an Egyptian god-king)?

'This is an uncomfortable throne. The one I had in Thebes was much better' - the priests wouldn't let her be crowned Pharaoh, why on Earth would they have let her sit the throne?

All this history-changing isn't particularly convincing, and neither is Erimem's Magic Granddad turning up to say that past and present Helena mustn't meet or humanity is doomed, but then they do and it isn't.

Helena changed her NAME upon marriage?! Throw her back to the torturers!

Ikrates is still alive?

Kerides the Thinker: Episode 8: Return of the Queen:

'The Doctor I need you cannot bring me' - since when has she remembered a •••• thing about the Doc?

'Later Pharaohs rewrote historical texts to remove her' - um, WHY? They left her gorgeous tomb with all her brothers in peace, her immediate successor practically WORSHIPPED her (and knew he had sod-all right to the throne), she was uncrowned maybe-Pharaoh for, like, two minutes before she disappeared so it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Hatshepsut-and-stepson situation where a grudge was borne for keeping him from 'his' throne or for potentially screwing up the lines of succession by proving that women could rule as well as - or actually somewhat better than - men...

When exactly did Erimem's consciousness gain the power to flit around the universe in addition to her body ultra-conveniently gaining said powers by virtual of a time-ring or some such cliche? (Interestingly enough, this thought took a lot longer to occur to me than the whatever-happened-to-her-amnesia one. You'd think regaining your memory would be easier to swallow than gaining-the-ability-to-time-travel-your-spirit-into-other-people's-bodies but maybe it's because remembering the Doctor is just so much more FUNDAMENTAL than having magic powers.)

KARNAK: Mentep, how long will this journey last?
MENTEP: Sea-sick, Karnak?
KARNAK: I'm a soldier. I like my feet on solid ground. The idea of six days on a boat makes me uncomfortable - so, er, you know it's six days, then.

The commercial breaks are...highly annoying.

When did one small boat suddenly become 'our ships'?

Hang on, can't all these mysteriously-hitherto-unmentioned troops from the hitherto-mysteriously-unmentioned ships carry Mentep instead of just accepting his noble 'Just leave me behind!' offer? And in what alternative universe does Adrea volunteering to stay with him made any sort of sense? 'We can't leave him alone' - why the hell NOT! He's a resourceful Vizier for heaven's sake! Rescuing two captives will be a lot harder than rescuing one, and it's not like the approaching army is likely to rape the old man, unlike the pretty young woman. And that's even BEFORE you take into account that she's stupid enough to accidentally spill the Vizier's true identity in front of his enemies...

Whatever happened to that 'KARNAK: We're not leaving you, old friend. MENTEP: I'll trust in you to get me back. KARNAK: I'll se [sic] you soon, old friend' stuff? A few pages later Karnak is agreeing with Erimem's 'It is best if you think of [Mentep and Adrea] as dead' - 'It's war, Kerides. You can't think of individual friends - only the battle.'

Author's Notes:

Erimem 'was slightly based on the real Pharaoh Hatchepsut [sic], but most of her history and personality were changed considerably' - you can bloody well say THAT again, they were polar opposites. What on Earth did they have in common aside from being female Pharaohs? (Apart from a relationship with the Doctor, obviously, and even then poor Erimem got Five whilst Hatshepsut was blessed by spending twenty years shagging McCoy (The Triumph of Sutekh: The Tears of Isis) - OK, 'blessed' may be pushing it a bit but it would still be better than hanging round with that drip Davison.)

'She travelled through time to do the right thing for her family and for her country' - since when? Her family are all DEAD, for starters.

You wrote this script in four days?

Angel of Mercy:

It's a bit of a cheek writing one short story and shoving in a few chapters from other novels in order to pretend that the thing you're expecting people to pay for is novella-length.

Also, said short story has THREE AUTHORS, could NONE of the PROOF-READ? 'Cane we just be whelmed?' 'Somebdy's watching us?' '"What is it?" I asked?' 'The guy o the bike?' - and that's just the FIRST FEW PAGES...

'I was hoping she would say that' - she DIDN'T say that. She just smiled, and Andy 'knew what the smile meant.'

'"You could come with us," Erimem suggested lightly. It was somewhere between a joke and a challenge. Helen looked at Erimem over the top of her paper. "I wasn't born yesterday," she said slowly. "And my mother didn't raise me to be mug enough to go looking for trouble."' And yet two seconds later she's telling her fiance that shes 'Spending the way [sic] with the girls.' I.e. going time-travelling. Despite the suggestion just being a joke and her refusing to consider it. Whereupon said fiance is perfectly happy to let her go off horrendously-dangerously time-travelling while he watches sports on the telly.

