p.2
Sarlain:
"They're fools! Blind,
uncaring fools! They can't see the way it's going, they won't -":
"I am pleased that you
wish to continue your... other studies. Have you prepared the verse?":
The Doctor scraped through his exams on the second attempt ('The Ribos
Operation') possibly because he spent so much time with his guru up on
Mount Cadon. The verse is the Doctor's first attempt at the power of the
spoken word to resonate through space-time; look up the later part of the
book.
"I have fasted for three
days and three nights, I have made supplication to ... to the powers you
named.": Possibly some of the universal archetypes referred to elsewhere.
Hmm, maybe K'Anpo is actually Carl Jung.
"That's the point. Much
of it you are too young to remember.": Seems to indicate that the Doctor
is not an ancient Time Lord, nor is he the Other. Of course, there is
no indication that he is a young Hartnell Doctor rather than one of the
faces from 'The Brain of Morbius'. The New Adventures eventually reveal
in 'Lungbarrow' that the Doctor is something of a reincarnation of the
Other.
The head beneath the
hood nodded, one eye glinting from the darkness: There are several
instances in this book in which the Hermit is referred to as being one-eyed.
He is likely an Odin-type character; 'Timewyrm: Revelation' portrays Rassilon
as an Odin type. Or Wotan, if you prefer, and aren't confused by 'The
War Machines'. Odin is the king of the Norse Gods in Valhalla. He gave
one of his eyes for knowledge and defeated the Giants, for a time. Rassilon
submitted to the Pythia's curse of sterility and exiled the Pythic order
to Karn ('The Brain of Morbius'). Rassilon also might have allowed himself
to become a vampire in his research into regeneration ("Goth Opera').
So the Hermit, or K'Anpo, might be Rassilon. Some symbolic acrobatics
might mean the Hermit could be Grandfather Paradox from 'Christmas on a
Rational Planet' and 'Alien Bodies'; Grandfather Paradox cut off his arm
to remove the mark of the Time Lords, and if your arm spites you, why shouldn't
your eye? A maimed God is a maimed God, although the Grandfather maimed
himself for freedom while Odin/Rassilon maimed himself for knowledge, wisdom
or power. Grandfather Paradox is the self-interested Id while Rassilon
is the power-hungry egomaniac.
p.3
St. Christopher's:
Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.
The Beltic Cenomanni
had called him Cernwn:
p.4
He was a traveller, known
as the Doctor. A wise, hawklike old man with a mane of silver hair and
an eccentric nature: The First Doctor. However he got there, he had
his companions.
On the last occasion,
the Doctor, in yet another new form, had brought his niece Melanie to Cheldon
Bonniface to enjoy some brass rubbing: Here, Paul is indicating that
the Doctor makes up family relationships with his companions, reducing
the impact of his relationship with Susan. He's also alluding to the fripperies
of Season 24, and why the 7th Doctor suddenly became a dark, brooding character
after Mel was out of the way and replaced with Ace.
p.5
verger: On p.19 of
'Happy Endings', Saul says that the Reverend Ernest Trelaw didn't have
a verger. His daughter Annie does, and his name's James.
Oxbridge bicycle:
Oxford-Cambridge. They're often mixed in this word to create the context
of great universities.
Knot theory: An actual
mathematical pursuit.
She (Emily Hutchings)
is a character in a very big story: She eventually becomes Ishtar
Hutchings' surrogate mother; she's barren. She gets a bigger story than
most New Adventures characters; Emily reappears in 'Happy Endings'.
p.6
St Benedict's School,
Perivale:
little Alan Barnes grazed
his knee: Alan Barnes is a fan writer for comic strips and DWM.
Outside the school gates,
a dark figure stood, watching intently: The Doctor, the Doctor possessed
or Ace.
p.10
1: Step On:
(Text
submitted by Rich Black) 'Step On' is a hit song from about 1990 recorded
by the Happy Mondays. I can't remember which page the mention of the posters
was on, but Mondays posters were all designed by Central Station design
and were very brightly coloured.
O God! I could be
bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were
it not that I have bad dreams: This
passage from Hamlet now has an added significance in the New Adventures;
'Dead Romance' introduced the concept that the New Adventures take place
in a bottle universe inside the BBC Books universe. Act 2, Scene 2.
Happy Mondays posters:
(Text
submitted by David Whittam) Happy Mondays were a Madchester (Was
that some kind of Manchester scene?) band
of the late eighties early nineties, mixing indie music with a kind of
rap and were generally regarded as quite cool. They recently reformed.
cool box: A cooler?
A
non-refrigerated box for keeping food cool. I don't know if that's 'a
cooler' or not.
Ace was in her early
twenties: In 'Battlefield' the Doctor disapproved of Ace ordering a
vodka and coke, indicating that she might have still been a minor.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) As a foreigner, I feel the need to ask for
clarification on this point: is it possible in England for someone to be
a minor and in their early twenties? It's not here in Australia, where
people as young as eighteen are allowed to drink alcohol. No,
it's not possible. Ace must be a bit older than in 'Battlefield'; anyways,
she wasn't given a very mature role in 'Battlefield'. Dave Owen remarked
on that in the DWM Shelf Life review of the 'Battlefield' video release.
She wouldn't have been carded anyways.
p.11
So maybe she was a couple
of pounds over fashionable: According to a DWM interview, (I can't
find the exact number but somewhere between #200 and #250), Sophie Aldred
went through a period of anorexia as a teenager.
bacon sarnies: Bacon
butties, or sandwiches. Butties get a reference in one of the earlier
Timewyrm books.
if she ever met Tim Booth,
he'd love her for her mind, wouldn't he?: (Text
submitted by David Whittam) Tim Booth is the lead singer of 'James' and
at the time was probably quite fanciable. He's a bit old now.
(Text
submitted by Rich Black) Tim Booth is the lead singer in the occasionally
interesting Manchester band James, who had been together for years but
only got big around the end of the eighties on the back of the 'Madchester/Baggy'
scene. I seem to remember reading that Booth was a contemporary of Sophie
Aldred's at Manchester University, but don't take my word for it. Paul
Cornell obviously had a thing about these Manchester groups, particularly
the two best/ most famous, the Happy Mondays (1987-1993, 1999) and the
Stone Roses (c.1987-1996).
"Old fella? Look out,
man. It's inside!": (Text
submitted by Rich Black) I took this to be the Pertwee Doctor attempting
to warn the McCoy about the TimeWyrm. Calling out from his subconscious,
or something.
Sure, he locked himself
in his room at night, but this was a man who didn't need to shave, right?:
The Doctor has never had facial hair, but his hair does change; since the
series ended Sylvester McCoy has appeared in character several times, most
notably in the TV Movie, with hair much longer than it had been. And of
course there was Patrick Troughton's "sideburns" incident during 'The Seeds
of Death'.
The Doctor's nightmares
and locking himself in his room at night is part of the New Adventures
interpretation of his moodiness and his relationship with the Sixth Doctor
and the Valeyard; 'The Room With No Doors' explained that the Seventh Doctor
fears being locked, by his other personas, inside a room with no doors
in his mind along with his nightmares, after he regenerates.
p.13
Tossing Ace a robe:
What was she wearing? 'Timewyrm: Genysys' seemed to indicate she sleeps
in the nude.
Lewisham in 1977, the
Rose of Lee pub: Lewisham is in South London, near Deptford and Catford.
Rome in 1582:
the Eye of Orion:
'The Five Doctors'.
p.14
'King Wen's gift. The
I Ching. For services rendered.":
The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of the central texts of
Confucianism. It consists of 64 hexagrams, each of which is made up of
six divided or undivided lines, possibly created at the end of the 2nd
millennium BC; a cryptic, partly unintelligible text, written at the beginning
of the 1st millennium BC; and a treatise on the text, the Ten Wings, written
at the end of the 1st millennium BC. Although the book has long been used
by fortune tellers, its main influence has traditionally been philosophical,
particularly during the Han and Song (Sung) dynasties, when it was used
to create theories of the universe based on numerology. Although rejected
by the empiricist scholars of the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty, the numerological
aspects of the I Ching have recently been reemphasized by Westerners
interested in Eastern mysticism.
"Shh. A simple macroscopic
oracle. Reflects the universe in a small action.": 'Full Circle'.
hooded Farm T-shirt:
(Text
submitted by David Whittam) Another band, a bunch of Liverpudlians, The
Farm's greatest hit was 'Altogether Now'. (Text
submitted by Rich Black) The Farm were associated with the Baggy scene-
all floppy clothes and loose dancing and inept indie/dance fusion...
p.15
"I remember Sherlock
Holmes expressing similar sentiments."
"Yeah?" Ace was interested.
"Did you meet him? Oh, right, he wasn't real, was he?"
"Just because somebody
isn't real, it doesn't mean you can't meet them," murmured the Doctor with
a sly smile: Later on, 'All-Consuming Fire' includes the first time
Sherlock Holmes meets the Doctor. It isn't necessarily the first time
the Doctor's met Holmes, though. And since 'All-Consuming Fire' involves
the Great Old Ones and Ctulhu, it can always have taken place inside the
Land Of Fiction or a full-blown bottle universe where Holmes is real.
Ace frowned, boggling
at the concept of two Doctors in the same place.
"Would that be so bad?"
"Potentially catastrophic.":
To date, multi-Doctor reunions have only been potentially catastrophic
in that they're meeting up to combat some potentially catastrophic Evil.
Ace sort of saw two Doctors together in 'Timewyrm: Genesys': a projection
of the Fourth Doctor warned the Seventh Doctor about the Timewyrm.
"Do you know where the
word Ace comes from? From the Latin, as a unit of weight.": The following
explanations about shooting down ten aircraft fails to mention cards at
all. ten is one possible value for the ace card; one is the other.
p.16
the Black Swan: Another
Black Swan appears in 'Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark'.
'Is there room at the
inn?": Nativity.
p.17
"Still playing his cricket.":
Fifth Doctor reference. The Fifth Doctor is Paul Cornell's favourite.
"A bit lickerish, I fancy,':
18th.
century slang for 'sexually available.'
an ocarina:
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) A type of musical instrument, usually manifesting
as a small, roundish ceramic object with holes in it. The player blows
into one of the holes and the blocks the others with various fingers.
"I'm Rafferty.":
Rafferty is the first surname of a Cheldon Bonniface villager. None of
his direct descendents appear on the score card of the cricket game in
'Happy Endings', although several Doctor Who fans and authors do.
ISTR a Professor Rafferty from some New Adventure or other.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) He's Professor of Extraterrestrial Studies
at Oxford in 'The Dimension Riders'.
p.18
"Well then, who's for
a sing-song?": In 'Timewyrm: Genesys' Ace led a sing-song in a pub
in Mesopotamia. In 'The Happiness Patrol' she had said she was tone-deaf.
This is possibly the only time Paul Cornell has ever disagreed with 'The
Happiness Patrol'.
"Not against a worthwhile
opponent,": The Doctor's most recent chess partner was Fenric.
p.19
"That's the first time
I've beaten you,":
p.21
From out of a wood
did a cuckoo fly, etc.:
There's some further cuckoo imagery later on. I found it rather obscure,
not knowing at the time that some cuckoos are known to be brood parasites--birds
that build no nests of their own but leave their eggs in the nests of other
birds, which then rear the young. Nest parasitism is characteristic of
less than half of all cuckoo species.
George glanced at his
wrist: Did they wear wristwatches in the middle 19th Century? Of course
not, that's the point.
p.22
Mistletoe: Mistletoe
is called the kiss of death not directly because of its role in modern
Christmas celebrations, although there is a certain irony about that...
but actually because of its biology and its role in Norse mythology. It's
a shrub which can grow semiparasitically on trees and causes serious injury
to certain species. Mistletoes penetrate the bark of the host tree and
extract water and nutrients from the host. They were once thought to have
medicinal properties, and the mistletoe of Europe, Viscum album, was believed
to possess magical powers when it was found growing on oak trees. Western
American Indians used to boil the berries of certain species as food, and
a tea made from the leaves was believed to have contraceptive and abortive
qualities. Mistletoe may be toxic to browsing livestock, however, and
the raw berries of Eastern species have proved fatal to children.
In Norse mythology, Balder
was the god of light and beauty. The most beloved of the gods, he was the
son of Odin and Frigg (Freya) and the husband of Nanna, goddess of the
Moon. A famous Norse myth tells how Loki, the evil giant, had Balder killed
with a dart made of mistletoe, the only thing in the world that had not
promised his mother it would never harm him. Because Balder was the favorite
of the gods, it was said that he would return to Asgard, the home of the
gods, at the end of the world. Check p.31
moon posters:
p.25
nine-dimensional knot
equation:
'Hymn number sixty-four,":
There may be some significance to this if English churches all use similar
hymn books. There
isn't, they don't.
TARDIS spacesuits:
Previously seen in 'The Moonbase', in which they looked nothing like the
one Chad's wearing on the front cover.
High Barnet: Barnet
is a North London suburb. sequences from Episode 1 of 'Logopolis' supposedly
took place on the Barnet bypass.
he was saving the suits
for a snowy day: If the Doctor said this, he must have known the use
to which the suit would eventually be put. Which means he wasn't himself.
p.28
2: Art and Articulation:
Seems to be a Blackadder III or a Jane Austen in-joke. Jane Austen
(1775-1817) had a major impact on the development of the English novel.
Her six novels, written during the romantic period, combine 18th- and 19th-century
concerns and modes of fiction and together have a thematic unity and a
consistent excellence that make them one of the supreme achievements of
English literature. Among her works are Sense and Sensibility and
Pride and Prejudice. The third season of Blackadder had
episode titles like 'Sense and Senility' and 'Amy and Amiability' and was
set in the Regency period, also about 1800.
