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goth opera
author:    paul cornell
isbn:    0 426 20418 2
confusion quotient: 0.835


Text in this style contributed by Paul Cornell.
p.1 vampire theory: The first true vampire story in "Doctor Who" was 'State of Decay', in which the Great Vampire legend was incorporated into Gallifreyan history.  Either before or after Rassilon mastered time travel, he led a fleet of bowships in a war against giant spacegoing vampires, and destroyed all but the last one, which disappeared into E-Space.  'Goth Opera' carries on from 'Blood Harvest', the sequel to 'State of Decay' concurrently published as a New Adventure.  The book also uses vampire theory from 'The Curse of Fenric', which states that vampires are repelled by faith, and not symbols of the crucufix by themselves.  There are other stories which use conceptual vampires with a more distant link to the Great Vampires or their descendents; 'The Claws of Axos' is one, and so is 'Venusian Lullaby' (which hadn't been published yet when 'Goth Opera' was written).
Siemens Tower: A landmark on the Manchester skyline.
russet: reddish-brown, but not scarlet or maroon.
'So much to answer for!': (Text contributed by Sean Gaffney) This is another reference to Manchester; specifically, it's the headline to an article by the New Musical Express about the state of music in Manchester at the time (1988-90), with bands such as Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses electrifying Britain.  Interestingly, both Keith Topping and Martin Day wrote for the NME at some point.  'Manchester - So Much to Answer For' is also the title of a marvelous Peel Sessions CD with tracks by The Smiths, Happy Mondays, etc.  (Text submitted by Goofy) "Manchester - so much to answer for" is also a line from a Smiths song, from their first album, I think. I can't remember which song at the moment.

p.2
Bristol: English city on the Severn Estuary.
Rusholme: A suburb of Manchester, quite gentrified.
Totnes: Town in Devon, just west of Torquay.  Devon is roughly 500 km from Manchester.
Vire Island, Rumour bar: A real bar on a real island (of the sort that's so much part of the mainland that you don't notice) in Totnes. Where kids hang around.

p.3
peninsula: Devon and Cornwall.

p.4
Michael Caine: Born Maurice Micklewhite.  English film and television actor in films such as 'A Bridge Too Far', 'The Wrong Box' and 'The Man who Would be King'.
cashpoints: In the USA they probably call them ATMs.
18-30 holiday: Raucous, working-class holidays for that age group, the vampires mocking what an obvious herdlike thing to do that is.

p.6
Dartington: Ornamental gardens near Totnes.

p.7
together forever: The title of a mid-eighties pop single by Rick Astley.
Morrissey: Manchester based pop idol, formerly of The Smiths.
Stoke-on-Trent: Staffordshire city 65 km north of Birmingham.  Home of a variety of vintage china.  Also, right next to Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, in the encyclopedia, and so a popular place for vampires and vampire-killers to loaf about.
Russ down in Burslem's: Burslem is one of the cluster of small towns that make up Stoke on Trent.

p.9
'Shall I be mother?": Mother serves the tea.  Or in this case, the blood.

p.10
the ring: The ring also has the seal of Rassilon on it.  So why are the vampires not burned by it?  More to the point, why are vampires bound to the Ring of Rassilon?  And how did Ruath come by it?
 

The uncensored cover of 'Goth Opera', as printed in DWM #221.  Many thanks to whoever wrote into Timelines noting the discrepancy.
p.11
Count Dracula: Legendary Transylvanian vampire of the 19th century in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', based on the historical figure Vlad Tepesh.  Dracula is a mythic figure in the Doctor Who Universe, as 'The Chase' established in passing, but books published nowadays confuse the principle by introducing both Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle as real characters.  The Ancient Haemovore had a throwaway line about passing through Transylvania in the 19th century in 'The Curse of Fenric'.
Bioplasmic data-processors: An awkward way of recapping the story from 'Blood Harvest'.  How about this: the processors are time-sensitive and can explore back and forth across time through family trees to find the memories of someone who witnessed the events to be replayed.  It's like Pinero's apparatus in Robert A. Heinlein's short story 'Life-Line', but more like a VCR. Very awkward, and I like your explanation better. There's more of Lawrence Miles' ideas there, from 'Alien Bodies'.  He uses biodata to describe all information about anything stored genetically several levels of resolution too fine for DNA.

p.12
magic:  As we all know, Clarke's Law speculates that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.  Its corollary is that any magic sufficiently basic is indistinguishable from technology, at least according to Ben Aaronovitch in 'Battlefield'.   In 'The Dæmons' the 3rd Doctor said that all magic has a scientific explanation.  And when he was confronted with genuine witchcraft, he had a convenient alien civilisation to pull out of his hat.
Yarven: A vampire from 'Blood Harvest' who escaped from E-Space as a stowaway in the TARDIS and was released in 1930s Chicago.
trilbies: Hats styled with connections to the French romantic novel Trilby by the French ex-pat George duMaurier, about a young female singer's manipulation by the evil musical genius Svengali, a vampire-like character loosely based on Simon Fuller (not).  Also see p.88 of 'The Face of the Enemy' by David A. McIntee.

p.13
Sten gun: Portable machine-pistol of WW2.

p.14
Ravalox: In 'The Trial of a Time-Lord' the Time Lords sterilised the Earth, renamed it Ravalox and moved our entire solar system several light-years away from its charted place in an attempt to stop theft of information from the Matrix, their repository of knowledge.  That action would nullify all the work the Doctor had done in the future by derailing the timeline.  At the end of the serial they may have been in a position to reverse that action and prevent the destruction of the Earth, which has been speculated would take place in our time period.  So is Earth going to be called Ravalox, or isn't it?  We can never be sure how much of 'The Trial of a Time-Lord' actually happened and how much was faked evidence, censored, and rewritten history.
Prydonian: The Doctor was part of the Prydonian College.

