I kind of enjoyed the book but, if you took out Fitz and the Doctor, it would still be the same book almost.

If the Doctor is posing as a German Doctor, does his voice her a Germanic accent? Fitz has trouble keeping his accent up - how does the Time Lord gift work in these circumstances.

I was disappointed not much more was made of the actual telepathy experiment.

Funny you should say that. Apparently it's a horror story Justin Richards wrote about 10 years ago, and when in need of a Who story, whipped it out for a quite rewrite with Andy Lane, hastily inserting the Doctor and co - hence Compassion's rather bizarre 'merging' with some girl.

Maybe that's where we're going wrong in our Who submissions? We need to rewrite our other fiction and throw in the Doctor (Big Finish seem to be doing it, several Virgin/BBC authors).

Yeah, go for it Chris - we need a Bulletin Brash Reflector in print and you're the only one with a chance. Either that, or just write a book in three weeks flat and submit it - always seems to work when Justin Richards does it.

(Er...by 'work' I mean 'succeed in getting published' rather than 'be a good book'.)

Really awful. At the end, nothing really happened. And who didn't see it coming that the butler was the missing Time Lord (the dead give away was finding the 6 cards in his pantry)?

Why did the reanimated Davies rip out the butler's eyes?

Cos that's what people DO in horror novels! Rip each other's eyes out! Don't you know ANYTHING? ;)

Well, to be fair, something did happen at the end, i.e. the Time Lords got a fix on the Doctor's position. Of course, they could have skipped the entire book and said 'Ooh, look, we've got a fix on the Doctor's position' at the beginning of The Ancestor Cell.

Btw, I don't get what it meant at the end saying it was the 'last thing he never did'.

Don't the events of The Ancestor Cell wipe/change the timeline? I thought it was an allusion to that.

Hmm. The Doctor only destroys Gallifrey from the Ancestor Cell onwards - he doesn't obliterate it from history. Even though something dodgy was going on with the timelines, what with the nine Gallifreys being reduced to one. Anyway, if one thing did remain constant, it should be the events of The Banquo Legacy, seeing as they led directly to the Doctor's presence on Gallifrey, and hence to the whole ghastly mess.

I was under the impression that the new Time Lord regime was so callous that they demat-ted their own agent after he had done his job.

If they'd just killed him, it would be the 'last thing he EVER did', but it isn't. I don't think they'd risk actually wiping him out of history - if he'd never existed they'd never have got the coordinates, etc etc. (I've never understood that in The War Games either. If they made things so that the War Chief or Lord or whoever it is had never existed, not only would they be doing Faction Paradox's work for them, but the Games wouldn't have happened, the Doctor wouldn't have called for help, got put on trial, etc etc.)

I don't think dematting works that way Emily, otherwise the Doctor wouldn't remember 'Invasion of Time' because if he dematted the Sontarans they would've never come, etc, etc - the demat must dematerialise the target withotu affecting history around them (somehow) so as not to cause paradoxes.

OK...

The War Chief/Lord wasn't dematted as such, but when he was sentenced he was told that 'It will be as though you have never existed' (even though that makes no sense).

The Doctor DIDN'T remember Invasion of Time after he used the demat gun - he got amnesia.

Only as he said in the next story that he 'Should have thrown the President to the Sontarans' he obviously remembers SOMETHING even though Invasion of Time says he didn't.

And he must somehow keep up-to-date with Gallifreyan politics to know that there WAS a new President.

And how come they were so quick to replace the Doctor as President after Invasion of Time when they failed to do so during the years (or, for all we know, centuries) between Deadly Assassin and IoT?

Er...I've got a bit off the subjct. I doubt the agent was de-matted, as the demat gun is an incredibly complicated and totally forbidden bit of Gallifreyan technology.

Never mind the fact that the humans in Robot could construct one, no problem.

So, whilst I agree that the agent was killed rather than wiped out of history or anything, I fail to see how a mere common-or-garden killing could lead to his last action being described as 'The last thing he never did' rather than just 'The last thing he ever did'.