To see a world in
a grain of sand And heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm
of your hand And eternity in an hour.:
William Blake later appears in 'The Pit', another story about monsters
breaking into one universe from another: the Yssgaroth. These bottle universe
theories are everywhere!
p.30
"Lieutenant Rupert Hemmings
of the Britischer Freikorps. Your servant, sir.": As a Nazi-controlled
police force, the BFK probably pronounce it Loo-tenant. Hemmings disappeared
from the basement of the BFK headquarters in a mysterious TARDIS in 'Timewyrm:
Exodus'. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Is it worth noting that in 'Timewyrm: Exodus',
he's named as *Anthony* Hemmings? And
as both in 'Happy Endings'.
pineal manipulator:
The pineal gland is a small organ attached by a stalk to the posterior
wall of the third ventricle of the brain in vertebrate animals. Lying
above the cerebellum, it is richly supplied with blood vessels and nerve
fibers. In certain fishes, frogs, and lizards, the gland is associated
with a well-developed light-sensitive organ, or so-called "third eye,"
and in all species the pineal is affected by light. The gland produces
a hormone, called melatonin, from the neurotransmitter serotonin. This
hormone is associated in varying and not yet well-understood ways with
a number of biorhythms, including such long-term ones as the onset of puberty,
and appears to be particularly important in animals that display seasonal
behavior.
p.31
'The ancient Norse Gods.
Perhaps they are the gods of Ragnarok,": 'The Greatest Show In The
Galaxy' . Ragnarok is another word for Götterdammerung, the Twilight
of the Gods. The Giants fight back and the final battle between the Gods
and the Giants destroys the world. It's all explained in more detail in
the guide to 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'. 'Twilight of the Gods' is
the title of a Christopher Bulis Missing Adventure, which should have been
titled 'The Secret of the Web Planet'. As it is, the title is being recycled
by Jon Miller and Mark Clapham; the Benny Book 'The Twilight of the Gods'
is due to be released in December.
p.33
The Doctor spoke a word
that sounded like glass breaking: Not really bewildering, but a wicked
turn of phrase. Plus another line in reality-resonance verse.
Lacus Somnorium:
Lacus Somniorum is a lunar feature near Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity.
It's just towards the lunar limb from that Mare. If you're familiar with
the dog or poodle shape in the Moon, Mare Serenitatis is the poodle's head.
p.35
It wasn't water she was
swimming through, but words, language: Is this a nod to fiction and
Ace existing as a bunch of words?
p.36
"The universe is not
Newtonian anymore, but prone to a synchronicity built on a very dense web
on seemingly unrelated events.": The Newtonian picture of the universe
is based on Newton's three laws of motion and calculus, his discovery of
the spectrum, gravity and orbital mechanics. It makes good sense even
today, but was superceded in accuracy by the relativistic model Einstein
constructed and the even more confusing quantum model of Werner Heisenberg,
Max Planck, Niels Bohr, and a bunch of others over the years.
"Knights and squires,
doctors and dicers-":
"You're twisting my melon,
man!": (Text
submitted by David Whittam) Reference to song lyrics from a Happy Mondays
song. (Text
submitted by Rich Black) "You're twisting my melon, man" is the first
line from 'Step On'.
Glyphs of talking heads:
the band? No.
"Impulsive, idealistic,
ready to risk his life for a worthy cause... hates tyranny and oppression...
never gives up... believes in good and fights evil... Though often caught
up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.":
Sounds like a BBC writer's bible for the Doctor's character type. This
indicates a variation on the books' usual frame of reference.
It's
Terrance Dicks' description of the Doctor from The Making of Doctor
Who.
p.37
"Nah... it's Cromer.":
In 'The Three Doctors' the Brigadier, after being sucked through the Black
Hole and deposited on a desert wasteland in Omega's anti-matter domain,
hazarded a guess that he was in Cromer, a beachy area on the Norfolk coast
near Norwich. It got a mention in The Completely Useless Encyclopedia,
which suggested that the Brigadier confusedly thinks "Oh my God, I'm in
Cromer" when he wakes up every morning. Last August (1999)I arrived at
Gatwick after a night flight and jumped a complex series of trains to get
up to Norwich with almost no sleep. Sylvester and Sophie were doing a
small convention at Kulture Shock the next day, and afterwards I spent
the evening in Cromer.
a startingly beautiful
woman, clad in a long grey hooded robe: The book blurbs at the back
end of my second edition of 'Timewyrm: Revelation' goes like this:
p.38
Morecambe:
(Text
submitted by David Whittam) Grim North western seaside town.
limbo: In 'Inferno'
the Third Doctor labelled the vortex between dimensions he travelled in
as limbo. In 'Planet of Evil' the Fourth Doctor said that limbo was a
word people used to give to the unknown, before anti-matter was discovered.
In 'The Ultimate Foe' the Master and Sabalom Glitz were trapped in the
Master's TARDIS by a limbo atrophier, a Valeyard booby-trap attached to
the stolen Matrix data.
p.39
"I'm rather fond of his
programme, actually.": Fourth wall! Fourth wall! It's interesting
that pretty much the most notable acknowledgment of the audience in Doctor
Who also took place at Christmas, in 'The Feast of Steven' when William
Hartnell said "And a merry Christmas to all of you at home!"
Perhaps it was because
Christmas in his household had been such a joyful time. His father would
prepare a massive breakfast, and they would exchange presents before the
hearth: Assume this is after Hemmings' Britain is overrun by the Nazis
and rationing is possibly abrogated, especially for collaborators like
Hemmings' dad. Hemmings Senior seems to be a bit of a Nazi too.
p.40
A male voice, but one
that contained a kind of female potential: Is it the Doctor and his
potential for female regenerations, or is it just his possession by the
Timewyrm?
"Fear," the voice had
muttered, "makes companions of us all.": Emily heard that on TV, but
it was also a line from Serial A. The Doctor said it when Barbara asked
him why he had decided to work together with the rest of them.
"Hold this for a minute,"
muttered a small Scottish man, handing her a baby: Emily's foundling
daughter, Ishtar.
p.42
God was a woman:
the dark audience:
p.202 describes an audience, possibly a different one, as a bunch of demons
from the Doctor's mind. This dark audience might be us, though.
p.43
3: Pepper and Architecture:
This one reminds me a bit more of Blur song titles like 'Coffee and TV'.
Paul Cornell is a well renowned Blur fan, as we see in his appalling Oasis/Blur
double-entendre in 'Oh No It Isn't!' :-) There's also a bit in 'Happy
Endings' where Dorothée mentions she's got a very big house in the
country (Probably Count Sorin's) but it would take too long to look up
just now. I've got the lyrics to The Great Escape here and can't
find anything that rings a bell as far as Pepper and Architecture go, but
on even more of a tangent, the title 'Coffee and TV' reminded me of some
lyrics from Blur's self-titled album. Sometimes
I just make up chapter titles.
The man who comes
back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man
who went out: Aldous
Huxley.
little blonde head:
Ace, Sophie Aldred, and myself by the way, all had blonde hair as young
children which darkened as we grew up. And yes, I suppose mine would have
been blond, not blonde. You've got to watch these gender tenses.
p.44
hyperspatial reference
material: A four-dimensional probe would spring into Boyle's head out
of hyperspace, like an N-Form (see 'Bad Therapy'.) The Timewyrm stores
most of its body in another dimension, like the TARDIS and also like an
N-Form.
Those few earthbound
astronomers who were still interested in the moon: These days most
professional astronomers are measuring pulsations periods of variable stars,
gauging the brightness of planetary nebulae and globular clusters, or mapping
distant galaxies. If anything, they avoid the moon; it's so bright it
can wash out the sky and hide all the interesting sights. Astronomical
observations are usually restricted to the nights in between lunations,
when the moon is in the night sky for a short time at dawn or dusk. Amateurs
take more of an interest in it, but even they don't observe that much during
the full moon; at the full moon it's lunar noon and there aren't any shadows
or relief cast across the lunar surface. Waxing and waning moon phases
show the craters and other features much more clearly.
p.45
Horbiger:
Proponent
of the cosmic ice theory beloved of Hitler.
Jung: Carl Gustav
Jung, 1875-1961, was a Swiss psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology.
The issues he dealt with arose in part from his personal background, which
is vividly described in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
(1961). Throughout his life Jung experienced periodic dreams and visions
with striking mythological and religious features, and these experiences
shaped his interest in myths, dreams, and the psychology of religion.
For many years Jung felt he possessed two separate personalities: an outer
public self that was involved with the world of his family and peers and
a secret inner self that felt a special closeness to God. The interplay
between these selves formed a central theme of Jung's personal life and
contributed to his later emphasis on the individual's striving for integration
and wholeness.
Jung viewed symbol creation
as central to understanding human nature, and he explored the correspondences
between symbols arising from the life struggles of individuals and the
symbolic images underlying religious, mythological, and magical systems
of many cultures and eras. To account for the many striking similarities
between independently originating symbols in individuals and across cultures,
he suggested the existence of two layers of the unconscious psyche: the
personal and the collective. The personal unconscious comprises mental
contents acquired during the individual's life that have been forgotten
or repressed, whereas the collective unconscious is an inherited structure
common to all humankind and composed of the archetypes--innate predispositions
to experience and to symbolize universal human situations in distinctively
human ways. There are archetypes corresponding to situations such as having
parents, finding a mate, having children, and confronting death, and highly
elaborated derivatives of these archetypes populate all the great mythological
and religious systems of the world. Toward the end of his life Jung also
suggested that the deepest layers of the unconscious function independently
of the laws of space, time, and causality, giving rise to paranormal phenomena
such as clairvoyance and precognition.
In Jungian therapy, which
deals extensively with dreams and fantasies, a dialogue is set up between
the conscious mind and the contents of the unconscious. Patients are made
aware of both the personal and collective (archetypal) meanings inherent
in their symptoms and difficulties. Under favorable conditions they may
enter into the individuation process: a lengthy series of psychological
transformations culminating in the integration of opposite tendencies and
functions and the achievement of personal wholeness.
Does any of this sound familiar?
p.48
Chemical Abstracts:
Abstracts are like summaries of scientific journal articles.
Fly Fishing by
J. R. Hartley: (Text
submitted by David Whittam) Fictional book from a Yellow Pages commercial
in which an old man wanders round many bookshops asking if they had a copy
of the aforementioned book. Eventually he looks in the Yellow Pages and
phones a book shop - they have a copy. They ask his name and he replies
'J.R. Hartley'. Heartwarming really.
The floor, Ace noticed,
was tiled, an immensely complex pattern that curled and knotted around
itself, patterns within patterns, full of little of people and places:
The story?
Here was a cowled figure
shaking his fist at a dark castle, and in the next picture he was cowering
from something huge and fearful. Then he was running. But this plot seemed
to connect with others. A schoolteacher, a nice-looking one for once,
looking puzzled at his class, then sitting in his car outside a junkyard,
together with his companion: The First Doctor's story up until Serial
A.
p.49
It was an old man, his
silver hair swept back. Yeah, he looked like a librarian as well in his
red robes, peering at her down his long, hawklike nose: The First Doctor
is often referred to here as the Librarian, although he takes a great interest
in flowers like the Sarlain.
p.50
"Don't take any notice
of the clowns...": In 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy' Ace revealed
her childhood fear of clowns.
p.51
a game of Spoof:
Pub
game played by hiding coins in your hand.
Blinovitch's Temporal
Mechanics:
The Blinovitch Limitation Effect is an often-quoted device to prevent characters
from going back in time to change their history, among other things. Adric's
death in 'Earthshock' is an example of it. It was first used in the Third
Doctor's time.
Le Morte D'Arthur:
Le Morte D'Arthur, a prose romance by Sir Thomas Malory, was drawn
from a number of French and English sources dealing with the adventures
of Arthur, legendary king of the Britons. Malory's eight romances, which
are written in plain but vigorous prose, relate the collapse of Arthur's
court and the rivalry of his knights, the adulterous love of Sir Lancelot
and Queen Guinevere, and the quest for the Holy Grail. The work was first
printed by William Caxton in 1485.
The Wizard of Oz:
A fantasy written by L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(1900) tells the story of Dorothy, a young farm girl from Kansas who dreams
that she is carried away by a tornado to a strange land called Oz. To
return home she must travel to its capital, Emerald City, and ask the assistance
of the Wizard of Oz. Along the way she meets three companions--a tin woodsman,
a talking scarecrow, and a cowardly lion--with whom she has a series of
adventures. Oz emerges as a more interesting place than home, despite
the didactic point of the story that "there's no place like home." The
novel was adapted into an extraordinarily popular film in 1939 starring
Judy Garland.
"Remember home?" the
stars seemed to ask: 'Survival' established that Ace considers the
TARDIS to be more of a home than her mother's place in Perivale.
big Hoover factory:
Hoover makes vacuum cleaners.
p.52
"How can you dance without
music?" "How can you think without - ": brains.
Midge had once gone to
Australia on holiday: I just didn't think we knew that before.
she'd even got off with
an alien: In 'Happy Endings' Dorothée came forth in a Four
Weddings and a Funeral Andie MacDowall-type monologue and listed all
the men she'd slept with. Sabalom Glitz was number one. I have no idea
if Paul based the idea on racy fan-fiction or made it up himself.
This
is from Ian Briggs' character notes on Ace. No
relation as far as I can make out, but it'd be nice to be caught out on
this one. I have a cousin in Langley Moor who's traced us Briggses
back six generations to an iron ore miner in the Lake District in 1850.
Her brother, Ian Briggs, works for a television company in London, but
he's a different one.