'Helena had a huge grin on her face. I wondered what was wrong with her...Then it clicked. This was the first time she had travelled through time' - except that...it isn't. Andy isn't to know that, what with Helena keeping it terribly secret for, er, some reason, so THAT isn't a nit, but in the circumstances the grin definitely is.

'"What about the police?" I asked. She looked a me like I was an idiot. My question had genuinely shocked her. She looked around all three of us. "That can't be a real question." "Why not?"...Angela shook her head in genuine shock. "Because everybody knows there aren't any police inside The City"' - fair enough...until THREE PAGES LATER when we're treated to '"Are there no police here?" Helena demanded. "There must be some law." The way Angela looked at us you'd think we had come from a different planet..."Don't you ever watch The City channel?" she asked. She sounded genuinely surprised. Incredulous even..."Yes, we have police," Angela picked up, "but they aren't equipped to do anything. They aren't armed, they don't have the manpower"' - sorry...WTF?!

'I honestly don't know if it's better on the outside than in here. We certainly have enough people volunteering to come into The City...If the public really take to somebody in here, they can get out and make a lot of money. That's a chance some people are willing to take' - that doesn't imply for a moment that life outside is as bad as it is in the gang-ridden anarchist City, it just means some tragic losers are DESPERATE for attention.

'A vote scrolled along the bottom of the screen, encouraging viewers to vote on whether Angela was alive or dead. 785 said she was dead' - that's an extraordinarily low number of people who can be bothered to vote, given that the entire country is apparently obsessed by this City.

'Cameras were aimed at you when you are [sic] Angela were talking in your base.' 'What?' - because of course the guy who's built a career on posing to the cameras in a City whose entire existence is built on cameras is astonished to discover THERE ARE CAMERAS AROUND...??

Seems everyone gets a novel these days.

Actually, give or take the Brig it's the really obscure ones that get their own book series (Emily from Telos novella Cabinet of Light, Erimem from the Fifth Doctor audios, Iris from the Scarlet Empress EDA). What everyone gets is their own damned audios.

Erimem is 'scarcely more than a girl'? (To someone from the nineteenth century who'd regard teenagers as grown women?) YEARS after she stupidly married that never-mentioned-in-these-books Peladonian King? Eeek.

And it's not like she ditched Pelleas in five minutes flat and scarpered (not that I'd've blamed her) - Erimem is remembered as the fair and just ruler of a Golden Age in BF's Peladon box set.

(Maybe Erimem conveniently got the gift of immortality bestowed on her just like she conveniently acquired a time machine? And just hasn't noticed yet...)

Churchill's Castle:

Seriously, Thebes Publishing, I'll proofread these things in exchange for a free copy. Because the worst proofreading in the world is actually getting WORSE.

'A dark-haired woman, apparently in her mid-thirties' - it's nice there's some clue as to Helena's immortality but having HER BEHAVIOUR as said clue would have been a lot nicer.

'If you and this place hadn't been here we'd have been in serious trouble' - oddly euphemistic way of saying SUFFOCATED.

'We know nothing about them except that they have decimated us' - oh they've a LOT more than decimated you, where's the Simm-Master when you need him to explain the proper definition of that word...?

How come the humans suddenly manage to destroy TWO enemy ships when all of Earth's defences never so much as SCRATCHED them.

Ibrahim left his fiancee to go gallivanting around EXTREMELY DANGEROUS space n'times in order to watch some SPORT?

'There would be fresh air and no aliens trying to destroy her' - in modern-day Britain?! ARE YOU INSANE!!

'"She'll be even more spooked if you try to bring her back in that old banger," Ibrahim said mildly. "It's a two seater. Where are you going to stash the poor kid?"' - why are they stashing n'driving the poor kid anywhere, just time-ring her back to the Castle immediately!

Why are the refugees collecting all the stashes at once? Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket...

'There was no way for the two ships to be tracked from the location' - how on Earth would you know what tech these unstoppable-aliens have at their disposal?

'"All of this creature's organs are in exactly the same place as ours. All of them." "That can't be." Murray rejected the thought instinctively. "Two races couldn't evolve randomly along such similar lines"' - ARE YOU INSANE!! (Part II.) This is SUPPOSED to be the WHONIVERSE!