I have to say, since we're talking about the demat gun, that I was always let down by the unveiling of the demat gun in TIoT. I mean, here we have a culture that can travel through time, extend its members lives through multiple regenerations, harnesses the power of black holes, and the big bad weapon Rasillon hid from them---is a phaser rifle from "Star Trek." Okay, so it's very powerful; big deal. Surely they could have come up with something better?

"I fail to see how a mere common-or-garden killing could lead to his last action being described as 'The last thing he never did' rather than just 'The last thing he ever did'."

That's because it wasn't a common-or-garden killing, he was wiped from history so the Time Lords could cover their tracks

*Tears out hair* But WHY? Wiping him from history would cause a temporal paradox (or something) as if he'd never existed they'd never have got the info about the Doctor's whereabouts. Not to mention the fact that changing history is against the Laws of Time. And who were they trying to cover their tracks FROM? Who was so powerful that the Time Lords didn't dare let them realise that they were - shock horror - after the Doctor? Let's face it, chasing after the Doctor is a fairly constant Time Lord activity.

Mike, I couldn't agree more about the demat gun. Rather like everything else in that story, one is left thinking 'Big deal.'

note: have not yet read Ancestor Cell...

However, from what I've read so far in the 8th Doctor range, the "the last thing he never did" line has me thinking that the Butler is a double agent and works for Faction Paradox as well.
Is that at all possible?

Oops, sorry, suppose we should have left a bit of spoiler space before casually discussing the destruction of a planet which doesn't actually get destroyed till the next book (NB: I was wrong about it just being Gallifrey's future that was wiped out: Adventuress of Henrietta Street makes it clear (which is more than The Ancestor Cell managed) that the planet never existed).

I suppose the Butler being a Faction Paradox agent is quite possible, though there isn't any indication he actually IS, apart from that last line, which could have many meanings (or, more likely, none at all - it's probably designed to have fans running round in circles trying to work it out for the rest of their lives, distracted from noticing that the rest of the book up to that line was a supremely unmemorable experience). Plus the fact, of course, that the Time Lords getting a fix on the Doctor's position helped FP more than the TLs, at least until BOTH sides went boom.

Just re-reading some of these messages - yes, Emily, wiping the Butler from history would cause a temporal paradox but this *is* the same method of dispatch that the Time Lords used for the War Lords and the Fendahl.

I think the Fendahl stuff was different - time-looping the entire planet, though (being incompetent idiots) only AFTER it had been reduced to rubble and the skull had got to Earth. But yes, it was the method they used for that War Lord person, which I've always found totally incomprehensible, given that the Time Lords were supposed to be guarding the Web of Time, not blowing it to pieces in this totally unnecessary manner. It's as if even the death penalty isn't good enough for such homicidal maniacs - they just have to go that step further.

by Justin Richards : shorthand for 'oh look, it's got zombies in it'.

As books go I wish this one had gone a lot quicker. Forget Simpson, by the end my eyes were bleeding from ploughing through this facile tedium.

There, there. It could be worse. Look what you've got to read NOW...

Maybe that's where we're going wrong in our Who submissions? We need to rewrite our other fiction and throw in the Doctor (Big Finish seem to be doing it, several Virgin/BBC authors).

Ah yes. I've been told that one Who author (who shall remain nameless cos I'm hopeless at remembering names...have a feeling it's McIntee, but that COULD just be a foul slander) sent in one of his Star Trek proposals, having carefully word-searched 'Borg' and replaced it with 'Cybermen'. Sadly he'd forgotten to spell-check the submission in the first place, and the occasional mention of 'Brog' kinda gave the game away...

'She killed a cat...she drank its blood' - ah, how considerate to get the oochie-murdering out of the way on page two so I don't have to spend the whole book anticipating this inevitable horror. Now it's just the eyeball-gouging I have to worry about...