"The Hanged Man.":
A tarot card. It seems to be quite often associated with heroes in pop
culture; one issue of Batman comics about ten years ago identified
Batman with the Hanged Man card. Otherwise, the only other association
Batman has with Doctor Who is that the Third Doctor speculates that
perhaps someone was expecting the TARDIS to be a huge space rocket with
Batman at the controls in 'Inferno'. (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) He also copped a name check in
'The Time Monster' - "Good thinking, Batman," Stuart quips.
'The Traveller':
Another tarot card? (Text
submitted by Chris Burnside) Yup - 2 of Batons http://www.tarot-reading.com/two-of-batons/index.html
'We Are Friends To The
Ugly/ We War With The Beautiful': The card shows the Doctor embracing
a tentacled monster and confronting a calm humanoid. And yes, sometimes
the Doctor does defend the ugly from the beautiful; for example, in 'Galaxy
4' or 'The Secret of Nematoda' for Audio Visuals fans. There's also an
oft-reprinted early DWM comic strip with the Fourth Doctor about some giant
slugs, simple-minded humanoids and beautiful butterflies.
p.53
'Ka Faraq Gatri
- Bringer of Darkness/Destroyer of Worlds':
Shows on one side a black and white raven hovering over a crystalline city,
on the other the Doctor hanging his head in shame. The black and white
raven might symbolise the Hand of Omega, which bestows ultimate power through
ultimate destruction. It might also symbolise the ambivalent nature of
Skaro; producing the peaceful Thals as well as the warlike Daleks, or even
producing just the Daleks; the Fourth Doctor's homily for the Daleks at
the end of 'Genesis of the Daleks' emphasizes their positive effects.
In any case, the Doctor is hanging his head in shame for destroying the
planet. The Ka Faraq Gatri is first referred to in Ben Aaronovitch's
novelisation of 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. It's the Seventh Doctor,
and Ka Faraq Gatri translates from the dalek as the Bringer of Darkness.
Usually. In his Decalog 3 short story 'Continuity Errors', Steven
Moffat produced this paragraph:
p.54
Two fingers of the Doctor's
hand were curled into the Horns of Rassilon, the Gallifreyan protectional
motif against supreme evil: There don't appear to be any references
to the Horns of Rassilon in 'Goth Opera'; but the Old Time bits explained
in that book and 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible' seem like another appropriate
place to explain the meaning of the Horns of Rassilon. Various Christian
faiths use a similar gesture as a benediction from the minister, vicar
or what have you; I can't remember the specifics, but each finger has a
reason for being in a certain position. (Later) I just had an epiphany.
The Horns of Rassilon are nothing more than the two-fingered salute "up
yours!". And
so are all those protectional gestures! The British up yours horns
date from English archers showing their bow fingers to the French.
This may be legend - it strains
credibility to consider the longbowmen of Agincourt showing the French
how they were going to "pluck yew".
p.55
Very seventies: In
thinking about a giant enclosing wall connected with the seventies, I have
to think of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
She found herself in
a gleaming polygonal room. Thirteen sides, she counted: Thirteen sides
for thirteen Doctors.
"Is it...time...already?"
"No," gasped Ace. "Go back to sleep, it's nowhere near time yet.":
Besides the point about future Doctors waiting to come out from inside
the Doctor's mind, this is part of a well-worn bit of comedy used in traditional
skit nights at summer camps for years and years. I
didn't know that. A bunch
of people sit side-by-side with their legs crossed, and they pass up and
down the line asking "Is it time yet?" and the one with the watch says
"No" until eventually it's time and they switch their legs so they're folded
the other way. An interview the earnest Eric Luskin conducted for American
Public TV with John Nathan-Turner, Sylvester McCoy and Jon Pertwee also
reminded me a great deal of this routine; the vaudevillean Doctors crossed
and uncrossed their legs several times, to great comedic effect.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Possibly a reference to various legends of
King Arthur and suchlike, mystically asleep until the time comes when they're
needed again. Or
Frederick Barbarossa. He was one of the outstanding medieval German emperors.
He lived in the 12th Century. An intelligent statesman of imagination
and determination, he was also an ideally chivalric personality. He entertained
an exalted concept of his dignity as Roman emperor and introduced the use
of the word Holy in the title. This was intended to reflect a mystical
association between himself and the destiny of Christianity as well as
his ties with Charlemagne and the ancient caesars. Frederick undertook
six military expeditions across the Alps. Joining the Third Crusade, Frederick
led his army across Europe into Anatolia, where he drowned on June 10,
1190. But a folk legend says that he never died. According to the tale,
he sleeps in a mountain cave in Germany, seated before a huge stone table.
His red beard grows around the foot of the table. If someone stumbles
into the cave, Barbarossa awakens for a moment and asks if Germany is yet
united. When his beard grows three times around the table, he will rise
again and bring peace and unity to Germany. I read about it in old Classics
Illustrated comics. It's a bit spooky as a Teutonic King Arthur myth,
and the Nazis used it as well; the German invasion of the USSR was called
Operation Barbarossa.
p.56
that old fear of mannequins
and clowns: 'The Greatest Show In The Galaxy' made a point out of
Ace's intense distaste for clowns, just when they've turned into murderers.
"Just relax, and think
of Norfolk.": Queen Victoria, when rather riskily asked about the experience
of giving birth, said she just lay back and thought of England. And this
entire book takes place in Norfolk, or imitations of it.
p.57
she slammed her trainers
together: Tip of the hat to the ruby slippers from The Wizard of
Oz. Usually Ace is described as wearing Doc Martens.
p.58
the congregation were
starting to obey, afraid of something ancient, some hysteria that made
them feel insignificant and vulnerable: It's not so far-fetched that
Saul may date back to the time or the Earth Reptiles or Silurians. This
description is very similar to the race-memory effect from 'Doctor Who
and the Silurians' and 'Blood Heat'.
in a voice that sounded
like the collected choirs of every Oxbridge college: As well as being
academically "big", Oxford and Cambridge have a bunch of top-notch college
choirs, and have produced adult groups like the King's Singers. Check
out 'Shada'; escaping from Skagra's Sphere, the Fourth Doctor cycles past
a choir in full swing with 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo'. In the narration Tom
Baker recalls it as (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Fauré's
Requiem or "some train song or other". In
the novelisation of 'The Curse of Fenric' Miss Hardaker puts Fauré's
Requiem on the gramaphone as Jean and Phyllis come to suck her blood.
A crater two miles across:
That's serious megatonnage. According to the Guinness Book of World Records
a 100-megaton hydrogen bomb would excavate a crater something like that
big, and cause spontaneous combustion anywhere up to sixty km away. This
explosion seems to be a bit more contained.
p.60
4: Head Dance:
We are such stuff
as dreams are made on: (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Shakespeare. 'The Tempest', Act IV scene I.
It's part of a speech that appears, glancing over it, to be meditating
on the brevity and fragility of human life. Or, on further reflection,
it might be saying that life is but a dream. It's a bit confusing, although
not bewildering.
Ariosto: The Italian
epic poet Ludovico Ariosto, 1474-1533, wrote Orlando Furioso (1532),
a narrative poem of universal importance. This was a continuation of Matteo
Maria Boiardo's uncompleted epic Orlando Innamorato (1483). The
fine and all-pervasive irony of Ariosto's work, including self-mockery
and mockery of the audience, represents the highest achievement as well
as the consummation of a waning Renaissance classicism. It's amazing how
relevant this Grolier encyclopedia is for these entries, even if it is
a totally Americanised piece of plastic-sheathed CD-ROM. 'Timewyrm: Revelation'
is, if I may be so bold, a narrative poem of universal importance for seekers
for deeper meaning in Doctor Who novels, a rare breed though we
might be. Paul Cornell's work usually incorporates some kind of irony,
as do many other Who authors. Self-mockery and mockery of the audience
are especially characteristics of Paul's dissertation on pantomime, 'Oh
No It Isn't!'. And arguably, the Renaissance of Doctor Who can
be said to be waning, although it has been for ten years now with no sign
of actually declining.
Anyways, Hemmings is talking
about Ariosto saying that the moon is where everything wasted on Earth
is treasured. Which he might well have said, but you can't expect Grolier
to get that in-depth.
p.61
Sartre's logic: Jean
Paul Sartre, 1905-1980, was probably most famous as a representative of
Existentialism, a philosophical approach that emphasizes, among other things,
the ultimacy of human freedom. In his later writings, however, Sartre
attempted to combine the individualism of his existentialist work with
a form of Marxism, which stresses the collective aspects of human existence.
Sartre developed his existentialism
as an analysis of self-consciousness in relation to Being. In the 1930s
he wrote several phenomenological analyses of the imagination and the emotions,
which culminated in his most important philosophical work, Being and
Nothingness (1943; English translation 1956). This book provided a
brilliant philosophical structure for the inchoate feelings of dissatisfaction
that swept postwar Europe. The book's central idea is the opposition between
objective things and human consciousness, the latter being a non-thing
insofar as its reality consists in standing back from things and taking
a point of view on them. Because consciousness is a non-thing, it does
not have any of the causal involvements that things have with other things.
This means that consciousness and thus humans themselves are essentially
free, and that any attempt by an individual person or a philosophical theory
to believe otherwise is a form of self-deception, or "bad faith."
Ironically, the freedom
of human consciousness is experienced by humans as a burden ("Man is condemned
to be free"). Human projects, therefore, consist in the impossible attempt
to become a free consciousness, such as when a person tries to become an
intellectual or a parent or to play any other determinate social role.
Because the impossibility of this attempt to become a conscious thing--in
Sartre's terminology, a for-itself-in-itself--does not prevent humans from
being irresistibly drawn to undertake it, Sartre declares that "man is
a useless passion."
Sartre spent a year as a
prisoner of war during World War II and was a key figure among the French
intellectuals who resisted the Nazi occupation. Also, if his magnum opus
wasn't published until 1943 he probably never would have finished it if
Europe had been totally overrun by the Nazis. A bit of an odd choice for
a Nazi's pet philosopher, but what the hell. In any case, Sartre's logic
and consciousness theory definitely holds its own in this book.
Happy as an ant:
Apparently, Hemmings has got his Sartre on backwards. Instead of self-actualisation
through relation to the outside world Hemmings tries to lose himself in
the greater whole of the Third Reich or its concepts.
p.62
"A time-space corridor,
like Edmond hypothesized last year.":
"Of course, the fact
of our vanishing from the material universe will have caused a massive
energy discharge,": E=mc2, after all. 'The Daemons' is
one good example of conservation of matter/energy: when Azal grows in size
he sucks large amounts of heat energy (although technically nowhere near
enough) from his environment to convert into matter for his larger body,
and when he shrinks he radiates all his excess mass as heat energy, although
still nowhere near enough. There was greater scientific accuracy in 'The
Hand of Fear', when Eldrad's hand regenerated the rest of its body by absorbing
a nuclear reactor meltdown and a couple of exploding nuclear weapons.
slow dollops of Hawking
radiation: Hawking radiation is named after Stephen Hawking, the Lou
Gehrig's disease-stricken Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.
Hawking's area of expertise is in the development of a unifying theory
of relativity and quantum mechanics. He has theorised exotic small black
holes, results of exotic conditions in the primordial universe. More to
the point, Hawking radiation is a way he suggested for detecting black
holes that otherwise swallow all forms of matter and energy. One of the
quirks of quantum mechanics are twin quantum particles that are created
in fission, spiral around each other, and collide and annihilate. Apparently
these particles form, separate, and annihilate each other constantly.
Hawking throrised that in the neighbourhood of a black hole, these pairs
would sometimes be separated by the black hole so that one particle would
fall in and its partner would drift off into space.
"Maybe that explains
the size of the congregation,": Last September a friend of mine and
I went to see a production of 'Racing Demon', a play by Sir David Hare
that had come over to Toronto from the Chichester Festival. The cast included
Michael Jayston (the Valeyard) and Dinsdale Landen (Professor Judson from
'The Curse of Fenric'), plus a few other minor Who character actors
who didn't stand out enough to be recognised. Well, one of them was only
in 'The Twin Dilemma', so there we are. Anyways, the subject of the play
was loss of faith in the Church of England in Southwark, a working-class
area of London, in the early eighties. There were pressures such as Thatcher's
ignorance of society, the Falklands War, and the AIDS epidemic as well
as Thatcherism in general. It was sort of a bad time for the working class,
and the play related that hardship to low church attendance by setting
the play in a struggling parish torn apart by ideologues and neoconservative
bureaucrat bishops, closeted gay clergy and simply burnt-out old ministers.
And no, there was no Saul-type character, and God never answered the staff's
prayers. Anyways, I saw a statistic recently that church attendance in
the UK is higher than several European countries, such as Germany. But
the program potted history of Thatcherite religion put the rate at around
5 or 10 percent. So maybe Saul pulls them in.
p.65
"I am known to the ancients
of Earth as Hel. To the Daleks I am Golyan Ak Tana, the twister of paths...":
In Norse mythology, Hel, the daughter of Loki, was the goddess of death
who ruled over the cold, dark underworld of Niflheim. She had a hideous
body, half black and half blue. Her table was Hunger, her knife Starvation,
her bed Care, and her attendants Delay and Slowness. Her domain was also
sometimes called Hel in later mythology, probably through the influence
of Christian belief.
"No wonder they had trouble
with time travel, with you changing the possibilities all the time.":
Interesting solution to problems like Dalek and Cyberman history, and UNIT
dating. The Timewyrm just plays around with date every now and then, and
feeds on the temporal gradient. The Time Wars in the current story arc
are the current convenient solution theory.
the Green and Black Books
of Gallifrey: Some more ancient Gallifreyan Books of Power. Paul might
have got the idea for different coloured books from Beatles albums; among
others, there's the White Album, the Red Album and the Blue Album. It
probably has an older derivation than that. The various colours denote
different subjects. But I'm not quite sure about what all the books are
and what they're about. A while back I started compiling a page for Gallifreyan
artifacts and Books of Power, but nothing's come of it. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Another possibility is the twelve Fairy Books
of Andrew Lang. Lang collected folk tales and the like, and published his
collection in twelve volumes, starting with _The Blue Fairy Book_
in 1889 and finishing with The Lilac Fairy Book in 1910.
