Did anyone else find the bit where Ace is captured to be horribly cliche-ish. Probably the only way to make it more so would be to have her tied to railroad tracks.

American Heritage came out with their overrated/underrated issue and (not surprising at all) Al Capone was listed as most overrated gangster. The description in that article was completely opposite of the Al Capone in this novel.

Obviously Terrance Dicks didn't think so.

For the record, Lucky Luciano (sp?) was chosen as most underrated gangster.

These vampires were total weenies. While I'm not keen on next to invincible vampires we see from the likes of Ann Rice, these could be killed by every method in legend and a few that weren't. I mean shining a flashlight at them to keep them at bay. A more ridiculous idea I've never heard. Okay, I'm finished ranting.

The sad thing is that, although the vampires are pathetic (especially that detective managing to hurl Camilla away despite a) having her dagger between his ribs, and b) vampires being super-strong) I still find them scary. Maybe it's the memory of Zargo's beard...

I don't agree about Ace's capture. I think it takes a man to see the threat of rape as a cliche. The thing about that scene that grated on me was when the Doctor says 'Is that any reason to kill them?' In those circumstances even I (with a human rights obsession bigger than my Doctor Who obsession, if that's physically possible) would have said 'Yes it ******* well is' and shot them. But Ace - of all people! - says 'I suppose not.'

Totally agree with you Emily. That scene never sat well with me, either.

This book shoots continuity full of holes so many times it's hard where to begin!

First of all what is all this tromping back and forth between N-Space and E-Space without going through a CVE? Romana at one points comments: "We seem to have left E-Space. Isn't that a problem?" To which the Doctor replies: "K9 worked out the calculations just before we got blown back into N-Space (or words to that affect) so I never got to use them." Indeed the opening scene of this novel depicted K9 working out those calculations. This is supposed to have happened at the end of "Warrior's Gate." Obviously it happned when we weren't looking because I don't recalled ANY scene depicting those events in said episode. Also K9 was badly damaged by the time winds in "Warrior's Gate" and was not restored to full working order until AFTER he was permanently separated from the Doctor. So there is NO WAY that the scene depicted in this novel could have taken place.

As someone here already pointed out, WHERE DID ALL THOSE OTHER VILLAGES AND CASTLES COME FROM? "State Of Decay" clearly stated that there was only the Village and the Tower, nowhere else. K9 did an orbital scan of the planet and found only that one settlement. What is amazing is that Terrence Dicks wrote both the show and this novel! What happened? Did he forget what he had written on the show and prayed we would too? Or did he deliberately changed DW history for the sake of the plot. Cleary the BBC has a more open door policy to novelists changine established facts. If this were a Star Trek novel these changes definately WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED!!

Vampires being stopped by a gun? Oh please...

I didn't really care for the Chicago parts of this novel. If I want to read a story about Al Capone and 1920's bootleggers, I'll buy an Untouchables novel!

And even if K9 did somehow manage to have a brief, miraculous, off-screen recovery, and worked out the coordinates in Warrior's Gate...why wasn't this mentioned in Earthshock when the Doctor was yelling about the difficulties and dangers of getting Adric back to E-Space?

In my opinion, this novel is a real missed oportunity. I think it could have been written without stepping all over established continuity.

First of all, the N-Space/E-Space problem: Obviously a good solution would have been to have the Doctor himself work out the calculations. This would have to occur after "Earthshock" of course. That way you could still get to and from E-Space quickly without having to make up a scene in an established episode that clearly did not happen.

Events on the vampire planet itself: What should have been done is have the bad guy go there, revive the Great Vampire and Co. (Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon), and start converting other villages. That way you don't have to bring in all these other villages out of nowhere and contradict an episode that established only ONE Village and Tower!

As for the Chicago part of the story, GET RID OF IT!!

The Doctor wouldn't even have to work out the E-Space calculations for himself - he could have used the notes Adric left in Earthshock. There's absolutely no need to give K9 the credit.