Compassion's emergency back-up systems use the same energy source as the normal systems? *Bangs head against nearest wall*

The Doctor and Fitz have an awfully long conversation inside Compassion after the Doctor says they've gotta get out of there before they're trapped inside.

'"England. Late nineteenth century." The Doctor rubbed his hands together in a gleeful gesture..."Quite my favourite time and place. Given the choice, if I had to be trapped in one time and place -"' - really, Doc? Funny you've somehow failed to give the slightest hint of this for the last eight incarnations and thousand-odd years. Anyone would think the writers were trying to set up some stupid story-arc where your 'friends' dump you in late-nineteenth-century England for a century or so cos you've had a breakdown...

In what way is hissing in your superior's face keeping your feelings to yourself?

Humour, amusement, laughter, chuckles - why so much description of hilarity in a couple of (deeply unamusing) pages?

Do people cross themselves for LUCK?

'The dead eyes [of the portrait] stared back at us implacably. Were they amused or frightened?' - neither, presumably, given you've just said they're DEAD.

I realise you've got a helluvalot of padding to do but can you PLEASE just STOP DESCRIBING THE SODDING HOUSE every two minutes?

'"Irving Braxiatel would have a field day in here." "And Irving Braxiatel is...?" "My -" he hesitated. "My colleague and occasional collaborator in adventures of the mind, the soul and the body."' - Oh can't you just give your stupid 'The Doctor and Brax are brothers!' obsession a rest for a SINGLE BOOK? (And frankly I don't remember any collaboration between the pair of 'em.)

'I am qualified in many things, Inspector Stratford, including several that have yet to be invented' - and the point of saying THAT to a nineteenth-century policeman is...?

Aaaaaand here come the eyeballs, right on cue; 'The skin was red and blistered and the eye had run and spread. The other side was ruined...the eye was just a curdled white lump in the socket'. Well at least THAT'S out of the way...

'As Harris pressed the syringe towards my eye...the needle met my pupil' - OK, maybe not.

'One of her eyes blistered and boiled away' - DEFINITELY not.

'I once did something similar with a charge of distronic radiation on a Zygon ship in Scotland' - oh puh-lease. Eight's a bit of a name-dropper but this sort of fanwank is getting ridiculous.

Ah look, now he's explaining artron energy to a policeman. As you do.

And now he's dropping Seymour-has-merged-with-a-TARDIS! hints for the benefit of the local constabulary.

'I suddenly remembered Dr Friedlander. Simpson's revelations of his presence in the conservatory before his apparent arrival at the house cold well form the start of a case against him' - er, except that Simpson's already been established as a liar.

'The frustrations and troubles from inside the house faded away, to be replaced by the happiness I always felt out of doors' - ALWAYS? Wasn't he practically wetting himself with terror in the fog earlier?

To be continued...

Compassion's emergency back-up systems use the same energy source as the normal systems? *Bangs head against nearest wall*

She's in good company. I once read about a real life factory where the emergency generator was in a building with an electrically operated door.

But don't forget the Time Lords had an extra ten million (Trial)/billion (End of Time)/whatever years to make such mistakes and then correct them.

(Come to think of it, since Compassion was based on Sexy, the Doc ought to have embarrassingly been able to CRANK her doors open, a la Death to the Daleks...)

'Slightly stunned at Wallace's Napoleonic ambition' - he wants to create a cave in a hill, not conquer Europe!

Um, the Inspector leaves the killer of Susan's fiance alone with Susan after practically CONGRATULATING him for murdering said fiance? Even though he's in love with Susan himself and the murderer is his rival?

Making the narrator the killer is hardly original, not after Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

'I felt superfluous; what could I say that would not sound patronising?' - cos if there's one thing no nineteenth-century bloke wants to seem towards a female of the species it's PATRONISING.

The Doctor SERIOUSLY needed Simpson to suggest that rendering Catherine unconscious might be a good idea, WHAT WITH HER CONTROLLING THE KILLER-ZOMBIE, and all...?