It's
actually from the various Welsh books that make up The Mabinogion.
The sources are called the Red Book, the Green Book, etc.
"I was blocked by fierce
security and powerful temporal baffles.": Evidence that as soon as
they mastered time travel, the Time Lords set up barriers to protect the
timeline that led to their evolution.
"They say that you will
devour the first and last of the Time Lords. That Rassilon will be crushed
in your jaws during the last moments of the Blue Shift, the final inrush
of matter at the end of this universe. You will precipitate that event.
You will bend and break continuity structures throughout the dimensions.
The fabric of time-space will collapse. The causal nexus will shatter,
and the laws of physics will cease to have any meaning.": Nice. So
it's in Rassilon's interest to help the Doctor keep the Timewyrm dormant
for the time being, and prevent her from kick-starting the Blue Shift.
p.66
"These legends come from
the dark times when Gallifreyans dared to examine their own future.":
In the Dark Time, Gallifrey was ruled by the Pythias, oracles which could
see the Gallifreyan Empire's future. In 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'
the Pythia lost her clairvoyance and was banished to Karn by Rassilon,
after cursing Gallifrey to sterility. In 'Goth Opera' the Doctor reveals
that the Time Lords can't see their own future; a fact that has worked
to their disadvantage in 'Alien Bodies' and 'Dead Romance'.
p.69
never flirted with the
idea of joining Kane's mercenaries: 'Dragonfire'.
p.70
"I'm an O.": Blood
group. Universal donor.
p.71
Perry Como: He's
some lounge singer guy.
"Hell is other people!":
Jean-Paul Sartre's most popular play is undoubtedly the one-act drama 'No
Exit' (1944; English translation 1947), which is a discussion of such
familiar negative existentialist themes as bad faith, self-destruction,
and the impossibility of interpersonal relationships. It is in this play
that Sartre's famous line, "Hell is other people," occurs.
p.72
But see, my companion,
are you and I not equally important? We both matter, do we not?:
5: Roses: There are
a bunch of rose references in this book, connected to the Sarlain and general
feelings evoked by roses. Check p.76, p.81, p.92, p.136
p.73
"So this Qataka, why
has she brought us here?": I'm not sure myself why St. Christopher's
has been brought to the Moon.
p.74
"the destruction extending
to certain parts of Wroxham and nearby Stockbridge.": Wroxham is a
real place just outside of Norwich to the northeast, on the Norfolk Broads
by the River Bure. Stockbridge is a fictional village from the comic strip
in Doctor Who Magazine. In its first appearance, in #68, Stockbridge
was in Gloucestershire.
"The Toppings...Miss
Riddler at the sweetshop...little Tony and Penny.": Keith Topping is
Paul Cornell's co-author on projects like The Discontinuity Guide,
The Avengers Dossier(an Avengers version of The Discontinuity
Guide), and X-Treme Possibilities (an X-Files version
of the same). Martin Day also co-authored all three books.
p.75
"No..." the Doctor smiled
mysteriously. "Magic is something quite different.": Magic is a legitimate
art in the Doctor's universe. Or at least in his dealing with other universes
or dimensions. He used a bit of magic in defeating Margaine in 'Battlefield'.
At the same time he clarified his earlier position, in 'The Daemons', that
all magic was jumped-up science and technology, by quoting Clarke's Law
that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic,
and its corollary that and magic sufficiently simplified is indistinguishable
from technology. Later on, in 'Cold Fusion', the Ferutu used magic runes
and chalk circles in their technology, and in 'Dead Romance' Cwej used
chalk circles and incantations to manipulate the Sphinx.
"I'm looking for something,
a little gift.": The Doctor is cheating, finding things left by his
future self to help him out.
The piece consisted primarily
of a round blue gem, in the interior of which a distant fire pulsed:
It's not a Metebelis crystal. On p.162 the lettering on its frame is translated
by a Time Lord function. On p.196 the Doctor explains that it's a portable
temporal link which he stole from the black collection in the Prydonian
Academy on Gallifrey while he was president of the Time Lords, knowing
it would come in handy someday. He hid it in the church the previous year,
when he visited while still travelling with Mel. This is interesting because
the apparition of the Fourth Doctor in 'Timewyrm: Genesys' that warned
the Seventh Doctor about the Timewyrm, although he was wearing the wrong
coat, was in the middle of communing with the Matrix in 'The Invasion of
Time', the only story in which the Doctor was seen to make use of the office
of the Lord President after his election in 'The Deadly Assassin'. He
might have been planning for his battle with the Timewyrm that early.
And the Seventh Doctor may have started along the road to becoming Time's
Champion before he left Mel behind and became an openly brooding character.
p.77
Death stood on the lunar
surface, her robes billowing in the particle wind that lashed the dust
continually: Probably an artistic effect rather than a realistic one.
On the Apollo missions, the American flag was wired out straight to appear
as if it was blowing in the wind, when otherwise it would have drooped.
The solar particle wind does blow on the Moon's surface.
"We've met before. Very
poetic. Very Jung.": Well, Death is an archetype. The Doctor meets
her again in 'Love and War', 'SLEEPY', and Bernice meets her in 'Happy
Endings'.
p.78
She could remember the
gang, and Seniors: We met a bunch of Ace's gang in 'Survival'. Seniors
are older students.
This was like that time
when the Doctor had erased her memory, only then it had been sudden, all
bright and shiny, waking to new things. She'd even gained a memory, one
of Mel's: Paul is correcting an error from 'Timewyrm: Genesys' in which
Ace reminisced about 'Paradise Towers', a story she did not actually appear
in.
p.80
The UNIT Christmas party
of 1973: Not sure where I've read about it, but maybe it's fan fiction.
Maybe Paul wrote more about it in 'No Future'. 'The Time Warrior' was
being broadcast over Christmas 1973. If Paul favours a direct-correspondence
UNIT dating system, the 1973 Christmas party is most likely to be Jo's
wedding party. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Would Jo have had a wedding party? As I recall,
she and Cliff were planning to get married quickly and leave immediately
for the Amazon. Or is that only in the novelisation? Well,
it's a big if. If
he favours the 'near-future' UNIT dating system the 1973 Christmas party
could have taken place as early as midway through Season 8 (after all,
at the end of the season it was May Day). Apparently the party featured
an interesting pantomime. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) The pantomime mentioned in 'No Future' was
Aladdin. Jo was Aladdin,the Doctor was the villain, and Captain
Yates wasWidow
Twankey. It would be stretching
credibility to make the Master the Vizier. Jon Pertwee could not be more
suited to pantomime, and the 'strapping lad' role is the only one for which
he couldn't really audition. Sergeant Benton would be great in drag as
well, and Jo is probably the best choice for a strapping lad; Corporal
Bell's hairdo rules her out of that role, and she might only be suitable
as some turbaned genie or sultan. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) 'No Future' does mention a UNIT Christmas party;
one of the props from the pantomime plays a key role in the plot.
I
made this up.
"Now," he said to himself.
"All the world's a stage. Stage one...": 'As You Like It', by Shakespeare.
Act 2, Scene 7.
p.81
the Pier of Seaside Nostalgia:
The pier scenes between Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in The Remains
of the Day might just have been filmed here, as to me seaside nostalgia
carries overtones of dreary , overcrowded seaside holidays that lack emotional
or spiritual depth.
p.82
the Pit, the black depths
where the answers lay: Sort of a crucible.
p.83
Mr Watkins, Miss Marshall:
I'm just making a note of Ace's old teachers; we may have heard of some
of them before. (Text
submitted by Rich Black) Miss Marshall is a reference to Jackie Marshall,
fan writer and co-editor (with Val Douglas) of the influential and inspirational
eighties fanzine Queen Bat, where 'Total Eclipse', the story that
was rewritten as this book, first appeared. Miss Marshall is a teacher
in real life, by the way. I'm
feeling very silly that I'd forgotten about the original 'Total Eclipse'.
Of course, I've never even seen a Queen Bat. There was a thread
on rec.arts.drwho a couple of weeks ago about working titles for stories,
and 'Timewyrm: Revelation' was originally 'Total Eclipse Rewrite'. Also
on the subject of Jackie Marshall, there was a character in 'No Future'
named Jackie who nailed Bertram's "desk" halfway up a wall and called it
art. Different
Jackie.
Sanir:
Miss Haines:
p.86
"You bastard!" she shouted:
This time the Doctor's not really at fault for making Ace face her innermost
demons. But still, it's a case of the boy who cried wolf.
p.87
6: The Damage Done:
the Neil Young song, "The Needle and the Damage Done". A beautiful, sad
song. Neil Young is one of the greatest. And he's Canadian.
Paul Travers' review
of Johnny Chess live at Moles - NME 18/7/98: As far as I can make out
Paul Travers is a real guy who writes for the New Musical Express; he may
even be a Doctor Who fan. The abstract writing style of this passage
about Anarchy and Justicve being next-door neighbours is probably a send-up
of Travers' style. Both Keith Topping and Paul Cornell have written for
the NME. Keith created the character of Johnny Chester, the Doctor's godson.
His parents are Ian and Barbara, and he marries Tegan. He becomes a rock
star. (Text
submitted by Rich Black) I'm not 100% certain of this, but I think this
was a name then DWM editor John Freeman sometimes wrote articles under.
'Moles' is a club in the centre of Bath, the historic city in the south
west where I was at college until a few weeks ago. I was in Moles two nights
ago, in fact. It's very small, and is (literally) underground, at least
in part, but they get a lot of very good bands playing there before they
get too famous. I was in Bath last Summer, so I was determined to form
a band, call myself Johnny Chess, and get a gig on the date specified by
the book. Unfortunately, I only succeeded in the first part. I formed a
band, but I called myself Skywarp McGill, and Moles wasn't available. In
the event, there was no band that night, just a couple of generic DJs.
Actually,
he's the psuedonym of John Freeman when he wanted to write for DWM.
I was amazed to read you went to Moles on that night! I live here
now, and I'm there every Tuesday.
p.88
They were in a garden,
a garden of roses. A gentle English sun shone overhead. Birds sang, bees
buzzed, perfume gently infused the air. "So, that's where we are," the
Doctor murmured, quite distracted: They're inside the Doctor's mind,
in the garden kept by the First Doctor. (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) Might be worth mentioning that
the First Doctor and his garden is straight out of 'The Five Doctors',
concept-wise.
p.89
"The sin of pride, he
decided. "Yes, that's it. I have far too high an opinion of myself.":
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) The Seven Deadly Sins? Pride, Envy, Gluttony,
Greed, Lust, Sloth, and Wrath.
Her ghetto blaster:
Sounds like the one the Dalek blew up in 'Remembrance of the Daleks'.
the lock of Cheetah Person
hair: 'Survival'.
the catapult: 'Silver
Nemesis'.
Johnny Chess. When she
was fourteen, she'd been utterly in love with him: Make that around
1985, twenty years at a guess after Ian and Barbara got back from Mechanus.
Surprise, surprise, the dates don't exactly match. To hell with the dates,
this is *storytelling*, for God's sake.
p.91
"I believe she has radically
altered the biochem... the bi... and she's done it to the whole garden,
yes! Hmm.": First Doctor mannerisms, right down to William Hartnell's
fluffed lines.
As Ace picked her way
through the rose garden, she remembered a conversation she and the Doctor
had had at Greenwich once: This book predates 'Dimensions in Time'
by two years, so Ace isn't thinking of the incomprehensible dialogue she
traded with the Doctor at the Royal Naval College.
p.92
"A rose by any other
name," he had mused, "would smell as sweet. Not true. No perspective.
But Will was in love. Powerful emotions change our point of view.":
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Shakespeare. 'Romeo and Juliet', Act II scene
2. Not sure about the "Will was in love" bit, as a simple date calculation
shows this isn't a reference to the film Shakespeare in Love. Presumably
a reference to whatever the film was inspired by, then.
It's
always been said that Will wrote the sonnets with someone in mind, either
the 'dark lady' or 'Mr. W.H.' and that either or both were who he was in
love with.
"Like Oscar and his green
carnations.": Oscar Botcherby from 'The Two Doctors'? Oh, or more
likely Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, who is green to start
with. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) No - it's Oscar Wilde again. Kicking myself
for not remembering this earlier.
"Oh rose, thou art sick,"
he murmured: William Blake, from a two-stanza poem called "The Sick
Rose".
Ace came to a maze.
It was like the one that she had entered on a school visit to Longleat:
Longleat House in Wiltshire is well-known for its maze and gardens, and
also by Doctor Who fans for the historic convention held there in 1983.
The Marquess of Bath, who died in the early Nineties, was a fan of the
show and every summer since 'Doctor Who: A Celebration', probably
the most important Doctor Who convention ever, there has been a
Doctor Who day on the grounds. Services were woefully inadequate for that
outdoor convention which drew roughly thousands and thousands of people,
and probably as many cast and crew members as have ever appeared at any
convention worldwide. Tempers were very short, and many people might not
have been satisfied, but sixteen years later he that outlived that day
and came safe home, stands a tip-toe when that day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name
of Longleat.
He that lived that day,
and sees old age,
Will yearly on the vigil
feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Longleat':
Then will he strip his sleeve
and show his
scars,
And say 'These wounds I
had at Longleat.'
And his neighbours shall
say to him,
'You are truly sad.'