What's this about 'converting other villages'??? How are you going to fit THIS in with continuity? I've no objection if one or two other villages grow up - one for the surviving guards (I shouldn't think the villagers would want to mingle too closely with them, though I doubt they'd want to murder them all either) and one for the scientists. And maybe one more for the ordinary peasants, who'd breed a lot quicker now the lords aren't nicking most of their food and dragging half their number off to be guards/sacrifices.

If Terrance Dicks had been DESPERATE to have a cast of thousands, he could have set the story hundreds of years after State of Decay, when there WOULD have been plenty of other villages, and probably, unfortunately, some lords as well. That would have prevented one of the book's great moments - Ivo meeting the Doctor again and trying to work out how he'd got so shrivelled - but it would have been a small price to pay for continuity.

Well said, Emily. All Mr. Dicks had to do was move the timeline up a few centuries, give the human popultion time to grow.

Pluses:The Doctor,Ace,Benny,Romana and K9
all in one story.

What is it they say about being unable to make a souffle raise twice but it being easy to reheat leftovers?

Exactly HOW many Terrance Dicks books involve some outside force stirring up human cruelties? The Timewyrm in Exodus, Agonal in this, those stupid Players in Players, Endgame and World Game, some kind of drug in Shakedown and Mean Streets...

When did Tom have TIME to hug K9, ask his permission, etc?

Why does Ace jeer 'You know nothing' when she KNOWS Dekker's found out about Doc's corrupt links with the Mayor, for starters?

Ace is asking 'Why are we peddling illegal booze in a town full of murderous gangsters? Why did we dump Bernice on that god-awful planet?' NOW instead of DAYS ago?

'Thin green-grey slime with lumps in it' - oh, come on, the food can't be THAT bad. Adric was happy to wolf it down, and that was in the Bad Old Days when the lords nicked all the good food.

So Benny a) has a blaster, and b) left it behind when wandering around the vampire planet?

When everyone's arming themselves to take on the vampires, why doesn't Benny mention the readily-available garlic-flower things that she KNOWS work against them?

Come to that, why doesn't the Doctor tell Benny about the garlic-flowers...or even that he's dumping her on a vampire-infested planet?

Why try to cover up Gerda's death when Benny's already publicly announced it?

Food from the Hydrax lasts for over a THOUSAND years?

I don't remember a ritual gesture, touching ears, eyes and mouth, in State of Decay. Though obviously this is of small importance compared to the fact that I DON'T REMEMBER THERE BEING LOADS OF VILLAGES AND CASTLES AND LORDS AND NATIVE POPULATIONS. Cos THERE WEREN'T ANY.

So the Truth Machine is in perfect working order - unlike the equipment I remember in State of Decay...

'The Doctor can be a little overpowering at times...Perhaps we're too much alike. Two Time Lords in one TARDIS...I decided I'd like to do something on my own for a while' - no mention of the fact that Romana left to avoid having to go back to Gallifrey. (Understandable in a book where she...goes back to Gallifrey. And not even as her own decision, the Doctor just goes there without bothering to consult her and she can't be bothered to leave. Also, she doesn't have K9 with her, thus contradicting the Gallifrey audios AND Lungbarrow.)

Why does Ivo keep falling to one knee in front of lords? Has he no pride?

'If he stayed in Chicago much longer, he thought, he'd be the first alcoholic Time Lord in Gallifreyan history' - why AREN'T any Time Lords alcoholic? Despite the occasional claim that they can just metabolise alcohol with no effects, the Doctor managed to get drunk in Grimm Reality and Transit. And hitting the bottle seems the natural reaction to millennia on that exceedingly boring planet. Hell, sometimes I reach for the booze just to WATCH Invasion of Time or War Games...

'Ace was tempted to follow up with a heel-strike to the septum that would drive splinters of bone into his brain, but she remembered the Doctor's words' - all because the bloke suggested she might like to have a drink and some sex with him. (OK, he also called a black man a VERY bad word, but WAS it even a bad word in the 1920s?) Yet later, when he and his pal try to rape her, she agrees that THAT'S no reason to kill him...

'Under the circumstances' the Doctor decides it's fine to carry a sawn-off shotgun - and USE it (albeit on a ceiling). The circumstances being rescuing his Companion, something any Doctor manages an average of three times a day, NEVER (even in Colin's day) resorting to sawn-off shotguns.