And why didn't Simpson make his 'Let's take refuge in your TARDIS!' suggestion BEFORE rather than AFTER offering the solution that makes refuge-in-your-TARDIS (i.e. the entire raison d'etre of his last century - getting his grubby hands on Compassion) unnecessary?

'I hope you're very happy together, Mr Hopkinson' - oh-kay, there's nineteenth-century chivalry and then there's giving up the woman you love to a murderer without a fight...(Also, if he's so •••• chivalrous why did he end up being her lover? Assuming - as seems more likely given his self-effacing ways - Inspector Stratford didn't end up the husband and John Hopkinson the lover.)

'Discoveries aren't made by people any more: they are made by teams. The praise is spread out, but the responsibility? It could rest with anyone. No, the age of the gentleman scientist is over. No more Galileos; no more Newtons; nevermore a Faraday' - REALLY Doc? Never heard of ALBERT EINSTEIN or MARIE CURIE? I thought you were claiming in the telemovie to know at least one of 'em 'intimately'...

'The poor girl and Kreiner were so busy tending to the butler's leg that they didn't even notice us leave' - I find it extremey hard to believe in any circumstances in which playing Florence Nightingale would distract Fitz from the HOMICIDAL ZOMBIE and its mind-controlling sister IN THE SAME ROOM.

'The chimney was filthy, or so it seemed in the dark' - of course the chimney is filthy! What's your point?

'Lumps of soot disintegrated as my face touched them, showering invisible black dust into my straining eyes' - er, you could try SHUTTING THEM? Seeing as you can't SEE anything with 'em anyway?

'I wondered how Kreiner could have brought himself to abandon the man' - even though you think Fitz is a conman?

'But the wost of it, the nightmare-recurrent image that took away my breath and drained the blood from my face, was that he had no eyes. Empty, blood-seared sockets that stared accusingly, unblinking' - yeah, cos obviously we just haven't had ENOUGH eye-gouging in this novel already...

'His own single remaining eye catching the moonlight and blazing as if it were again burning, melting, dripping like its twin from its socket' - and just because you've gouged out fresher eyes doesn't mean we can't revisit previous eye-gougings, for old times' sake...

'We didn't know you would be here. But we know where you have been.' 'Quantum extrapolation.' 'With a probability matrix to prioritise the random choices. But even so there were several hundred times and places you might turn up.' 'You covered them all? Then you must be spread pretty thin. One agent at each nexus point. Waiting and watching, scattered across the universe and down the years. On the off chance as it were. If nothing else, we've got them worried' - Oh-kay, should you really be able to get around a Randomiser by knowing where a TARDIS has been and if so, why did the Black Guardian not manage it? And aren't the Time Lords in the middle of fighting a losing Time War, how can they waste so many resources when Romana must KNOW one agent doesn't stand a chance in hell against the Doc and how come the Doc's all 'We've got them worried!' rather than worrying that HE'S JUST LOST 'EM THE TIME WAR by the squandering of all these agents? (I might actually approve of his crusade to stop Compassion getting raped taking priority over the continued existence of the entire universe if, y'know, he hadn't raped Compassion himself in Fall of Yquitaine.)

'A trickle of blood ran from one of his empty eye sockets and dripped into the crystal snow' 'Simpson gave a final gurgling choke of noise. His head jerked to oen side allowing a last rivulet of crimson to splash from his empty eyes' - yeah, gods forbid anyone should die (however temporarily) without extracting the last drop of blood from their eye-sockets...

'Only his eyes - or what was left of them - failed ever to catch the snow-shroud light...Was it out of some perverse sense of envy that he had gouged out Simpson's eyes?' - OK, THANK YOU, you've proved my point about the Who-novel obsession with eye-gouging, even I'm beginning to think you're overdoing it on the telling-me-how-right-I-am front...

'The thought of bearing the responsibility of Susan's being injured or even killed probably affected me more than Kreiner' - PROBABLY? You're in love with her. Fitz is apparently just some conman.