p.15
Bosnia: In 1993 the former Yugoslavia was still in the middle of a war.
'It's bigger on the inside than the outside.': Predictable, really.

p.16
General Tito: Born Josip Broz, Tito was the leader of the partisan resistance in Yugoslavia after the German and Italian invasion in the Second World War.  He later became Yugoslavia's head of state and president for life.
'In this current conflict, Serbian spokesmen have alleged that an army of the undead will arise to help them in their final battle.':  Well, I guess the war isn't over yet.  The air force of flying pigs hasn't showed up yet, either. But the announcement was genuine, it really happened.

p.17
staser pistol: Time Lord weapon introduced in 'The Deadly Assassin'.  Stasers are probably powerful enough to destroy the regenerative process and truly kill time lords, and so probably vampires as well.

p.18
quantum and classical states of physics: Our perception of the universe only makes sense down to the atomic level of resolution.  Subatomic and quantum particles are hard to find with our bulky multi-molecular pieces of equipment, and even harder to understand.  If it's impossible to know an electron's position and trajectory at the same time, it's harder to understand what it's component quantum particles even are.  So if tweaking your DNA in a certain way on the quantum level turns you into a vampire or strengthens your faith, modern science won't be able to tell the difference.  Whether the mirror phenomenon is an actual change in the behaviour of light caused by the vampire DNA or just a perceived effect for anyone holding a mirror up to a vampire is unclear, but presumably they show up on videotape and film.  It'd kind of suck if you couldn't study vampire DNA with a microscope or any other holistic aid which uses mirrors or lenses, especially because eyes use lenses.

p.19
Ice Warrior: Martian.  The Martians appeared in 'The Ice Warriors', 'The Seeds of Death', 'The Curse of Peladon' and 'The Monster of Peladon'.  All we've ever seen of Martian eyes is the thick red goggles they wear over top.  If the Martian vision sense uses mirrors, I understand.  Alternatively, the Martians may have no experience with vampires or they may be immune.  It's all extremely confusing.
Many a true word: Maddy thinks she is, insultingly, 'talking to herself'.
the blood of animals: In some vampire stories vampires do subsist on animals when they won't or can't risk or get human blood.

p.20
'I missed him on Gallifrey': The 7th Doctor visited Gallifrey in 'Blood Harvest'.  It's possibly against the Laws of Time for a Time Lord to meet another in an earlier incarnation than they have already met in.  If that happened, the Time Lord would have foreknowledge of his or her own future, sort of like the 2nd Doctor having foreknowledge of his trial in 'The War Games' in 'The Five Doctors'.  If it was foreknowledge.

p.21
Tassy: Tasmania. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) More often spelled "Tassie", at least by the Australians I know.
Kent: County in southeastern England.  Bordered by Sussex, Surrey, the Dover Strait and the Thames.
Launceston: City in northern Tasmania, second in size to Hobart in the south.
Brisbane: Capital of Queensland in Australia.  North of Sydney.
Aunt Vanessa: In 'Logopolis', Tegan's first serial, her Aunt Vanessa was murdered by the Master on the Barnet By-pass.
Romper Room reject: Romper Room is a children's television show.  The 5th Doctor is a bit boring in a childish way. More that he's insufferably jolly all the time.
88 not out: Cricket is not a contact sport, and some people think it's boring.  A score of 88 not out indicates that the batter has 88 runs to his credit without being called out.  A single good hit might earn him 6 runs, so the Doctor's been at bat for awhile.  The next big milestone is his century, if he gets 100 not out. Here's an introduction to cricket from  Muhammed Taher Khan
Frances: Frances Edmonds, satirical and biting cricket writer.

p.22
he'd showed up again: After being left behind at Heathrow at the end of 'Time-Flight' the Doctor found Tegan again in Amsterdam in 'Arc of Infinity'.
Primo Levi's If this is a Man: Primo Levi was an Italian chemist whose inspiration to write came after being imprisoned in Auschwitz for the duration of the Second World War.
Mara: In 'Kinda' and 'Snakedance' Tegan was taken over by the Mara, an evil snake-like entity once banished from Deva Loka and Manussa respectively.

p.23
Nyssa's blue and white dress: Which she wore in 'Snakedance'.
Public Service Broadcasting: Cautionary radio advertising against overindulgence in sex, smoking and alcohol.  Usually funded by prophylactics, tobacco and beer companies. Nope! In Australia, the national TV station designed for public access and local news is a very dull one. Australian TV censors continued the trend of boring television by cutting out all the vicious murders, fights and Monoid close-ups from old episodes of Doctor Who.  The excisions were stored away and recovered a few years ago, to the pleasure of Telesnap Reconstruction fans.  Too bad they never excised whole episodes.
'We had several sayings about it': By an extreme coincidence, a Public Service Broadcasting courier carrying a load of audiopamphlets crashed on Traken in the planet's distant past, laying the foundation for the Galaxy's most utopian society.  Many of Traken's evil Melkur, evil aliens frozen solid by Traken's sheer good will, were from marketing divisions of consumables corporations. Several sayings about *ale*.
death of Adric: Adric died at the end of "Earthshock'.