'Their hunger was great' - yet somehow they seem to have been keeping it under control for an awfully long time.

'Romana could be as ruthlessly practical as the Doctor himself' - I don't see the Doctor as ruthlessly practical. Whenever he is (Eccy watching Cassandra go pop, Tom telling Sarah to forget the dead loser in Pyramids) it always comes as a shock.

Anyone remember vampires floating through the air in State of Decay? *Sigh* Me neither.

If there was a pre-existing society, why did the Great Vampire BOTHER dragging a spaceship out of N-Space?

'The Doctor discovered the old Record of Rassilon in the TARDIS' - yes, and who TOLD him it was there? ROMANA! How DARE she give HIM all the credit!

Benny's 'openly bored' by going round a museum? Some archaeologist SHE is.

Neither Benny or Romana noticed earlier that the 'ancient' painting looked (and presumably smelled) as if the paint hadn't even DRIED yet?

'Instant vampire - just add fresh blood and stir' - so now they can magically change from old to young AND touch and eat the garil plant with no ill-effects?

Can't humanity take credit for A SINGLE ATROCITY in our history? It's just so much more INTERESTING if the Charge of the Light Brigade was down to two brothers-in-law hating each other's guts than to an evil alien.

'I don't suppose there's very much wrong. It's probably just Romana panicking' says the Doctor airily. Yeah, cos she's just spent the last three hundred years sending him one 'Help me Doctor!' message after another from E-Space...Oh wait! SHE HASN'T!

Also, given that she DID do that telepathic cry for help, how come Romana's subsequently so reluctant to let Benny summon the Doctor?

'I've been urging the Time Lords to do something about Agonal ever since I first started studying human history' - why not just DEAL WITH HIM YOURSELF?

'This is the Doctor. Some of you will have heard of him' - SOME of you???!!!!! I'm sorry, the village has something more important to talk about than the LIVING LEGEND IN A SCARF who swept in and liberated them from a thousand years of oppression?

'The Doctor says the Time Lords have the finest doctors in the galaxy on Gallifrey' - that's not what he said when he took Peri to SOLON on KARN in Warmonger. Plus, what should Time Lords know about knife-wounds, or human bodies? And by the Chief Hospitaller's reaction ('Good grief. An actual patient - a live one?') they haven't exactly had much PRACTISE.

'You're very like your elder brother, aren't you' - how can Time Lords POSSIBLY have a family resemblance? They don't even resemble THEMSELVES from one regeneration to the next!

'Useful piece of synchronicity' is one way of describing the extreme coincidence ridiculously tying together the two different plots.

There's no explanation of why Spandrell's popping up as Castellan when there was no sign of him in Invasion of Time, Five Doctors, and Arc of Infinity. (I think Happy Endings claims repeated attempts at retirement.)

There's also no explanation of why Spandrell ignores the plotters' chant of 'Death to the Doctor! Borusa lives! Rassilon must die!' given that it spells out exactly what they're gonna do. He's more concerned about not repeating such blasphemy, when there are 'ladies (INCLUDING HIS OWN PRESIDENT!!!!!!) present'.

So what happens to Borusa - what's this 'better place' prepared for him?

'"It's all a game to Rassilon," said the Doctor.' Well he didn't look like he was playing any games in End of Time. 'I WILL NOT DIE' sounded pretty heartfelt. On the other hand, that might explain why he seemed more interested in whether the Doctor would shoot anyone than in saving his species.

Ace volunteers to stay with Dekker in 1920s Chicago WHY, exactly? Why did we have to wait till Grace Holloway of all people to say 'YOU come with ME'?

How do you wipe out an elemental with 'spiritual strength' anyway?

OK, so it was quite enjoyable ('Wheezing and groaning...What kind of an eejit would make up a description like that?'). That's not the POINT.

'Thin green-grey slime with lumps in it' - oh, come on, the food can't be THAT bad. Adric was happy to wolf it down, and that was in the Bad Old Days when the lords nicked all the good food.