(with apologies to William
Shakespeare, 'Henry V Act 4, Scene 3)
But is Lord Bath dead? His heir, Christopher Thynne, still endorses the program; there's a picture of him in an old Gallifrey Guardian column in DWM (late 1996, I think) wearing the Archimandrite's hat (well it looks like it) and pretending to be shot by a Cyberman. The man has no shame. While in England this summer I saw a program about Lord Bath, his unusual method of painting portraits, and his staff's attempts to hire somebody to be the Cyberman that patrols the grounds of Longleat.
p.93
Maybe this place would
make her lose a few pounds. Before the answering thought, "For what?",
came, she was already moving: That's the real Ace shining through.
After seeing the anorexia references in this book, I'm sure they are more
than coincidence. I
talked to Sophie about that. She chose the music on the ghetto blaster,
too.
p.94
Save me from the void
inside my head to the time,
The petitioner to
the wise man said,
Or lay my body out
and
Call me dead,
And let my mind do
no more thinking to the time.:
p.95
iambic pentameter:
Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter verse, each line composed of
ten syllables of alternating stress of accent. A versatile medium, blank
verse was modeled after classical Greek and Roman poetry. It has been
utilized in English and continental verse drama and narrative poetry since
the 16th century.
"There are feet knocked
off and added all over the place.": English prosody commonly recognizes
four principal meters--iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic--and eight
line lengths--monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter,
heptameter, octameter. The meters are named after the four principal kinds
of feet: the iamb, consisting of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable
(x /); the trochee (/ x); the anapest (x x /); and the dactyl (/ x x).
I find this all rather incomprehensible, but sticklers for detail complain
that Paul's short play 'The Trials of Tara' written for Decalog 2,
although while written in iambic pentameter, is not strictly correct and
often has shoddy metre. The hell with it, I say, it's bloody funny. And
you probably agree with me if you survived my recent violent attack on
'Henry V'. Only
as shoddy as the original use of the metre. The whole idea of using
poetic metre for drama is to break it for dramatic effect. Shakespeare
never maintains strict metre for longer than three lines!
'The Stone Roses - Too
Old To Rock?': (Text
submitted by Rich Black) When 'Timewyrm: Revelation' was written, the
Roses were beginning a period of inactivity that ended up lasting for years.
At the time, though, they were expected to become one of the biggest bands
in the world. They returned at the end of 1993 with a superb but ignored
comeback, and their activities were overshadowed by Oasis. The drummer
left in 94, the guitarist in 95, and the band broke up acrimoniously. So
chances of them being in any position to rock are low, regardless of how
old they are/will be.
'Fifi Trixabelle Geldof
Interviewed': Irish rock singer, songwriter, and social activist Bob
Geldof came to international attention in 1984 for raising funds for African
famine victims, after leading the New Wave pop style with the Boomtown
Rats in the late Seventies, and starring in the film version of Pink Floyd's
The Wall. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) And Fifi Trixibelle Geldof is his daughter,
now in her mid-teens. Yes, she's a real person, and "Fifi Trixibelle"
is her real name, poor kid. I suppose it's better than Moon Unit Zappa.
a burst of SMG fire:
sub-machine gun.
p.97
half an album of Aztec
Camera: Sophie's
choice.
Thirty liquid Teflon
shells travelling at hypersonic velocity reduced it to its basic components:
Armor-piercing bullets are coated in teflon, but teflon bullets by themselves
don't pack enough wallop. Teflon plastic is much less dense than lead,
and has even less stopping power in a liquid state, although it probably
delivers pretty severe burns.
p.98
There were times when
she would have given anything for body armour: Ace soon took to body
armour when she left the Doctor for the Space Corps in 'Love and War',
and retained it through most of her later appearences in the New Adventures.
Stupid little Slovak
hijacking gun:
p.102
Cad Goddeu - Attributed
to Myrddin: Myrddin is a Welsh mythic figure, the Welsh translation
of Merlin the Wizard from Arthurian legend. Grolier doesn't mention Cad
Goddeu. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) "Cad Goddeu" is a poem from the Book of Taliesin;
it's been translated into English by Robert Graves. (Grolier? What Grolier?
I'm using the Internet.)
p.103
"Fictions are real, too,
in certain forbidden regions of space-time. There are some places even
Time Lords won't venture.": 'The Mind Robber' introduced the Land of
Fiction, which reappears in 'Conundrum' and 'Head Games'. In 'Happy Endings'
Spandrell and Romana discuss the annexation of the Land of Fiction to the
Matrix.
Now she had forgotten
her chemistry teacher's name: Mentioned a few pages ago.
p.105
mandala: A mandala
(Sanskrit for "circle") is a symbolic diagram of the universe used for
ritual purposes in tantric Buddhism (see Tantra). Frequently represented
in Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan Buddhist art, the mandala generally consists
of a group of cosmic deities (or their symbols or associated magic syllables)
that are arranged in one or more circles surrounded by a square and oriented
toward the points of the compass.
p.106
the youth club: Explicitly
the building Sergeant Patterson used for the self-defence lessons in 'Survival'.
p.107
"when I used the Hand
of Omega to destroy Skaro, I wasn't at all sure that I had done the right
thing.": The
Doctor's being manipulated to say this, but the tarot card reading earlier
on suggested that he is remorseful for destroying Skaro.
a robed colossus in an
angular metal mask: Omega.
reptilian creatures with
three eyes: It's a twisted take on events from 'Doctor Who and the
Silurians'; the Doctor was trying to stop the slaughter of the Silurians.
In 'The Sea Devils' he was somewhat more aggressive and in 'Warriors of
the Deep' he was responsible for releasing the hexachromite gas and killing
them all. But according to Silurian continuity established in 'Blood Heat',
'The Scales of Injustice', 'Happy Endings' and 'Eternity Weeps' other hibernation
chambers were discovered and thawed in a controlled and peaceful method,
reintegrating the Earth Reptiles into Tellurian society in the 21st and
22nd Century, or at least by Bernice's native time zone in the 26th Century.
young girl in a frail
classical gown: Katarina, 'The Daleks' Masterplan'.
p.108
She was dressed in a
smart tunic and carried a gun at her hip: Sara Kingdom, 'The Daleks'
Masterplan'.
He had a mop of black
hair, and wore a yellow smock, but as he ran towards the Doctor, his clothes
burst into flame, his skin scalded, and explosions of fleshy ash burst
from his form, sending him spiralling towards the Doctor's feet, a living
volcano: Adric.
p.112
"Do you expect me to
talk?" "No, my dear Doctor. I expect you to die.": Goldfinger.
"That's why you introduced
me to the albatrosses, I take it?": Reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. The narrator of the poem goes
on a sea voyage and brings disaster on the entire crew by killing an albatross,
an omen of good luck.
Ace guessed that she
had missed out on most of the literary references. But she got the point.
"I imitate the action
of the tiger.": Shakespeare's 'Henry V', Act 3, Scene 1.
"Burning bright? Fearful
symmetry indeed. You're trapped between your own aspirations and a base
need to stay alive. You're like one of the Songs of Experience: dangerous,
intelligent," he smiled secretly, "but not as subtle as Innocence.":
Blake's poem, 'The Tyger', is also recited by Tommy in 'Planet of the Spiders'.
It's a mixed metaphor between Blake's Tyger and Henry V's tiger.
Tyger, Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful
symmetry?
I hope I got that right.
Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience employs the mediums
of poetry and colored engraving in a series of visionary poems "shewing
the two contrary states of the human soul." Songs of Innocence (1789) was
followed by Songs of Experience (1794), and the two were then combined.
Written in simple lyrical form, as if they were children's songs, the poems
contrast an innocent view of life with a more experienced and, in some
instances, jaded one.
p.113
"You and I know that
his death was obvious, that his destiny was to aid in the extinction of
the dinosaurs. Not even cause it. The arrival of the moon in Earth orbit
did that. You must have known..." "I didn't. Not then. I was younger.":
'Earthshock' was more scientifically accurate than 'Doctor Who and the
Silurians' by portraying an asteroid-like body colliding with the Earth
to kill off the dinosaurs. The former explanation is a relic of older
explanations for the mass extinction. At the moment, we believe that life
might not have evolved on Earth without the seasons, conservation of orbital
inertia and motion and tidal pools, all direct results of the Moon. The
Silurians went into hibernation when they predicted that the Moon would
destroy the ecosystem as it fell into Earth orbit. Earth might have developed
life when it was part of the Earth-Mondas system, and the cataclysm might
have involved the ejection of Mondas and the insertion on the Moon. The
New Adventures back up opposition to the current theories that the Moon
was formed at the same time as the Earth, in Earth orbit. 'Eternity Weeps'
explained where the Moon came from.
"I watched as you punished
your companion over the matter of Gabriel Chase, used her in the most outrageous
manner to contain the manifestation of Fenric.": 'Ghost Light', 'The
Curse of Fenric'.
p.114
the books of the Mabinogi:
Welsh literature begins with the 6th-century bardic poetry attributed to
Aneurin and Taliesin, which praises patrons and elegizes fallen warriors.
Parallels in Irish literature suggest that many other early genres have
been lost. The former existence of genealogical traditions, mythic tales,
and epic accounts of such heroic figures as King Arthur and the poet-wizard
Myrddin may be inferred from surviving prose tales of the 11th century
and later periods, particularly the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, for
mythological lore; native Arthurian tales, and others such as Peredur and
Owein showing Norman French influence; and native historical accounts such
as The Dream of Maxen Wledig.
fragments of an individual
imagery that are Blakian, almost revelatory: Well, that pretty much
brings back all the Blakian imagery back to a recapitulation.
low-power alpha waves
in the psionic range:
"Peter, you know when
you used to pop around to my flat in the evenings, when we'd make soft
toys and drink cocoa?": Make soft toys... yes, indeed. I've never
heard it called that. The application of cocoa ought to be familiar to
anybody who's seen 'The Aztecs'.
"It's like that line
in Candleford. I'm loved by things I do not see.":
"Do you remember that
party in Bath? At Miles' flat?": Not Lawrence Miles? No.
Mad Larry hails from Nottinghamshire. I don't know of any authors
that live in Bath, although there's a brace of them in Bristol. William
Herschel discovered Uranus in Bath. And no, I mean the planet.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) This appears to be Miles as a first name, not
a surname. And I don't think Lawrence Miles lives in Bath.
(Text
submitted by Rich Black) Could be the fan Miles Booy, who is a Cornell
aquaintance. This is the sort of knowledge that you pick up from reading
too many fanzines. The fanzine Purple Haze came out of Bath, as does Skaro...
Cornell has written for both. Indeed.
Perhaps the party participants included some
of the people involved in them?
Yes!
Bloody hell.
p.115
"The one where Stephen
took off his tie and wore it like a headband?":
Stephen
O'Brien.
"That colleague of yours,
Lane or whatever his name was.": Andy Lane, right?
"The big lad with the
curly hair, the one who thought it was a costume party.": The Fourth
Doctor? The
Sixth. See? He is in here!
minor Infernal Duke:
p.116
that Jewish charlatan
Freud: Sigmund Freud,1856-1939, the creator of psychoanalysis, was
the first person to scientifically explore the human unconscious mind;
his ideas profoundly influenced the shape of modern culture by altering
man's view of himself. Freud was born in what is now Czechoslovakia, the
oldest child of his father's second wife. Before Freud was 4 years of
age, the family moved first to Leipzig, Germany, and then to Vienna, where
Freud remained for most of his life. Freud's father, Jakob, a struggling
Jewish merchant, encouraged his intellectually precocious son and passed
on to him a tradition of skeptical and independent thinking. Jakob's passive
acceptance of anti-Semitic insults, however, troubled the young Freud:
his feelings toward his father were ambivalent. Those feelings might have
helped him develop ideas like the Oedipus complex.
Rabelaisian pleasures:
Reflecting in his life and works the humanistic concerns of the French
Renaissance, Francois Rabelais, , 1483 or 1494 to 1553, was a French scholar
and cleric who is remembered today for his satirical prose masterpiece
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-64). A vast, rambling compendium
of adventure stories and learning of every kind, this work gave currency
to the adjectives "gargantuan" and "Rabelaisian"; the excesses of the
body celebrated here together with the exercise of the intellect are a
joyous affirmation of life.
Rabelais is a difficult
author for modern readers because of the dense intellectual content of
nearly everything he wrote. The grotesque adventures of his giants, the
comic and often obscene anecdotes, and the author's verbal exuberance can
still delight despite the fact that no English translation can quite capture
the unique flavor of the original. Chief among the many later novelists
influenced by Rabelais are Laurence Sterne, Honore de Balzac, James Joyce,
and the contemporary American John Barth.
tabula rasa:
Clean slate.
his Utopia: Utopia
(1516), by Saint Thomas More, is a Latin essay describing an ideal community,
Utopia--literally, "no place." Divided into two parts, the work opens with
a dialogue criticizing economic and social conditions in contemporary Europe,
especially war, oppression of the poor, taxation, and unjust laws. Book
2, the narrative of Raphael Hythloday, describes the ideal community's
religion, government, education, economics, wars, laws, and customs. Since
its publication, Utopia has been interpreted variously as a satire against
the corruption of the times, as a Christian humanist's view of a scholar's
paradise, and as a blueprint for communism.
There were foundations
left behind by the previous inhabitant, who had been evicted. The previous
inhabitant was vaguely akin to the Nazi: The Third Doctor?