Erimem doesn't mention RIGHTS FOR WOMEN amongst the advantages the twenty-first century has over Ancient Egypt? JAGO AND LITEFOOT mentioned rights for women when discussing 1960s v Victorian times! And THEY hadn't even been denied RULERSHIP OF THE ENTIRE CIVILISED WORLD (allegedly) on account of their gender...

'In the past I have ordered that men have limbs broken, fires set under their feet. I have had their tongues cut from their mouths and their guts sliced open to be filled with insects to eat them alive' - Jeez, when exactly did Erimem have TIME for all this! She wasn't exactly Pharaoh-apparent for very LONG. Like, WEEKS.

'Perhaps they would eat your eyes' - I guess this fulfils your statutory eye-gouging duties...

'"But time travel," Raymond protested. "Of course scientists have talked about it being a possibility for decades but they've never come close to being able to make it happen"' - sure, except in Evil of the Daleks, Listen, Lady of Mercia, Destiny of the Doctor: The Time Machine, Invasion of the Dinosaurs etc etc...

Erimem SMITH?! As fake names go, that's right down there with, y'know...John Smith.

'As the three crewmen made their escape, Soto couldn't help feeling guilty. He was sending them back into a bigger explosion. At least they would die quickly still harbouring some kind of hope. They would never have time to realise that it was false hope' - except that, er, it ISN'T false hope, is it? They'll live, in a far better world to boot...

'Erimem thrust one of the time travel rings onto the child's hand' - Jeez, how many time-rings (in addition to her time-machine!) have somehow fallen into the hands of an amnesiac Erimem?!

Buccaneer:

'Erimem, a girl of colour' - I don't think seventeenth-century people used phrases like that? (Leaving aside the thorny issue of the colour of a prehistoric-Egyptian-Pharaoh's-skin, which varies between audios and novels and audio/novel covers etc etc...)

'I have no idea why I did myself up like a highwayman. After all, who the hell was going to recognise me three centuries before I was born? I just seemed like the thing to do so I did it' - oh-kay...

'I realised that I had made a rather terrible and unpardonable oversight in my assumption that the man must be the party leader. I responded to the lady. "My apologies, Miss Costanis."' - apologies for what? Whatever your thoughts you addressed all three of them without any signs of misogyny.

'My father was a great king. He ruled with wisdom and justice. And he was a great warrior' - he let all his sons be murdered by his daughter-in-law under his nose, didn't he? (The Coming of the Queen.)fow

'My father's generals taught me well' - only one of 'em, wasn't it? Dear old Antranak?

'My mother had been a lady of some great inner strength and had I been in any question as to the ability of women to disprove their title of "the weaker sex", my wife took but a few months of marriage to prove herself the equal of any man alive and the superior of most' - yeah, cos seventeenth-century men totally noticed facts like that...and what exactly did Governor Parson DO to promote equal legal rights in the colony he ruled...?

'I reckoned that if I was probably going to have to live through the break-up of the UK in my own time I might as well have a few hours back in the Merrie Olde Englande past before the UK was formed' - um, have you not considered the PLUMBING SITUATION?

'The Lady Erimem has led troops in battle many times - MANY times? When?

'Andy nodded. "Humans have been to the Moon and we're planning to go to Mars." She shrugged again. "It's no big deal. I've already been. It's red. It's dry"' - So Ambassadors of Death still written out of history, then...

'"If it all goes •••• up," I said to Olivia, "Twist the ring and you'll be taken back to 2016."' - er....which bit of WE'RE UNDER ATTACK FROM A BLOODY HUGE PIRATE SHIP AND HAVE SURRENDERED makes you think everything HASN'T already gone •••• up?

'"What will happen to our fellow passengers if we leave?" I asked. Andy sighed. "I imagine the wealthy ones would be ransomed. The others... I don't know." I fear that I did know, or at least had likely suspicions. "They will be killed or sold as slaves." "So we have to stay," Andy said softly. "Yes," I agreed. "We must stay."' - cos you being sold into slavery too will be SO MUCH COMFORT?

'Mrs Costansis joined our doctor in tending to the wounded. She was, it seemed, a physician of some skill' - and you don't wonder HOW!?

'To my intense relief, I saw two young women in clothing markedly similar to those worn by Mrs Costansis and her companions' - Jeez, why won't the time-travellers drezz for the occasion?

Erimem didn't bother checking the prisoners over for Andy BEFORE Helena started whispering to her?