Adric was a teenage boy, not generally noted for being fussy eaters.

Why does Ace jeer 'You know nothing' when she KNOWS Dekker's found out about Doc's corrupt links with the Mayor, for starters?

She meant that was just the tip of the iceberg - Dekker had no idea who the Doctor really was, or what he was really up to.

Food from the Hydrax lasts for over a THOUSAND years?

Possible, with sufficient preservatives.

Though obviously this is of small importance compared to the fact that I DON'T REMEMBER THERE BEING LOADS OF VILLAGES AND CASTLES AND LORDS AND NATIVE POPULATIONS. Cos THERE WEREN'T ANY.

Raising the question, who'd want to tamper with E-verse history to produce a vampire horde? The Black Guardian might be willing and able, but few others.

who TOLD him it was there? ROMANA! How DARE she give HIM all the credit!

But he's the Doctor, the most wonderful being in all eternity who isn't a cat. Giving him credit for everything good is only natural.

'I've been urging the Time Lords to do something about Agonal ever since I first started studying human history' - why not just DEAL WITH HIM YOURSELF?

He'd have to be able to steer the Tardis first.

how can Time Lords POSSIBLY have a family resemblance? They don't even resemble THEMSELVES from one regeneration to the next!

The same way they can recognise Time Lords even in different regenerations, half the time. They're sensing some kind of psychic aura humans can't see.

Adric was a teenage boy, not generally noted for being fussy eaters.

But there's no way he'd've been wolfing down the stuff Terrance described QUITE so enthusiastically. Plus I seem to remember spotting some PERFECTLY nice-looking bread in State of Decay.

She meant that was just the tip of the iceberg - Dekker had no idea who the Doctor really was, or what he was really up to.

At this point, NEITHER HAS ACE, which makes her a bit of a hypocrite.

Food from the Hydrax lasts for over a THOUSAND years?

Possible, with sufficient preservatives.

Why the hell shovel in enough preservatives for a thousand years?!

Raising the question, who'd want to tamper with E-verse history to produce a vampire horde? The Black Guardian might be willing and able, but few others.

If history had been changed, you'd think the Doctor or Romana would have NOTICED. And SAID something about it.

But he's the Doctor, the most wonderful being in all eternity who isn't a cat. Giving him credit for everything good is only natural.

Yes OF COURSE we all yearn to prostrate ourselves before the Lonely God and beg for the honour of him skinning us to make a rug if he's so inclined, but...we must FIGHT the urge! And Romana seems better than most of us at retaining a BIT of self-respect, a SLIGHT feeling of her own worth...Especially in this book, where she keeps telling Benny not to send for the Doctor, they can manage this themselves.

'I've been urging the Time Lords to do something about Agonal ever since I first started studying human history' - why not just DEAL WITH HIM YOURSELF?

He'd have to be able to steer the Tardis first.

Oh. Yeah, that's true. Plus, unlikely as a pre-Unearthly Child pushing-the-Time-Lords-to-crusade-for-justice Hartnell is, dealing with Agonal would at least make a BIT more sense than dealing with Miniscopes...

The same way they can recognise Time Lords even in different regenerations, half the time. They're sensing some kind of psychic aura humans can't see.

Well the Doc was pretty poor at sensing Goth's psychic aura in Deadly Assassin.

"You won't need clothes in your new career"

That would have worked with pretty much any female companion except Sophie Aldred.

Sorry, but Sophie has all the allure of cold porridge.

Sorry, but Sophie has all the allure of cold porridge.

I beg to differ on that.

Maybe I'm just jaded by a middle aged woman trying to make the viewer believe she's a teenage ingénue

You're probably jaded (and for 'jaded' read 'scarred for life') by watching THAT seduction scene in Curse of Fenric. But Sophie Aldred wash't remotely middle-aged and anyway, she was SUPPOSED to be a few years older by the time of Blood Harvest. Plus she was a marvellous Companion, half of the best TARDIS crew since..oh gods...it must be MEGLOS.

Plus she was a marvellous Companion, half of the best TARDIS crew since..oh gods...it must be MEGLOS.