p.24
'Rabbits.': Mild expletive favoured by Tegan.  As an Australian, she knows what rabbits get up to when introduced to an environment with no natural predators, and that's actually what she means to say but won't because this is a children's program.
Boon who had a stupid moustache: David Boon, Aussie cricketer.
her Dad's body: At the end of 'The Keeper of Traken' the Master took over the body of Tremas, Nyssa's father.  Just a coincidence that Tremas is an anagram of Master.
Hawke: Bob Hawke, Former Aussie Prime Minister. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) I remember being surprised, on first reading 'Goth Opera', that Tegan thought so badly of Bob Hawke. Of course, she hadn't lived through the intervening years, which left people in general of the opinion that his successor was worse.
Book prices were still too bloody high: Which, from the author's point of view, is only a good thing up to a point. Book prices in Aussie are vast!

p.25
By Lord Cranleigh's Invitation, Seventy Years of Charity Elevens - Wisden: 'Black Orchid' took place on Lord Cranleigh's estate in the June 1925.  The Doctor's presence was expected, but he didn't know about it.  He presumably made the appointment in his own future, at the same time as he published the book.  The two-part serial was enigmatic on that point, and may have inspired 'a ferocious letters-page dispute concerning the details of one of the Time Lord's historical reminiscences' in some fanzine or other. Nope, just between cricket readers in this fictional edition of Wisden's.  It seems like something fans would have a go at, though.  'The Sands of Time' is a story which involves the Cranleighs, and once again the Doctor arrives without knowing why he's expected.  I think 'The Hollow Men' mentions them as well.  The Fifth Doctor visits the Cranleighs often, which is the best explanation of how they know of him in 'Black Orchid'. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) I'd always understood the sequence of events in 'Black Orchid' to be the result of them expecting some other doctor; I remember (possibly inaccurately) this being explicit in the novelisation at least.
'What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?': Damn. I can't remember who this is a quote from. Possibly Neville Cardus.

p.26
Mike Gatting: Former England cricket captain, and Who fan (he appears in the Kevin Davies documentary). I sent him a copy of 'Goth Opera', but he never replied.
chemical abstracts: summaries of experiments.
dissolution and cooling of the universe: Nyssa doesn't expect a Big Crunch at the end of the Universe, in which the Universe will collapse after its current period of expansion.  Current theory agrees with Nyssa. And Bidmead did in Logopolis, the heat death of the universe.

p.27
the Watcher: A manifested premonition of the 4th Doctor's impending regeneration in 'Logopolis'.
poms were soft: pommes is french for apples.  Australians call the English poms, pommies, or pommy bastards.  The TARDIS has a translation sytem, first mentioned in 'The Masque of Mandragora', which allows its crew to understand all manner of foreign and alien languages.

p.33
Sunderland: Town in North East England.

p.34
bio-data files: A division of the Matrix which keeps biological information on all Time Lords.  In 'The Deadly Assassin' The Master erased his own file and used the Doctor's to lure him to Gallifrey  There's lots of biodata in 'Alien Bodies'.
'Like my TARDIS, vampires are bigger on the inside.': Vampires probably don't have pocket dimensions hidden away in their digestive systems, at least not in the same way as the TARDIS.  But remember that most of solid matter is just empty space between particles.  Vampires probably have an interesting way of storing blood away there.  Since we have no way of using those spaces, they are inaccessible and might as well be extra-dimensional.  Or at least that's what the 3rd Doctor would say. Oh yes they do! It's not a physical thing, because my vampires aren't physical creatures.

p.35
Borusa: One of the Doctor's teachers at the Prydonian academy.  He was Cardinal in at least two incarnations ('The Deadly Assassin' and 'The Invasion of Time') and Lord President of Gallifrey in two others ('Arc of Infinity' and 'The Five Doctors').  In 'The Five Doctors' he attempted to become immortal and was trapped in Rassilon's tomb for eternity.  In 'Blood Harvest' he earned his freedom and Rassilon released him, possibly into the Matrix.
the Great Vampire's death by sunlight: 'Blood Harvest', p.254.

p.36
Romana: Companion of the 4th Doctor assigned to him by the White Guardian in 'The Ribos Operation'.  She underwent her first regeneration in his company.  She left him to help the time-sensitive Tharils explore E-Space in 'Warrior's Gate'.  In 'Blood Harvest' she returned to Gallifrey.
the Time Scoop: A temporal manipulator dating back to the Old Time.  Rassilon and his early contemporaries used it to kidnap various aliens from different times and places and forced them to fight gladiatorial Games in the Death Zone.  Its use was banned and it was never used again until 'The Five Doctors' when Borusa used it to take the Doctor out of Time.

p.39
Numismaton gas: Rejuvenative flame found on Sarn in 'Planet of Fire'.  The Master used it to repair his body after an accident with his weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator.
symbiotic nuclei: Gallifreyan technology which allows interaction with TARDISes and time sensitivity for advanced intelligences.  First mentioned in 'The Two Doctors'.  Several fans have been sceptical about the significance of symbiotic nuclei; the Rassilon Imprimature might just have been a red herring the Doctor used to hold up Dastari's time experiments.

p.41
Civic Centre, Dr Claypole: A venue in Totnes where bands like (the real) Dr Claypole once played. Nyssa is picking up Madelaine's thoughts.

p.42
Georgian teapot: Possibly influenced by German rococo designs of the 18th century, but possibly Wedgwood.  Almost definitely made in Staffordshire.

p.43
Xeraphins: An alien collective intelligence manipulated by the Master in 'Time-Flight'.  Of course, he lost control and ended up its prisoner.
Black Guardian: Evil archetype who swore revenge on the Doctor after being cheated out of the Key to Time in 'The Armageddon Factor'.  The Guardian is about to catch up with the Doctor in 'Mawdryn Undead'.