Hemmings looked at the
void and decided that it was good: Like God in the Book of Genesis,
looking at the various new bits of creation and deciding that they're good.
the devil has the best
tunes: Jazz or today's less mainstream music has been referred to as
sinister, but ironically so have brash or solemn paeans to nationalism,
at least in Nazi Germany. The
raison d'etre for the brass bands of the Salvation Army.
p.117
"He was a bit of a hippy,
sir. Kept a whole platoon of the lads around just so as he could argue
with us. He had a vineyard too - and a racetrack, where he used to drive
that car of his.": The Third Doctor kept a platoon of UNIT soldiers
conceptualised in his part of the Doctor's mind. The vineyard connects
with his penchant for fine wine in 'Day of the Daleks'.
a simple hut, adorned
with hangings that the Nazi recognised as containing symbols of the Dharma-Body
of the Buddha: In Buddhism, Dharma is the body of knowledge taught
by Buddha.
p.118
symbiotic nuclei:
The Sixth Doctor claimed that time machines, or at least TARDISes, must
share a symbiotic link with their pilots on the cellular level. Apparently
the Rassilon Imprimature is the key to a Time Lord's control over his vessel.
This is all from 'The Two Doctors' by the way. Chessene appeared to die
when she activated her time machine without enough of the Doctor's symbiotic
nuclei. However, some fans contend that symbiotic nuclei are a bluff intended
to hold up time travel research. This despite several bits of evidence
that the Doctor does have a symbiotic link with the TARDIS and some ships,
such as the Privateer from 'Warrior's Gate', need time-sensitive navigators
to travel the timelines.
p.123
8: It's A Wonderful Life:
Frank Capra's classic Christmas movie about a mistreated pillar of a small
community who doubts himself and gets help from an angel. It's Christmas
in Cheldon Bonniface, and the Doctor is getting help from Saul.
"You don't go into
battle to die for your country, you go into battle to make the other bastard
die for HIS country.":
No idea when Patton first said this. But it's well quoted in the film
Patton.
"Because the medium is
the message!": The Canadian writer and teacher Herbert Marshall McLuhan,
1911-1980, generated widespread controversy during the 1960s with his theories
of the effects of the media on society. His sociopsychological analysis
of mass communications was first presented in 1952, with publication of
The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man. McLuhan proposed
that the "grammar" of electronic technology directly corresponds to the
human central nervous system and that the characteristics of a medium such
as television, much more than its content, determine what a viewer will
experience. His subsequent books include The Medium Is the Message:
An Inventory of Effects (1967).
"It's like the SETI programme.":
The strategy adopted by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence program
has focused on finding carrier waves on which interstellar communications
are carried out. Although the actual inforamtion might be far too faint
or incomprehensible to be deciphered, the carrier wave is the medium for
the message. And discovering extra-terrestrial communications is more
important, for now, than finding out what it says.
p.124
chaos equation: A
chaotic system is defined as one that shows "sensitivity to initial conditions."
That is, any uncertainty in the initial state of the given system, no matter
how small, will lead to rapidly growing errors in any effort to predict
the future behavior. For example, the motion of a dust particle floating
on the surface of a pair of oscillating whirlpools can display chaotic
behavior. The particle will move in well-defined circles around the centers
of the whirlpools, alternating between the two in an irregular manner.
p.126
Sarah Powell:
another
old friend. I don't do this anymore.
p.127
He had no children.
If he were to die, Saul didn't know what he would do, without a Trelaw
to guide him: So where did Annie from 'Happy Endings' come from?
(Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) I *think* Annie was the niece of
this Trelaw. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Annie's father, Mike, was the brother of the
Reverend Ernest Trelaw. ('Happy Endings', p63)
p.128
He could become infinitely
corrupted, as somebody had said: The historian John Emerich Edward
Dalberg Acton,1834-1902, was one of the greatest spokesmen of English liberalism.
He served in the House of Commons from 1859 to 1865 and was created 1st
Baron Acton in 1869.
It was Acton's contention
that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men."
So maybe it wasn't Thomas
Jefferson said that.
p.129
"I'd say that the oxygen
envelope is maintained by mag - by highly advanced science - around this
building.": Magic is science, or is science magic?
scrum half:
A
rugby position.
p.130
"I was meditating in
my hut. Trying to get through to you, as always.": Earlier Doctors
have reservations about the Seventh Doctor's methods. 'The Room With No
Doors' explains that he thinks they have it in for him.
p.131
"Do you remember the
Inferno project?": 'Inferno', or 'The Face of the Enemy' if you think
so.
"I thought that perhaps
that had been the divergent factor, that somehow it was the lack of my
presence that had led the world into fascism. Such pride.": That was
hinted at.
"It occurred to me that
in that fascist Earth I glimpsed, there were posters of a man, their great
leader. Old chap, it took me so long to realize. That face was one of
those that I had been offered at my trial.": Paul appears to have thought
of this first, although it didn't make it into The Discontinuity Guide.
Also, the BBC Video release of 'Inferno' includes a previously cut scene
in the alternate universe, after the pit head explosion. Jon Pertwee provided
the voice for a propaganda newsreader (Pertwee was supposedly doing an
impression of Lord Haw-Haw, a German propaganda tool against BBC Radio
during the Second World War) warning of the spreading disaster. So maybe
the Leader stooped to delivering special news bulletins.
p.132
"I wonder how much say
the Timewyrm had in structuring that alternate reality?": Possibly
quite a lot.
"In your meditations
over the years, have you discovered any more of the machine code?":
The Timewyrm's machine code?
"Is he still looking
for the daisy?" "Yes. But he insists it's a rose.": The Sarlain.
The First Doctor is into flowers as well as being a librarian; in both
of his post-'The Tenth Planet' appearences, he was first seen in a garden.
p.133
the third Doctor providing
an incantation of his own that added counterpoint and tonal depth:
The Third Doctor is a bit of a tuneless wonder. His extemporised melody
for 'Jabberwocky', 'Shine On, Martian Moon', 'I Don't Want to set the World
on Fire' are quite awful. He didn't even try singing in the recording
of the 'I am the Doctor' song. The Venusian lullaby is probably his best
singing voice, it's a pity it's total rubbish.
"What does 'aroon' mean?":
Venusian lullaby.
p.136
The eyes that had been
a beautiful blue now shone a vibrant green: There has been some doubt
about the colour of the Seventh Doctor's eyes. Paul might be referring
to a specific mix-up. Leela is the only other character who changed her
eye colour, although I'm sure nobody would've noticed if they'd just changed
it without explanation. After all they never explained how the Fourth
Doctor's boots in 'Logopolis' changed into the Fifth Doctor's stockings
in the first part of 'Castrovalva'. There are many other examples of this
laxity.
"Linford, Pound!" he
screamed. "Don't dance!":
p.137
It (sic) almost
like a firework display, like a wonderful bonfire, only little Dorry was
the Guy: Guy Fawkes, b. Apr. 13, 1570, was instrumental in the Gunpowder
Plot of 1605 to blow up the English Parliament and King James I. An English
Roman Catholic convert, he enlisted in the Spanish army in 1593 and fought
in the Netherlands. In 1604 he was engaged by the Catholic conspirators
who planned to overthrow the Protestant monarchy in England to stow gunpowder
barrels in a vault under the House of Lords and to explode them on Nov.
5, 1605, when the king opened Parliament. An anonymous letter warned the
government, however, and during a search on Nov. 4, 1605, Fawkes was arrested.
Under torture he revealed the plot and was executed on Jan. 31, 1606. November
5 continues to be celebrated in Britain as Guy Fawkes Day, when Fawkes
is burned in effigy and young people happily conspire to blow themselves
up.
p.139
'If you can keep your
head while all about you are losing theirs...':
Rudyard Kipling, but where from? (Text
submitted by Chris Burnside) If http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Classic/Poetry/if.p
Of course, the first
thing she thought of was chocolate: This is Ace if she never rebelled,
a conformist Dorothy dominated by bulimia and peer pressure.
the bar at Spiffy's:
tattered Jackie Collins
novel: Jackie Collins writes trashy fiction for women. Pardon me for
being forthright.
white suspender belt,
Tricia, Chelsea Girl: an
ick clothing shop.
Alison: Just checking
to see if we've met any of these girls before.
p.140
Care Bear nightshirt:
Care Bears is an animated kid's TV show which promotes a line of
plush toys.
long plaited hair:
Different from Ace's ponytail.
a single: Music.
A pop song.
her eyelids were flecked
with gold: This is Dorothy more or less grown up, in the early nineties.
I thought the spangled raver look with sparkle-cheeks only started up around
that time.
Tenerife: Part of
the Canary Islands in the East Atlantic.
she went out with Martin
Day, the football captain: Martin is one of Paul's co-authors. And
a footballer.
p.141
"Tenerife isn't in Greece,
is it?": East Atlantic.
Mr Freeman: John
Freeman is probably Paul's favourite DWM comic book artist.
Dorry moved Paddington
aside: Paddington Bear. I'm not sure how Paddington developed, but
my fondest memories are of that brilliant card cut-out animated series
of Paddington Bear. The theme is running through my head right
now. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) I believe it all began with the books by Michael
Bond, on which the TV series is based.
Simon and Elaine:
"Unchained Melody":
Song. Righteous Brothers. Top Gun. Peter Sellers send-up. Better.
"You look like that girl
in that film. The one with that record by that guy.": Time to consult
the Internet Movie Database .
Dorry's little sister:
Unique to this dream; Ace's dad is either dead or run away, authors have
disagreed in the past.
p.142
that "A" thing: A
for anarchy. It doesn't really mean " am evil and want to kill you", but
airheads will gossip.
"Did you see he had a
big penta-thing on the back of his coat?": Also almost meaningless
as anything other than a fashion statement.
p.143
Azukoi:
p.144
"Voivod... no. Jason
Donovan...": (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) Voivod - A French/Canadian band
with sci-fi elements in their lyrics. Jason Donovan was an Australian
singer/actor, started on Neighbours, therefore hugely popular in
the UK around the late 1980s/early 1990s. The male counterpart to Kylie
Minogue - only not as famous now, because she started getting good and
people bought her records, while he got in trouble for drugs and artistic
underacheivement. Really, his dad's a much better actor anyway.
"Tracey Dodds went away
to university.": Oh, I get it. This is Dorry if Fenric had passed
her by, or if she'd been dominated by her peers, and grown up that way.
Now she's older than university entrance level, a total airhead, and probably
headed for the unremarkable hairdresser's life her real mother had.
p.145
New Model Army: Not
the Puritan army in the English Civil War, although another one was.
"But I liked Mrs Thatcher.
She's a woman, so she must have known what she was doing.": Well, she
was referred to by the Spice Girls as a great role model. Eeuurgh.
pop annuals: Is this
something like Beano or Doctor Who annuals, only devoted
to the Backstreet Boys? (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) Yeah, from what I remember, your
description isn't far off.
Takeaway: Manisha,
Asian, word association, Indian takeaway food.
p.146
It was elegantly bound
in black, with a complex spiral pattern on the outside: The Seal of
Rassilon? The Black Book?
"gods with elephants'
heads and all that": Hindu pantheon.
Chapter One: Little
Dorrit:
Charles Dickens.
the ferryman: The
Fourth Doctor, based on his punting in 'Shada'. On the flight over to
England in August 1999 it struck me how appropriate it is for the Fourth
Doctor to be a ferryman over the River Styx into Hell. Tom Baker has a
macabre hobby of mowing the lawn over his own grave. He keeps an axe beside
his bed, and when he appeared on Have I Got News For You with Angus
Deayton he recalled the name of the Seventh Circle of Hell, to the bafflement
of the other panelists. What drove it home was the in-flight movie, which
was What Dreams May Come. It's a Robin Williams film about a guy
who dies and his dreams afterwards. Max von Sydow plays the ferryman,
in a familiar greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat. It's terrifically spooky.
And Max von Sydow actually has a passing resemblence to the ageing Tom
Baker, although his grimness is a bit less comedic.
p.147
as if he was talking
to an undergraduate: Another 'Shada' joke; when the Doctor said he
heard unearthly whispering, Professor Chronotis says he thinks it was undergraduates
talking, and he's trying to have it banned. Either shows how undergrads
are picked on, or proves that they, or we, are a lower form of life.
"You were investigating
the Matrix.": When the Fourth Doctor first heard rumours about the
Timewyrm, he was in the Matrix finding out about the Demat Gun in 'The
Invasion of Time'.
"He could have found
a boat with an engine, at least!": The Third Doctor and Jon Pertwee
both are very interested in motorsports. The Third Doctor drove a motorboat
and a hovercraft in 'Planet of the Spiders'.
p.149
Brides magazine:
Typical bridal magazine, I've no idea if it's real.
p.150
the one-eyed old man
in the cape: The Hermit again. Interesting that he's never directly
identified as K'Anpo. If it was that simple this air of mystery would
be sadly irrelevant. I still think he could be Rassilon.
p.151
"But just because people
aren't real doesn't mean that you can't talk to them.": Inversion of
what we heard about Sherlock Holmes on p.15. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Inversion? Are you sure? Sounds like exactly
the same thing put differently to me. Yadda
yadda.
Kylie: Minogue, Australian
pop singer.
'Inbetween Days':
A
Cure song.
p.152
chinos: Off-white
non-denim cotton trousers.
"Traitor!" they screamed.
"User! Hypocrite!": The Doctor is probably being heckled for his Machiavellianism,
by his conscience or some such.
p.154
white stilettos:
Stilettos are very pointy high heels.
p.156
The pentagram, the pink
triangle, the black flag and the raised fist: Alternative religions
or lifestyles are represented by the pentagram. The pink triangle represents
the gay community (the victims of 'The Happiness Patrol' wore pink triangles,
the symbol was first used by the Nazis to identify gays like Jews, who
were identified by the six-pointed Star of David.) I don't know what the
black flag represents, but the raised fist has been used as a symbol of
black power. The
black flag is for anarchy.
p.157
\\ ||\\ ||\\//
// \\ || ||
\\ // || ||
\\ \\|| ||//\\ :
The closest I can come to the original in ASCII text. These runes represent
the Doctor's name, independent of the ancient greek letters for theta and
sigma most prominently used in 'The Armageddon Factor' and 'Alien Bodies'.