I strongly disagree with that assessment, Emily. And I think you know why.

At least Sarah Sutton was 18 (and playing 16) when she started on DW. Sophie Aldred was nearly thirty by Survival.

I strongly disagree with that assessment, Emily. And I think you know why.

To clarify, OF COURSE I meant no slur on any INDIVIDUAL member of a TARDIS team. Heaven knows, post-Meglos we had Tom Baker AND Romana II AND K9, and I worship the ground they tread/glide on. I just meant that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of said crew must be perfect, and I'm sure Nyssa would be the first to admit that sadly this wasn't quite the case during her tenure...

Sophie Aldred was nearly thirty by Survival.

Yeah, she was about 26. I remember reading an interview with her in which she claimed she was one year older than Doctor Who.

"Aren't you a little old to be going to school, Ace?"

"I'm not the eldest. Plenty of big kids here. Jenkins must be all of fifty."

Before the Great Vampire brought them there, the planet was uninhabited.

So the bats came with the ship, too?

Why not?

If planets that had no connection with Earth can have humanoids on them, why can't they have bats?

Because when the Time Lords Anchored the Thread, they ensured their own humanoid forms became the universal template, but they didn't bother about BATS?

Admittedly this is quite an NA kind of answer, but then it IS the NA section.

Oh, wait...wrong universe.

*Takes deep breath and starts again*

There's nothing particularly unlikely about that nameless E-Space planet evolving its own blood-drinking bat-like creatures. And there's nothing particularly unlikely about a few of the critturs stowing away aboard the Hydrax the way the spiders did aboard whatever misfortunate spaceship took a bunch of total losers to Metabelis 3. I've never regarded the existence of bats in State of Decay as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Whoniverse.

A long time ago, a poster called Chief Sharky wrote:


"State of Decay" clearly established only the ONE Village and ONE Tower on the Great Vampire's planet. Here is some dialogue from said episode.

IVO: You're not from the Village.

ROMANA: That's right. We're strangers.

IVO: It isn't possible. There is only the Tower and the Village, nowhere else. How can you be here?

And a short time later when the Doctor and Romana question Ivo as to why everyone is known:

ROMANA: What about people from the next village? Or the nearest town?

IVO: There is only the Village and the Tower. Nowhere else.

In addition to this, K9 did an orbital scan when the TARDIS first approached the planet and picked up only that ONE area of habitation. The rest of the planet was deserted. Case closed.


Add to that, when Adders was caught nicking that slice of bread, Marta (Ivo's wife) was amazed that she didn't know who he was.

That's because the human population of that planet, Guards and Villagers alike, were all descendants of the original crew of the Hydrax. Before the Great Vampire brought the Hydrax there, that planet was uninhabited.

Sorry, Terry, your attempt to re-write history in this novel is an Epic Fail.

Yeah, one can't help wondering what he was thinking. He must have known that the kind of people who'd buy Blood Harvest were the kind of people who'd have watched State of Decay. And read the novelisation. Repeatedly.

And he didn't think anyone would call him out on this. He was wrong.

As I said, he could have avoided that whole problem by moving the time line up a few centuries after State Of Decay. Give the humans, after the Doctor and Romana liberated them, time to breed and spread out around the planet.

And he didn't think anyone would call him out on this. He was wrong.

Well, I suppose it's possible that he thought his position as the Elder Statesman of Doctor Who would protect him but he must have met a LOT of Fans over the years so it's more likely that he knew perfectly well it wouldn't, he just didn't care.

(For an example of how much he JUST DOESN'T CARE, try Deadly Reunion.)

I would love to ask him about this.

"Agonal" - his parents must have *wanted* him to be beaten up...

Bookwyrm:

'It suffers from two key problems. The first is that it's far too similar to its source material. The second is that it takes so many liberties with that source material that it's just irritating. These are, of course, the two greatest crimes that any sequel can commit. It's just that most sequels tend to plump for one or the other' - yeah. This.

The second is that it takes so many liberties with that source material that it's just irritating.

Got that right.

There was only ONE Village and One Tower. Case closed.

At least my latest Timelost story got some of the anger about this out of my system.