p.44
the ring: Ruath's ring can let her see possible futures before they are chosen or discarded.  The Doctor probably has a similar device, which he used in 'The Pyramids of Mars' to show Sarah what would happen to her timeline if Sutekh destroyed the Earth before she was born.  In this case it enables Ruath to show Yarven the possible future introduced in 'The Curse of Fenric' in which the Earth becomes totally polluted and the home to the Haemovores. That would explain a great deal about the ring on the cover of 'The Infinity Doctors'.

p.46
zero cabinet: portable retreat the Doctor used to recuperate after his regeneration in 'Castrovalva'.
poisonous spiders: There are poisonous spiders in Aus, but they're infrequently encountered.

p.48
TCCB: The Test and County Cricket Board, which, when this book was published, was in charge of all English cricket.
W.G. Grace: Huge bearded man who promoted cricket at the turn of the century. He was actually a renowned *player* of the game, who famously refused to be given out on a number of occasions, and was known as "The Doctor", and not "The Master" as 'Black Orchid' has it.
Southern Cross: Constellation visible from the Southern Hemisphere.  Nyssa sees it overhead a few hours after sunset, suggesting a setting in May or June, which is winter in Australia and not the cricketing season.  On p.1 it is autumn in Manchester, and on p.62 it is November, which is late spring in Tasmania.  The Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds are always visible from Tasmania. Damn.  Sorry..
See Traken:  If Traken's sun is far enough away from Earth for its prehistoric light to be just arriving in the 20th Century, it must be so far away as to be indistinguishable from billions of other stars, if it is even in our galaxy.

p.49
repeats of old British comedy shows and stuff: I heard somewhere that Australians really like britcoms, and that the English really like Australian programs. Our comedy is shown in their primetime, their soaps are shown at our teatime.
Gideon Bible: The Gideons are a non-profit group who supply hotels with large supplies of bibles, one for each room, to provide moral support for weary travellers.  Gideon Bibles play a part in the 'Mission: Impossible' movie and the Paul McCartney ballad 'Rocky Raccoon' from the Beatles' White Album.

p.50
Tegan's old Serbian grandfather: New continuity.

p.51
Qantas: Australian national airline and, according to Dustin Hoffman in 'Rain Man', the only major airline never to have crashed a plane.  So you can have faith in it.
the republic: Australia is still part of the Commonwealth. And Tegan has faith that that won't always be so.
James Reyne: Aussie rock singer and national treasure.

p.52
Aussie wine: Australian table wines are actually quite good. And that's another bit of Tegan's brash national identity.

p.53
garlic: (Text submitted by Mike Hall) Most scientific explanations for the vampire phenomena centre around a condition called porphyria, where a genetic flaw  results in a lack of Heme in the blood.  Ordinarily garlic promotes Heme production, however it aggravates porphyria sufferers.

p.57
the code: Of vampires towards each other.

p.58
Delia Smith: British TV cook.

p.60
Sorted: Got it worked out. An expression that started in Manchester before conquering Britain.
North West Tonight: BBC local news show for the area.

p.61
Granada: Local ITV station.
Old Trafford: Stadium, home to Manchester United football club.

p.64
Arndale Centre: Big shopping centre or mall.
Exchange Theatre: Theatre of note.

p.65
Evening News: Local paper.

p.66
graffiti:Police boxes were often vandalised in the old days; the Barnet's Bypass box was vandalised and removed inconveniently just before the filming of 'Logopolis'.  The only remaining Glaswegian police boxes are often painted up.  But does a trip in the vortex erase the damage?  In 'Tymewyrm: Exodus' paint wouldn't even stick to it.    In 'Paradise Towers' the TARDIS got spraypainted, and in 'The Happiness Patrol' the Ship was covered in a coat of bright day-glo pink.  In 'Silver Nemesis' one of Lady Peinforte's arrows stuck on the TARDIS door for two full episodes. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) To confuse the issue further, in 'Paradise Towers' and 'The Happiness Patrol' the Doctor gets the TARDIS repainted after it's defaced.  (Though, of course, he might not have *needed* to...)

p.67
Umbro shirt: Then fashionable sports (that is, like a footballer would wear) shirt.

p.72
Proctors: Trakenite policemen.

p.79
'Vun, vun gothic battlement!  Two, two gothic battlements!  Ah, ha ha hah ha!': Dialogue reminiscent of the Count from 'Sesame Street'.

p.84
Mrs Beeton: Victorian matron popularised in a combined cookbook and etiquette guide. She was the author of the book, and, contrary to the popular image, died in her twenties.

p.86
Cathedral, Mitre Inn: A pub near the cathedral where the Manchester Local Group used to meet.
Salford: Salford is the setting for Coronation Street.  Paul Cornell has written for Coronation Street.  My only experience with Corry is watching Dierdre deal with her first day in jail for a fraud she didn't do, so I've probably missed a large number of Corry in-jokes. This was before I got involved with the show, and I didn't watch it then, so you haven't missed anything.
Banshee: Goth club in the city.

p.87
Withington: Pleasant suburb of the city. I used to live there.

p.88
'we have an inability to cross running water': As the vampires of legend do.  Legendary vampires were also confined to all the land enclosed by a road.  The effect was that vampires were tied to the land, rather than being able to sail off to England (As in Bram Stoker's classic Dracula) or fly through space.  I've got to look up some comprehensive vampire rulebook.  Even if it disagrees, the Great Vampires must have been able to fly through space.

p.89
Ian Wright: Brilliant striker for Arsenal football club who could never seem to score for England. 'Scoring' being a euphemism for getting involved with someone, hence Madelaine's pun.