'"Optic implants. Some sort of nano-cam with a direct linkage to his visual cortex..." The words made no sense to me' - yet somehow you AND the other narrator seem awfully good at remembering every incomprehensible word the Doctor said so you can write awfully long and repetitive reports about 'em...

What makes the Doctor so certain that Susan Seymour will be perfectly safe returning to the house with the EYE-GOUGING KILLER ZOMBIE in it? (Sure, he's decided that said zombie will be after HIM but that doesn't mean it wouldn't stop to gouge out her eyes first, also, isn't he forgetting that said zombie is controlled by its sister, the one who's insanely jealous of Susan for getting engaged to her brother...)

'"Can't she just let us in?" Kreiner asked' - you know perfectly well she can't, cos YOU haven't switched off the machine that's caused poor Compassion to go into meltdown.

Oh, and as regards the touching romance (not) between Susan and the man who murdered her fiance...why is there no consideration by ANYONE that he could easily have murdered Catherine Harries as well as her brother when he messed with that equipment? (Alright, so she's a homicidal zombie-controller but no one knew that at the time! She was a member of the fair sex and everything!)

'There's no such thing as luck, Mr Hopkinson. Those of us who fight on the side of good often find that the universe smiles on their wilder schemes' - yeah and you know what that is? LUCK. Not a smiling universe you cretin.

I'm finding neither the claim that the Doctor's corpse (that fooled FITZ!) was a bundle of sticks nor the claim that the Doctor pretended to go over the edge of a hill during a struggle but was actually hiding underneath the overhang to be REMOTELY PLAUSIBLE.

And would Simpson really try to KILL the Doctor to get his hands on Compassion? On Romana's orders? Even though the Doctor would be way more useful in a Time War (dead OR alive, going by Alien Bodies) than any TARDIS?

'In Simpson's case, I suspect a more personal attachment as well. Romana is as beautiful now as she ever was, and there aren't many of us who would spend a hundred years on a mission for the sake of duty' - sorry, WHAT! The Doc himself is perfectly prepared to spend a millennium sitting in front of Missy's Box out of duty, not to mention four and a half billion years of hitting a diamond wall. These are CIA (or whatever) agents who are being given a cushy job away from the front lines of the War, in places that are at least minimally more interesting than bloody Gallifrey, keeping a cursory eye open for a Doctor who is highly unlikely to ever appear. Yet the Doc bizarrely chalked Simpson's dedication to duty up to a CRUSH ON ROMANA cos she's JUST SO BEAUTIFUL?! (Gods I miss his 'You're a beautiful woman, probably' days.)

'None of the tools I could see, mainly pickaxes and shovels, would stop the nightmare outside, or even slow it much' - how do YOU know? It's not as if you've properly tried swinging the shovel you're holding at the animated corpse which I'm pretty sure WOULD be affected if you shovelled or pickaxed its HEAD off.

'The Doctor was hurled aside' - forgotten all his Venusian Akido skills, has he? AND he can't even wrestle a gun out of Catherine's hand!

The Doctor's SETTING the Randomiser? Isn't the POINT of it that...you don't set it?

Why doesn't Simpson just regenerate? Instead of taking fifty years to recover? (Recover what? Obviously not his eyeballs.)

Two hundred and eighty pages for the Lonely God, the Oncoming Storm, the Man Who Gives Monster Nightmares, to deal with ONE ZOMBIE?

Banquo?

Wasn't that the name of Macbeth's buddy?

Yeah, Justin Richards is quite keen on Shakespeare as you can tell from such terrible ideas as Eighth Doctor audio Time of the Daleks...

Never listened to said Audio.

Just to spare you...The Daleks keep quoting Shakespeare and the British dictator is obsessed with Shakespeare and, yup, the nearest kitchen-boy IS Shakespeare in a feat of time-travel that goes unmentioned in, say, The Shakespeare Code...

A Dalek quoting Shakespeare!?

Yeah, it's kinda fun...at first...

That's just.... wrong!

That's what makes it fun. Like when they're offering you a cup of tea...

Uhhhhhhhh, yeah.