Interesting new bit.
"Look me in the eye.
Use your sword. Take my life.": The Doctor is repeating what Mordred
said when at his mercy in 'Battlefield'. Strangely, Morgaine could tell
the Doctor was bluffing through all the shouting, and decided that the
Brigadier was more steeped in blood than the Doctor. Er, wrong I think.
This is after the Doctor has been fighting monsters for nearly a thousand
years, and has recently turned to intentionally destroying planets, while
the Brigadier has turned from a hard-nosed officer in the British Army
to a stout military buffoon. 'Battlefield' was his best outing in years,
and he got the best lines. He would not have the role in fandom he has
today if he'd finished up with 'The Five Doctors'. The Seventh Doctor
likes going odd like this when faced with death - he also does it in 'The
Happiness Patrol'.
p.158
10: Chaos Song:
Who shall decide when
doctors disagree?:
Nine and a half stone
of flying ex-schoolmate: A stone is a unit of weight in the United
Kingdom. (Text
submitted by Chris Burnside) 14 pounds (lbs) to the stone. Nine and a
half stone is 133 lbs. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Or a bit over 60kg in *real* measurements.
:)
p.160
"If there's a smile on
my face, it's only there trying to fool the public.":
Smokey
Robinson's 'The Tears of a Clown'. Hee hee hee!
p.161
"If the Timewyrm wins,
you'll never get into secondary school.": Like she spent much time
there the first time around.
p.162
Far below, a tiny bridge
stretched from one side of the crater to the other: Um, I think I should
save the revelation about this until p.171.
p.163
"Well, I'm not a complete
philistine, you know,": The Philistines were one of a number of sea
peoples who penetrated Egypt and Syro-Palestine coastal areas during 1225-1050
BC. Of Aegean origin, they settled on the southern coastal plain of Canaan,
an area that became known as Philistia. The Philistines rapidly adopted
Canaanite language and culture, while introducing tighter military and
political organization and superior weaponry based on the use of iron,
over which they had a local monopoly. The military rulers of the Philistines
extended their rule in Canaan, constantly warring with Israel. The Israelite
king David, who had earlier been a Philistine vassal, finally defeated
them, succeeding where Samson and Saul before him had failed. Distinctive
Philistine artifacts in the Mycenaean tradition, such as the double-handled
jug, have been found in archaeological excavations in Palestine (a name
derived from Philistia). As colonists with relative strength but less
innate cultural dominance, the Philistines may have become the basis for
the current use of their word to describe the unenlightened or socially
dull.
p.164
"I'm not going to die
because you're late. Not again.": Was the Doctor expecting a rescue
when he danced with Death?
"How long is the coast
of Britain?": Although the Doctor's point is that such a question is
imponderable, there's probably an answer out there somewhere.
"Don't gaze into the
void," he advised. "Nietzche said something similar, also interesting
things about fighting monsters. Pity about the rest of it.": Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844-1900, was a German philosopher who, together with
Soren Kierkegaard, shares the distinction of being a precursor of Existentialism.
In his first book, The
Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche presented a theory of Greek drama
and of the foundations of art that has had profound effects on both literary
theory and philosophy. In this book he introduced his famous distinction
between the Apollonian, or rational, element in human nature and the Dionysian,
or passionate, element, as exemplified in the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus.
When the two principles are blended, either in art or in life, humanity
achieves a momentary harmony with the Primordial Mystery. In Thus Spake
Zarathustra (1883-85), his most celebrated book, he introduced in eloquent
poetic prose the concepts of the death of God, the superman, and the will
to power. Vigorously attacking Christianity and democracy as moralities
for the "weak herd," he argued for the "natural aristocracy" of the superman
who, driven by the "will to power," celebrates life on earth rather than
sanctifying it for some heavenly reward. Such a heroic man of merit has
the courage to "live dangerously" and thus rise above the masses, developing
his natural capacity for the creative use of passion.
Although these ideas were
distorted by the Nazis in order to justify their conception of the master
race, to regard Nietzsche's philosophy as a prototype of nazism is erroneous.
His criticism of the mediocrity and smugness of German culture led to a
disintegration of his friendship with Richard Wagner as well as to a disassociation
from his beloved Germany. To correct any misconceptions concerning the
superman, Nietzsche published Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and On
the Genealogy of Morals (1887).
His later writings are particularly
strident; although more forceful than his earlier essays and books, they
retain clear continuity with his earlier ideas. In the collection of essays
published posthumously under the title The Will to Power (1901), Nietzsche
further developed his ideas of the superman and the will to power, asserting
that humans must learn to live without their gods or any other metaphysical
consolations. Like Goethe's Faust, humans must incorporate their devil
and evolve "beyond good and evil." That probably has something to do with
avoiding the imponderables.
p.165
Fractals: A modern
mathematical theory that radically departs from traditional Euclidean geometry,
fractal geometry describes objects that are self-similar, or scale symmetric.
This means that when such objects are magnified, their parts are seen to
bear an exact resemblance to the whole, the likeness continuing with the
parts of the parts and so on to infinity. Fractals, as these shapes are
called, also must be devoid of translational symmetry--that is, the smoothness
associated with Euclidean lines, planes, and spheres. Instead a rough,
jagged quality is maintained at every scale at which an object can be examined.
The nature of fractals is reflected in the word itself, coined by mathematician
Benoit B. Mandelbrot from the Latin verb frangere, "to break," and the
related adjective fractus, "irregular and fragmented."
"Using the equations
you can write poetry, verse that corresponds to the dimensions of the Wyrm
itself.": More reality-warping verse; kind of like html for the real
world.
p.167
"Yippie ay-ai, toerag,"
Ace grinned, wiping tears on to her sleeve. "It's a good day to die.":
In the Die Hard movies, Bruce Willis' catchphrase as John McClane
was "Yippie ky-yay, motherfucker!", based on some obscure reference to
Roy Rogers the singing cowboy. "It's a good day to die" seems to be derived
from Worf's catchphrase from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Actually,
the Klingons nicked it from Sitting Bull
p.169
The third Doctor was
standing on the battlements of a proud fortress, simple designs covering
its wall. He stood alone, his hands on his hips, staring out for the first
sign of attack. He had no need of soldiers: Very reminiscent of the
Third Doctor's strategy from 'The Time Warrior', when he defended a castle
against Irongron's men with a skeleton garrison and smoke-bombs.
The Librarian: The
First Doctor.
p.170
Emily is reliving crucial
points in the Doctor's life from his various points of view:
(First Doctor)
Such impertinence these humans had, bursting in like this! And at such
a crucial time! Why, their presence could mean so much. Yes, perhaps
it was for the best - (Second Doctor) after all, my goodness, there
were some horrible things in this universe, things that wouldn't ever be
nice to anybody, my word! Humans did get in a pickle sometimes and (Third
Doctor) it was dashed uncomfortable being stuck on one planet with them.
It was really quite intolerable, and here was the Minister, on the phone
again! It was like some ridiculous cocktail party... (Fourth Doctor)
well, I always did like a party, but if I was holding one I'm sure I
wouldn't be invited. Silly sort of things, humans, you know, short life
spans, far too few limbs, but still, still! (Fifth Doctor) There's
something rather charming about them, I think. Absolutely. They're very
good company in difficult circumstances and I wouldn't have it any other
way. Trying sometimes, but in general, I think they're absolutely splendid!
(Sixth Doctor) Splendid? Splendid? I have always found them to
be trivial, annoying and unfortunately ubiquitous! I can take them or
leave them, preferably the latter. (Seventh Doctor) Yes, take them,
look after them, use them in games of skill or chance. That's what they
say, isn't it? Doctor, heal thyself!"
p.173
11: Sympathy For The
Doctor: Based on the idea No Sympathy for the Devil, which is probably
a fragment of some old proverb. Via
the Rolling Stones, obviously.
"Five of his previous
selves are here." That's not inclusive, otherwise it would be a reference
to the five Doctor actors who were alive at the time the book was published.
We've met all the Doctors here except for the Second.
"When the second Doctor
visited the Doctor in dreams, I was there, gaining ground.": The Second
Doctor appeared in cameos in 'Timewyrm: Apocalypse'.
p.175
"Give me a sword.":
Ace was a sword-bearer in 'Battlefield', when she implausibly rescued Excalibur
and looked just like the Lady of the Lake.
"He is only an idea in
his own head now...": A contradiction which is fundamental to the book.
p.177
Out of the material of
the stormy plain, creatures were forming. Daleks and UNIT soldiers, Time
Lords and the horrific dead companions that Ace had witnessed earlier:
The sudden appearence of these conceptual foes is a spooky precursor of
'Dimensions In Time', in which an entire fanclub's worth of people dressed
up in random Doctor Who monsters' costumes of variable quality and
justification and sneered at the Doctor at the end of Part One.
p.181
12: Cruciform Blues:
When I am dead, I
hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read:
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Hilaire Belloc. And I'm obviously a philistine,
because I can't remember having read any of his books, only a series of
Cautionary Tales in verse.
p.182
"I was aware that I was
being controlled in my sleep.": The Timewyrm took control of the Doctor
as he slept, whenever he slept, and estimates of how much and how often
and why vary greatly, and used him and the TARDIS to set up this book by
rescuing Hemmings from the BFK headquarters and kidnapping Chad Boyle.
In the corner stood an
ancient, bearded figure, one eye blazing out from under a dark hood:
Hermit! Hermit!
p.183
"It is a cuckoo in your
nest.": Cuckold derives from cuckoo.
p.185
Corporal Higgins:
I don't remember a UNIT soldier named Corporal Higgins, but in The Goon
Show 'The Great Bank Robbery' Henry Crun named his bank after his dear
daddy Lance Corporal Higgins. A long shot, I know, but I thought I'd mention
it.
A bloody long shot! Sometimes I invent names too!
p.186
"We're like the characters
in a book he's continually rewriting.": Like Bernice rewriting her
diary with post-it notes.
"Well, if this is a book,
it's a severely strange one.": In The Discontinuity Guide to the
New Adventures, this one deserves a spot in the double entendres section.
"The company will be
pretty dangerous." "That's okay," Ace shouted back. "I used to go for
the drinks at the Brixton Academy.": A
London nightclub.
free climbing: Climbing
without a rope.
Once, she hailed something
that seemed to assume a flying shape, but all that came back was a strange,
laughing echo:
p.187
a bit of Berlin in the
1930s, fighting the fascists, or Paris in the 1880s, flirting and plotting
with everyone she'd ever fancied: Well, Ace did 1930s Berlin in 'Timewyrm:
Exodus', and she eventually does Paris in the 19th Century a couple of
times. Count Sorin's time is probably early 19th Century or so. She visits
a famous Paris cemetary in the 20th Century at the beginning of 'The Death
of Art'. In 'Set Piece' she fights her way through the massacre at the
end of the Paris Commune of 1871. All certain near misses.
Getting closer to her
destination, Ace counted three figures, gathered around a cauldron. A
certain suspicion, drawn from English Lit. and a dozen comedy sketches,
made her know what to expect: The Wierd Sisters, from Shakespeare's
'Macbeth', Act 1. The only comedy sketch I've seen them sent up in was
in that first episode of Blackadder, although there's meat there
for tons more.
p.188
"Come here, child," murmured
the mature woman, her voice full of vaguely North Country experience:
"It is the omphalos,
child, the world tree,": Delphi, located in Phocis, Greece, was a sacred
city to the ancient Greeks. It was called the omphalos (navel or center)
of the Earth, and this was designated by a large, rounded, conical stone,
which was also called the omphalos. Delphi was sacred to Apollo, the god
of prophecy and patron of philosophy and the arts, whose famous temple
and prophetic shrine were there. The temple within the surrounding sanctuary
was the home of the famous Delphic Oracle. Consulted by Oedipus, Socrates,
and other well-known ancient figures, it gave its messages in such ambiguous
ways that it could seldom be proven wrong.
The Tree of Life was mythically
planted by one of Adam's sons, according to the Legend of the Cross, which
says that Jesus was crucified with wood from the Tree. There are more
world tree myths, for example that of the Great Ash Tree from Norse mythology.
Ace looked up to see
that a stout, well-constructed brick road was now visible, leading off
into the distance: The yellow brick road?
"We are the Doctor's
female self, the principles of maiden, mother and crone,": Joseph Campbell,
1904-1987, was the author of The Masks of God (1959-67), an influential
4-volume study of comparative mythology. Campbell was a distinguished
scholar known for his Jungian interpretations of folklore, dreams, and
the role of myth in the human imagination. His other books include The
Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). I learned about Campbell's archetypal
hero myths in grade 10. He set out three female roles in the archetypal
hero myth: those of maiden, mother and crone.
p.189
She was just the same
as she'd always been, voice trembling with emotion she couldn't show, full
of explanations that her daughter would never hear: Typical characterisation
of Audrey, Ace's mum.
"Ashes to ashes," she
muttered. "Dust to dust.": Funeral thing to say, as the Doctor did
for the Hand of Omega in 'Remembrance of the Daleks'.
Ian Brown beckoning her
to a curtained four-poster ("Come on, naff or what?"):
(Text
submitted by Rich Black) strange and controversial lead singer with the
Stone Roses. Now solo artist. (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) Ian Brown was the lead singer of
a band called the Stone Roses (who originated in Manchester, and are referred
to later in the piece on p95 - there, see, more rose imagery). Ace obviously
finds him attractive... [ahem] At the time this book went out, toe-sucking
might also have been more in the public eye due to Sarah Ferguson getting
caught having her toes sucked. I mean, she didn't invent it or nothing,
but the fact that it was all over the TV and newspapers has to count for
something... (assuming I've got the year right) Also
check p.70.
the Cheetah People calling
her to come and join the wild hunt: 'Survival'.