p.90
Barbara, Ian & their son John: After leaving the TARDIS in 'The Chase' Ian and Barbara married and had a son named John, who appears in 'Timewyrm: Revelation' as the pop star Johnny Chess.  He is also mentioned in 'Face of the Enemy', more recently published.  Johnny was created by Keith Topping as Johnny Chester and is also mentioned in 'The Hollow Men'.  Keith has written some excellent Johnny Chester fiction which can be accessed at  his website . (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) And his songs get some air time in _Love and War_.  I think John Chesterton is briefly mentioned in (the novelisation of?)  'The Curse of Fenric', when the Doctor is having faith in his companions, but I may be getting confused with 'Goth Opera'.  Upside-down cake, I remember that clearly, but I'm not sure about John.
Susan and Adric: In 'The Curse of Fenric' the 7th Doctor repelled haemovores from the church by whispering the names of his companions.

p.92
X-films: Old category of film certificate, now replaced with the 18. Horror movies such as Hammer Dracula movies.

p.96
fugue: From the musical, an archaic-sounding word for a daze.

p.102
Alderley Edge: Spectacular cliffs in Cheshire, nearby to Manchester.

p.104
Cumbaya: Cliched hymn for happy clappy Christians to sing.

p.106
Cheshire: County bordering Manchester.

p.108
Evita: Multiple Tony Award winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the life of Eva Peron, the famous Argentinian fascist dictator's wife.

p.114
Mortimus: Renegade Time Lord who last appeared in the New Adventure 'No Future'.  Named as the Meddling Monk in the TV serials 'The Time Meddler' and 'The Daleks' Masterplan'.
'Children of the Night': famous line spoken by Bela Lugosi as the title role in 'Dracula'.

p.118
'One lump or two?': Catch-phrase from the untransmitted serial 'Shada'.  The Time Lord Professor Chronotis confused his students by asking how many lumps they took with tea, and then asking if they wanted sugar.
'I just stood back and thought of Rassilon.': As a matter of fact it was the combined minds of Romana, Rassilon, Borusa and the Doctor that dispersed Agonal. And of course there's Queen Victoria's advice to 'lie back and think of England'. Her Majesty  was being asked what the process of childbearing felt like, although she didn't clarify whether she meant the beginning bit or the end bit.
children's tales: The secrets of how to reach Rassilon's Tomb in 'The Five Doctors' were hidden in nursery rhymes. I meant there are nursery stories about the Dark Time. Romana reads one at the end.

p.119
R.O.O. stories: Gallifreyan mythology contains a large number of legends of the deeds of Gallifrey's greatest three heroes: Rassilon, Omega and the Other, an enigma originally intended by J.M. Lofficier to be the Doctor.  However, that would be too easy.  For more information on the Other, read 'Lungbarrow' if you can find a copy.  Roo is a marsupial character from A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books such as The House at Pooh Corner. Lofficier had nothing to do with it. That was Ben Aaronovitch's doing. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) He's right, you know. Interestingly, when the Other is first introduced, in Aaronovitch's novelisation of 'Remembrance of the Daleks', it's specifically mentioned that there are no records or legends of him, that he vanished from history entirely.  'Goth Opera' is the first time it's suggested that modern Time Lords know of his existence.  Peter Ware has uncovered evidence that Mortimus knew in 'No Future', as he invoked the names of the Time Lord Trinity in summoning Artemis.  Maybe Mortimus is another descendent of the Other ('Lungbarrow').

p.120
Time Lords are like vampires: An interesting theory.  And the book Ruath got the idea from is probably the one with which she warded off Jake, Madaleine and Eric on p.10, which is ironic.

p.121
'Yarven? But he was so... ineffectual.': Yarven was only a minor character in 'Blood Harvest'.
Lady President: After being reinstated as Lord President at the end of 'The Five Doctors' the Doctor appointed Chancellor Flavia as regent until he returned.  At this point in the 5th Doctor's timeline, 'The 5 Doctors' hasn't happened yet.

p.122
''Oh no...' Pogarel sighed, 'not again.'': On p.268 of 'Blood Harvest' Bernice forced Romana into Flavia's office at knifepoint. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Or rather, Ace forced Pogarel into Flavia's office at knifepoint. But Benny and Romana were present at the time.

p.123
Shobogans: Non-Time Lord outcast Gallifreyans introduced in 'The Invasion of Time' who live outside the planet's citadels.  Actually, the author's own collaboration with Keith Topping and Martin Day, The Discontinuity Guide, claims the Outsiders from 'The Invasion of Time' are not the Shobogans.  After all, the only time they are named as such is in a throwaway line by Castellan Spandrell in 'The Deadly Assassin', as "Sheboogans".  Presumably the Sheboogans are just hooligans, whereas the Outsiders are more like the Montana Freemen.

p.125
Castellan Spandrell:The Castellan is the Capitol's security chief and Commander of the Chancellery Guard.  Spandrell appeared in 'The Deadly Assassin'.  Between that serial and 'The Five Doctors', there were two other Castellans: Kellner in 'The Invasion of Time' and the unnamed Paul Jerricho in 'Arc of Infinity' and 'The Five Doctors', in which he was assassinated.
an owl perhaps: Paul Cornell's books almost always have owls in them, and the owl is a symbol of Rassilon as on p.120. And that's the nature of her thought here. Not all my books have owls.   Astonishingly, Paul seems to be correct.  In 'Love and War', an owl watches Julian and Ace driving.  In 'No Future', owls appear on p.31, 108, 113 and 266, according to Peter Ware.  The first owl in 'Human Nature' is on p.14.  aM!xitsa disguises itself as an owl in 'Happy Endings'.  There is a Professor Owl in 'Oh No It Isn't!'.  But a word search of the 'Timewyrm: Revelation' guide doesn't reveal any usage of the word.
The great game table: Tool used by Borusa to activate the Timescoop to gather and manipulate the Doctors and his companions in 'The Five Doctors'.  It was used in 'Blood Harvest' to timescoop Agonal from E-Space back to Gallifrey.

p.126
Theta: In 'The Armageddon Factor' the Doctor's school name was given as Theta Sigma.
final image: Possibly the Final Doctor, but the rest of the paragraph seems to indicate the 7th. No, I meant the final Doctor. The thoughts are seperate ones. Just me having fun.
What the Omega: Gallifreyan obscenity.
Ka Faraq Gatri: Arch-nemesis of the Daleks, the 7th Doctor.  The nickname is first used in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of 'Remembrance of the Daleks' and means 'The Bringer of Darkness' in dalek.

p.129
Drashig: On p.276 of 'Blood Harvest' the 7th Doctor finds a Drashig, last seen in Vorg's Miniscope in 'Carnival of Monsters', with the Time Scoop.  Ruath found it again and sent Romana to it.

p.131
Sabalom Glitz: Space pirate from Salostopus in Andromeda 2 million years in the future.  Last seen in 'Dragonfire'.  After a plot to steal Matrix secrets for the Master wth his henchman Dibber in 'The Mysterious Planet' ('The Trial of a Time-Lord Parts 1-4) and his solo testimony in 'The Ultimate Foe' (The Trial of a Time-Lord Parts 13-14) the 7th Doctor ran into him on Svartos sans Dibber in 'Dragonfire', having sold out the rest of the crew of the Nosferatu (translation: vampire) to Kane.  He seems to have found Dibber again, and lost Mel, who left Svartos with him in the Iceworld space station, rechristened the Nosferatu 2.  Reincarnation seems to be the only option for Dibber, who was shot dead in 'Mission: Impractical', a 6th Doctor BBC Book set between 'The Trial of a Time-Lord' and 'Dragonfire'.  The Miniscope from 'Carnival of Monsters', now containing Romana and a bunch of Drashigs, is now in his posession.  All of this ridiculous continuity and vampire imagery probably has something to do with Romana's being scattered into the Doctor's timeline by a scholar on vampires.
Grotzi: currency from Glitz's time period.  Or is it Grotzit?

p.132
chronic hystere-chronic hyst-time loops: In 'Meglos' the 4th Doctor was trapped in a chronic hysteresis.
subtle bank jobs: Glitz used Mel's computer skills to commit fraud, which is why she left him, which is why you should read the New Adventure 'Head Games' by Steve Lyons.
some young Zobzer who'd got his hands on a magic lamp: Aladdin.
killing Venusian Aikido position: The 3rd Doctor was fond of Venusian Aikido, and we assume he acquired the skill on one of his visits to Venus 3 billion years in the past.  The thing about Venusian Aikido is that you need five legs to really get it right (read 'Venusian Lullaby' by Paul Leonard).  The Venusians became extinct billions of years ago, so any knowledge of Venusian Aikido must have been passed on to Glitz's time 2 million years in the future by the 3rd Doctor. Glitz isn't going to have mastered this for real, is he?
Draconian fiefdom: The Draconian Empire figured in 'Frontier in Space'.  The Draconians have an ancient, hierarchical and honour-based society.  Sabalom Glitz does not belong there.
Mav Hasker's back catalogue: Presumably a rich rock singer whose publishing rights are worth a fortune.

p.134
Type Ninety TARDIS: The Doctor's model is a Type Forty, which was phased out of service before 'The Deadly Assassin'.

p.135
seat on the High Council: Read 'Happy Endings', also by Paul Cornell.

p.136
suborbital hop: Any parabolic trajectory without enough sideways motion to bring the Earth out from underneath; when the projectile falls down again it hits the Earth rather than missing it and going into orbit.

p.137
High Evolutionaries: Beings introduced in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip in issue #62.  For help in fighting time distortions caused by the monster Melanicus, the 5th Doctor plugged himself into the Matrix and met the leaders of the Celestial Intervention Agency: Rassilon, Morvane, Bedevere, Merlin the Wise and Dakon Theka and the Thane of Kordar, both Higher Evolutionaries from the Althrace System.
astral plain: Actually, the astral plane.  The 6th Doctor went there while trying to connect with the 2nd Doctor in 'The Two Doctors'.

p.138
knocked off Omega: In 'Arc of Infinity' the Doctor defeated Omega's second attempt to return to our universe; the first being in 'The Three Doctors'.
vampires on the Moon: Jake and Madelaine have to avoid the sunlight on the Earth, and on the vacuum of the Moon as well.  But there is no explanation of how they can survive the trip.  If the side of the Moon facing the Earth is in shadow, the Moon is casting a shadow near the Earth, so Jake and Madelaine can fly in that shadow for most of the journey, but not all.  The Moon's shadow only connects with Earth in a solar eclipse.  If it's night time on the near face of the moon, full moon is still a week or so away, and there's plenty of time to rescue Nyssa.
    The geometry of Jake and Madelaine's location on the Moon is accurate.  The Earth stays almost overhead all the time from the Sea of Tranquillity.  The plaque on Apollo 11 does read 'We came in peace for all mankind'.  Dust does not fly on the Moon.  The smallest speck of dust falls as fast as a cinder block without air resistance.
    Pluto is 7500 times farther than the Moon, and although would take a space probe fifteen or twenty years to get there vampires can make the trip in a matter of months.  Similarly, vampires can make a quick jump out to the Moon in an hour or two while it took the Apollo capsules two days.  Jupiter is only 1000 times farther than the Moon, and that trip would take weeks for vampires although it takes five years for space probes. All your lunar stuff is accurate.

p.143
ion bonder: Sonic-screwdriver-like tool Nyssa discarded in 'Castrovalva' after it got wet.  See the entry in Chris Howarth & Steve Lyons' book Doctor Who: The Completely Useless Encyclopedia.

p.146
Afflick's Palace: Indoor market in Manchester, lots of cool shops.
scanning microscope: Scanning microscopes use beams of electrons to build up a picture of their specimens, and process the image onto a screen, not an eyepiece.

p.148
wave equation: Mathematical formula to represent the predictable actions of a wave.

p.149
Roger Moore: Title charactor in the TV series The Saint and several James Bond films.  Some of these have probably been dubbed into german.
C of E: Church of England.  The stereotype is not just the religion, but of the type of people who choose it because it gives them the latitude to only have to go on occasions like weddings, funerals and Christmas.  These people don't have the religious culture or faith to make them fear vampires in an effective way.

p.150
Irlams O'The Height: p.158 Suburb where Steve Lyons lives. Matthew was called Steve until Rebecca (Levene, the Editor) pointed out that he shares both his name and house, and though I'm sure Steve wouldn't sue me, that was a bit too close for comfort!  That's interesting, as Steve commented on the Manchester setting for 'Goth Opera' in Doctor Who: The Completely Useless Encyclopediathat it wasn't the Manchester he knew.  Since then, Irlams O'The Height has been mentioned again.  In Gary Russell's 'The Scales of Injustice' Marc Marshall's father is the MP from Irlam O'The Heights.. for awhile.
Arthur and Iris: Corry, right? No! Just my own characters.

p.159
old Isaac tended to drink whatever mercury compunds he was working with: Isaac Newton was, among other things, an alchemist.  Back in those days drinking your results was not frowned upon by scientists, and was called assaying; testing by taste.  Why do you think Newton had prematurely white hair?

p.161
when Christ had met Satan in the desert: Matthew Chapter 4, Mark Chapter 1 verse 12, Luke Chapter 4.

p.162
PC: politically correct.

p.163
Morpheus: The God of sleep, being in the arms of Morpheus being a common expression for sleeping.
Louis Pasteur in a dairy: Pasteur discovered microorganisms in milk, and invented a heating process to kill them off before drinking the milk.

p.164
Busy Lizzie: Decorative house plant.

p.165
North predicts apocalypse: The difference between who saw nighttime in the day and who saw the Sun at night would be an east-west divide, not a north-south one.  Plus there is less inhabited land mass in the southern hemisphere than in the north. All right, you bastard. It's not me, eh sir?
barbarians at the gate: As at the gates of Rome.
Sun stopped in the Old Testament: Joshua Chapter 10.

p.171
'It will be a world founded on deceit': Isn't the world already founded on deceits?

p.173
Lang's forehead: The Mark of the Beast? Metaphorically, sort of, but in the context of the plot, it was just the appearance of the map reference!
Ordnance Survey map: Precise sort of maps, covering all Britain.

p.174
Leek, Staffordshire: Gorgeous, mystical, dark town of my aquaintance.

p.178
National Trust: A private, non-profit corporation which holds the lands of many of the United Kingdom's national monuments.

p.179
Tegan Kiev: Like Chicken Kiev.

p.182
combie: Aussie name for a Volkswagen van, a 'combination'. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Generally spelled "Kombi", and I always thought it was what the Germans called that kind of van as well, BICBW.
lock: A lock can be an apparatus to keep a door shut, or it can be a corridor in a canal to transfer bats between one water level and another.  Like an airlock.

p.183
'When I say run..': 2nd Doctor's catchphrase.
good mates with Moses: The joke being, of course, about the Doctor parting the waters.  I don't know what just happened.  Be warned the Doctor is a ruthless liar when it comes to name-dropping.  And who can be sure that Moses didn't just carve up the tablets himself?

p.185
haute cuisine: Good eats.

p.195
'class of '92, at the Prydonian Academy': According to 'The Armageddon Factor' Drax and the Doctor graduated in that class.
Mortimus: Where does it say Mortimus was in the Doctor's year?  After all, 'The Time Meddler' states he left the Home Planet fifty years after the Doctor did, and they didn't appear to have met before.
the Rani: Evil Time Lady biogeneticist from 'The Mark of the Rani' and 'Time and the Rani'.
that idiot Magnus: Another contemporary of the early Doctor.  Possibly the Master, but I've never found a concrete link between the two. (Text submitted by Steven Sautter) This might be a reference to the untransmitted Colin Baker story, Mission to Magnus, which featured a Time Lord from the Doctor's past. But, the Time Lord's name is Anzor.  This may be a mistake on Paul's part or just a very odd alternate name for the Master as you suggested.  Everyone knows, however, that the Master's real name is Koschei.  But that wasn't established at this point so it doesn't really matter, does it?  Well, Koschei is probably not the Master's real name; it's a genuine piece of Russian mythology.  Kind of like Baba Yaga is like Iris Wildthyme.  They're either emulating Russian myths or the myths grew around them.  I'm not sure about Magnus being Anzor; I've never read 'Mission to Magnus'.  (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) I have, and I very much doubt it's him. There's no reason for him to be called Magnus, since Magnus in that story was a planet neither he nor the Doctor had ever visited before; and the Doctor's attitude toward him would make it unlikely to dismiss him as "that idiot Magnus".  But Magnus might be another Time Lord, maybe that one Nick Briggs ran into in the early Audio Visual 'Shadow World'.  Named Askran, if the legends are true.  At least there's the DWM comic strip in the Time Lords Special (circa 1992, IIRC) which explicitly names him as Magnus.  And it isn't Magnus Greel, he was a human.. barely. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Turns out it's the War Chief from 'The War Games'. There you go.

p.196
Minyans and Kasterborous: In 'Underworld' it was explained how the early Time Lords were deified by the Minyans, a primitive race which ended up destroying itself with Time Lord technology freely given.  Making the constellation of Kasterborous, of which Gallifrey's sun is a part, a Minyan phenomenon is a novel solution to why the Doctor always says Gallifrey is in Kasterborous when, by definition, you can't see the constellation from inside it.

p.201
'I am Lord President of Gallifrey': But why, in 'Arc of Infinity' and 'The Five Doctors', is Borusa Lord President?  Why does the Doctor need to be reinstated at the end of the latter serial? (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Because he quit the job at the end of 'The Invasion of Time'... oh, I see. That would mean he's not Lord President any more. Is this after he's been talking to Romana? Can't remember.

p.207
'we introduced cats into the Gallifreyan ecosystem': I have a clipping from a very old Doctor Who Magazine, possibly #100, of an article by Gary Russell entitled The Legacy of Gallifrey, and something about Postar the Perfidious.  It runs from p.6 to p.11.  Here's a bit:

Thankfully, however, there were some Gallifreyans who had the foresight to stay home and build a future for their planet.  These included people like the solar engineers who, having discovered that the square root of minus three was impossible to calculate, had their biological engineers develop a new species of animal which had that knowledge bred into it.  Thus, when any planet on which this animal was placed tried to find the square root of minus three, the animal would turn round and say "Ah, but that's impossible".  The biological engineers on Gallifrey called this creature, to date their greatest achievement, a calculating animal with a tail, the acronym of which is, of course, cat.  Cats have been recognised as the sign of intelligence on Gallifrey ever since.
Well, one of these totally fictional explanations has to be wrong. There's a mention of cats on Gallifrey in the televised show, one of the Rani episodes, I think. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) 'Mark of the Rani'. The Rani was exiled from Gallifrey after one of her experiments - a species of giant mice - escaped and ate the Lord President's pet cat. (And, according to the Master, took a bite out of the President.) No mention of where he got the cat from.
'Do you know, once we even electrified Borusa's perigosto stick.':Good gracious, what impertinence.  But wait a minute, isn't the perigosto stick from Venus?  Which would be why you're supposed to keep it away from Venusian Shanghorns.  Of course, it it was from Gallifrey you couldn't help but keep it away from Venusian Shanghorns. There's a Pertwee-era mention (or maybe it's in a Terrance novel) of these items in use on Gallifrey. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) A Letts novel, actually, unless it's in the TV version of 'The Daemons' as well. In the novelisation, at least, the Doctor is reminiscing about some of the pranks he and the Master pulled when they were students; one of them, IIRC, involved the Lord President's perigosto stick.

p.218
'Say it loud!': Lang is quoting the famous Godfather of Soul and ex-convict James Brown. Oh boy, you're goin' to hell for that one.

p.233
a pair of old men: Well, I gather the one with the beard and the owl-headed cane is Rassilon, except that he's dead.  It could be the White Guardian.  The scowling man is the Black Guardian.  He has a raven-shaped object, and the Black Guardian has a raven on his head.  He scowls, and so did Valentine Dyall, the man that played him.  Furthermore Dyall's most famous role was on radio as the Man in Black, and here he's identified as such.  He says he'll have to try something else, and in the next story, Mawdryn Undead, he catches up.

p.235
apples: Here we go with Newton imagery again, and the quantum/classical boundary.  Granny Smiths are the green kind.

p.236
Merv: Merv Huges, Australian bowler.
Rutan Pobulas: Currency.
'Do the Rutans drink Fosters?": No. Lager, that is.

p.237
'Here endeth the first lesson,':Liturgical quote.  The liturgy has two lessons in a service, and at the end of the first one you identify the moment as such.
solar panel: Voyager Two doesn't have solar panels.  It's powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, not sunlight.  It's not headed towards any star in particular, but it's about as far away as Pluto now, so the trip should have taken Jake and Madaleine some months.

I've missed out things I want to keep misty, that you'd got right, or that were just fictional names and places invented by me. Thanks for going to all that trouble. Cheers.

This picture of Paul Cornell was published in Singularity #2.  Don't worry about the quality, one of Paul's quirks is that pictures of him tend not to turn out very well.
(Text from DWM #221, a Craig Hinton interview with Paul Cornell)
    "Goth Opera is the result of me wanting to do a vampire book - because I'd thought up loads of set-pieces - and Peter Darvill-Evans (the senior fiction editor at Virgin) then telling me about Terrance Dicks' vampire book and getting us together.  It then got influenced by one of the stories from the Cracker television series, To Say I Love You.  I'm very happy with the end result and definitively wouldn't want to change it.  When there's nothing I want to change, I stop.  I might have cut down a bit on the continuity chapter, but that was done as a kind of trailer for the whole line, saying 'hey, all these characters live in the same universe, and this is the sort of thing we'll be doing.'"
    Paul was the first author to write both a New and a Missing Adventure.  Did he find the writing different?  "The Missing Adventure was a lot quicker and easier, because I didn't have to worry about subtext, motifs, owls or any of my usual stuff.  And I actually delivered it before deadline!"
    What does Paul find easiest about writing a book?  "The collaborative process; knocking ideas round with the pit crew I name in the front of each book.  When it's going well, I actually like writing, too, but when it's bad it's murder, and I start kicking old ladies in the street, phoning up Jim Mortimore at 3am and screaming 'die in the name of Terrance Dicks, unbeliever...'  That sort of stuff.  Plotting is still the hardest part, though."
                              



Copyright  Eric Briggs 1998