A gigantic ash: Commander
Millington from 'The Curse of Fenric' referred to the world tree of Norse
mythology as the Great Ash Tree. The Norse Gods endowed two tree trunks
with the qualities of wit, breath, hearing, vision, and so on. These tree
trunks are the archetypes of the human race; the man is Askr (an ash tree)
and the woman, Embla (a creeper). They next build Asgard, the abode of
the gods. Snorri Sturluson, the 13th-Century Icelandic historian and poet
who set a great deal of Norse mythology to verse, describes in other versions
how a great tree, Yggdrasil, the tree of fate, arises in the center of
the world. Beneath the tree is the well of fate, which is described as
feminine in form; the course of human life is decided here. In some versions,
the council of the gods is convened around the tree. The tree is supported
by three roots; one of these roots stretches to the underworld (Hel),
another to the world of the frost-giants, and the last one to the world
of human beings. The welfare of the entire world is dependent on the primordial
tree, Yggdrasil.
p.190
And there was somebody
tied to the thing: The Fifth Doctor crucified. In comparison with
the other Doctors, the Fifth seems to be the most decent, polite and troubled.
So maybe he's the Jesus of the bunch.
A wound had been inflicted
on him, a great incision in his side, and round his throat were the burn
marks of savage strangulation: Sort of like stigmata, but I don't know
what could have cause the strangulation; the Fifth Doctor was never hanged,
although he was threatened with decapitation a few times.
This
is the traditional threefold death inflicted on Celtic sacrifice
victims,
Odin, and, as we can see in hints in the gospels, Christ.
Above the man, the three
runes that Ace had recognized as the Doctor's signature were carved on
the tree, brought together as one sign: Once again, ASCII fails me.
||\\
\\ ||
\\||
//||\\//
\\||//\\
||\\
|| \\
\\||
In front of the tree
grew a flower: The Sarlain. Why is it growing here? Perhaps because
at this point the Doctor knows humility, unlike the First and Seventh.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) Perhaps it's significant that, while the other
Doctors are searching for the Sarlain and whatever it symbolises, the one
Doctor who knows where it is can't reach it.
p.191
Sliding down the trunk
came the thick trunk of a gleaming metal snake, it (sic) eyes flashing
with dark intelligence: The serpent in this Garden of Eden.
p.192
"Go on!" the bully chided.
"Use your sword! Try and take my life!": Boyle chiding the Doctor
about his earlier line from 'Battlefield'.
p.194
"Sometimes I wonder if
I'm just a pawn in some vaster game.": The Sarlain has been found,
giving the Doctor a revelation; the buck doesn't stop here.
p.195
"I'd say brave heart
- " he glanced at Ace and smiled a lovely, honest smile, which faded into
a strange sort of puzzled frown. "But I think you have one anyway.":
The Fifth Doctor used to say that to Tegan a lot.
p.196
This was so far beyond
his understanding that he might as well have been one of the ants that
infested the canteen at Jodrell Bank: Jodrell Bank is the large radio-telescope
that appeared as the Pharos Project in 'Logopolis'. Maybe they do have
an ant problem. They
did then.
p.197
"Long ago," began
the Doctor, "when even Gallifrey was young, the peoples of that planet
fought amongst themselves. They used what they knew of time travel to
gain advantage on their enemies. In doing so, they saw many strange and
awful things. One mad prophet martyr journeyed too far and saw the Timewyrm."
Peter realized that the Doctor was reciting, remembering some ancient text.
Or was he describing his own memories? It was hard to tell. "He saw it
in a timeline that he could not be sure of, devouring Rassilon or his shade,
during the Blue Shift, that time of final conflict, when Fenric shall slip
its chains and all the evil of the worlds shall rebound back on them in
war. For the Timewyrn is the Addanc, the wyrm that circles the cosmos,
it is sleeping and it wakes, it is good and evil, choice made carnate."
The Doctor paused,
slipping back into his own explanation. "The Timewyrm is something that
the Time Lords have always expected. Some of us were sufficiently convinced
by the legends to prepare. Long ago. Its appearence now means that the
end cannot be very far away."
"The end of the universe?"
queried Saul. "The day of judgement?"
" time of darkness.
Don't worry. The Gallifreyan concept of a near time is much vaster than
yours."
"Well, that's all
right then," muttered Emily: The Grolier doesn't mention the Addanc,
but here the Timewyrm is clearly Ouroborous, the universe snake that eats
its own tail. Besides the Red Dwarf episode 'Ouroborous', mobius strips
and klein bottles got mentioned in the Audio Visual 'Mythos' along with
Ouroborous. (Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) There's an Addanc in Celtic/Arthurian legend,
a lake monster slain by Peredur, but there doesn't appear to be any connection
apart from the name.
That
Adanc doesn't just live in a lake, it encircles the universe underwater.
"Is the end so preordained?":
In 'Inferno', the Third Doctor thought that he'd found free will. If the
Timewyrm was in control of the alternate dimension, he might have been
fooled.
"That's her dihenydd,
as the Welsh would say. I've fought her more often than she knows, already
defeated her, already lost to her, chased her round the walls of Troy,
been chased by her through the caverns of Nessanhudd.": I think it
was Achilles that chased Hector around the walls of Troy.
(Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) Someone once told me this word
means like your ultimate destiny - as in, after you've finished being alive
and everything.
p.198
The Doctor was walking
widdershins around the TARDIS console: (Text
submitted by Chris Burnside) Widdershins http://www.spots.ab.ca/~cogcoa/dictionary.html#w
anticlockwise
in witchy talk.
"Dorothy wanted to go
home. The Scarecrow needed a brain. The Tin Man needed a heart. And
the Cowardly Lion, he needed courage. Each found that the quest wasn't
in the adventure, but in themselves. They discovered that what they seeked
to find was meaningless, that the only thing worth having was inside.":
Well, I need only direct you to The Wizard of Oz.
"Ah well, alea jacta
est!":
Ever read Asterix comics? That old pirate was always saying that
as Asterix and Obelix were sinking the pirate ship. It's Latin, and I'd
give worlds to know what it means. "It's all over", at a guess.
(Text
submitted by Chris Burnside) Well as a partway hint, alea -ae f. [a game
of dice , game of hazard]; hence [chance, risk, uncertainty].
jaceo-ere-ui : to stand (that which is stated).
jacio : to cast.
jactantia : ostentation, bragging.
jactito : boast.
jaculum : dart, javelin.
jaculum : dart, javelin.
jaculum : dart.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) "The dice have been thrown." More loosely,
"I've made my choice; there's no going back now." Julius Caesar said it
first, on some famous occasion.
"The
dice have been thrown." More loosely, "I've made my choice; there's
no going back now." Exactly.
The Doctor assumed a
perfect lotus on the floor of the console room, his hands forming a tantric
meditation posture: Look up Buddhist things.
p.201
13: Total Eclipse:
Named for the Pink Floyd song from The Dark Side of the Moon, or
that other pop song "Total Eclipse of the Heart"? Maybe, but only by proxy:
the main reference is to Paul's earlier short story from Queen Bat,
upon which this book is based.
A seeker of silences
am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with
confidence?: My
catchphrase, from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.
The Timewyrm guffawed:
Uncharacteristically.
p.202
A for/next loop as she
rationalised it: Part of one of those computer program logic diagrams?
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) A for/next loop is a section of the program
that repeats itself a set number of times before going on to the next bit.
"No, they probably wouldn't
appreciate a quick burst on the spoons...": Sylvester McCoy is a demon
spoons player. He may have broken them out in 'The Greatest Show in the
Galaxy' or 'Delta and the Bannermen', I don't know. Sylvester got them
out to accompany an arrangement of the Doctor Who theme for that
square CD (and justly so) Variations on a Theme, or something.
Anneke Wills tells an interesting anecdote about the TV Movie wrap party
in Vancouver involving Sylvester, some alcohol, the spoons and a very large,
threatening man. Don't worry, it doesn't involve violence.
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) He does a bit of spoon-playing in 'Time and
the Rani', and I think also in 'The Happiness Patrol'.
It was like the few seconds
before kickoff: Just before the ball drops, and the tension's very
high. Face-off is the same thing in hockey, except hockey's crazy.
p.204
vast metal lami:
p.205
pinprick galaxies:
In 'The Two Doctors' the Sixth Doctor mentioned pin galaxies that exist
on the subatomic level, and have lifetimes of only about one attosecond.
p.206
It was what cats howled
at on August nights, what the Kurylie traced across the skies of their
dreamtime: Aboriginal
tribe from the Melbourne area.
p.207
Trelaw, though he would
not later confess it, swore he heard a voice, a voice old and terrible,
echoing down the corricors from a time before time itself: God, perhaps.
p.209
"I must write a paper
for the Royal Society,": Great Britain's Royal Society is one of the
world's oldest and most prestigious scientific associations. The society
had its origins about 1645 when a club of learned figures, using the name
"Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge," initiated a
series of gatherings at Gresham College, London, to exchange information.
Granted charters from Charles II in 1662 and 1663 as the Royal Society,
it has thereafter advised the British government on scientific matters
in a semiofficial capacity.
p.210
"So let me grasp the
rose that grows inside under the surface," he yelled. "Allow me strength
and not to hide, Or give me a friend who seeks the lie..." With a great
effort he grasped the baby in Trelaw's arms and pressed his forehead to
its. "And let my mind do no more fighting!":
p.211
It's not where you're
from, it's where you're at:
Or who you know? (Text
submitted by Rich Black) words of wisdom from Ian Brown.
p.214
"Hello," he said finally.
"I'm the Doctor. And this is my friend Ace.": The Doctor's always
saying that. Substitute Bernice or Sam for Ace where applicable.
'The Holly and the Ivy':
A Christmas carol.
The Doctor was filling
one leg of her tights with apples and oranges: That's become a tradition
since back in the old days when fresh fruit was a real novelty. In December,
it still is more expensive than at other times of year.
p.215
It might have been a
man's voice on the other end of the line, or it might not. Ace had put
the phone down again before she heard more than a syllable: We're not
sure about the status of Ace's father. Authors have disagreed on it.
p.216
They broke into a genetics
lab in the twenty-second century, and stole a female baby, grown artificially,
to leave her a mindless husk. This, the Doctor had told Ace, was so the
doctors involved could experiment on her with a clear conscience: Similar
things went on in the 21st Century, like with the Ubersoldaten and Kadiatu.
Ladbroke Grove hypertube
station: Virgin Books (and maybe the NME, I don't know) are based on
Ladbroke Grove in West London. Just
Virgin.
p.217
"I remember now, I heard
about Chad Boyle from Midge a long way back. His family moved up to Barnet
before he reached Seniors, and he went on to be editor of a local paper.":
He's briefly mentioned in a soon-to-follow book because out of the blue
he suddenly sends all of his old friends from Perivale Christmas cards.
And this is Christmas.
Greenwich Park shone
white above London's grey towers: Greenwich Park, home of the Prime
Meridian.
The TARDIS had become
increasingly difficult to control. Ace hardly dared to ask about the night-time
scratching at her door: Foreshadowing for the Cat's Cradle series:
the TARDIS partially breaks down, and its warnings are personified in a
mysterious silver cat.
"1976," answered the
Doctor. "And no, you can't go and tell Sid Vicious to be more careful.
He wouldn't listen, anyway.": 1976 was during the cult popularity of
punk rock. Sid Vicious was the second guy to play bass for the Sex Pistols.
He didn't play in the recordings for their first and, well, really their
only album, Never Mind the Bollocks. I can't remember the name
of the other guy. Nor can I remember Sid's real name. Anyway, Sid played
with the Sex Pistols after that, and did the American tour with them.
But Sid was an idiot and a heroin addict. He was on rehab, but then his
wife Nancy was murdered under mysterious circumstances and Sid OD'd and
died before the police could question him. There's a movie about him starring
Gary Oldman, Sid & Nancy. Sid was cremated, but as his mum
was preparing to fly his urn back home she dropped it and his ashes got
sucked into the airport air conditioning.
Perhaps you should read
'No Future', if you haven't already.
(Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) More on Sid Vicious: His real name
was John Simon Ritchie. One of the things not often known about Nancy's
death is that she wasn't actually stabbed to death, at least not in the
conventional sense - the actual wound, under normal circumstances, likely
wouldn't have killed her - but she was a haemophiliac, and had bled to
death. A
haemophiliac heroin addict married to a heroin addict bassist in a punk
rock band who kills her... these characters practically walked right out
of 'Goth Opera'...
(Text
submitted by Paul Andinach) You think that *now*, wait until you've read
Andy
Warhol's Dracula
p.218
"Old friends are like
old china.": Cockney rhyming slang from Part One of 'The Power of the
Daleks': china, china and plate, mate, friend. (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma) - it's
just an expression, it's not really exclusive to 'The Power of the Daleks'
or anything...
I know, that is legitimate cockney rhyming slang. It's a set of secret
phrases which have been embellished and added to over time. It's lost
its original purpose; it was originally a code East Londoners used to keep
secrets from outsiders or police. Now it's got a bit silly, not to mention
more popular, as codes for words such as "Bristol City" can jokingly attest.
They walked off, beginning
a conversation about Newton's rose garden, and the Doctor's lack of belief
in the I Ching, all sorts of things:
Isaac Newton, that is, and not his apple orchard. And the Doctor doesn't
believe in the I Ching unlike the Timewyrm thought, which has an
effect on what the Doctor really thinks about free will.
p.220
Long ago in an English
winter: Four of Paul Cornell's early books form a sort of an informal
'seasons' cycle. 'Timewyrm: Revelation' ends with "long ago in an English
winter", 'Love and War' ends with "long ago in an English autumn", 'No
Future' ends with "long ago in an English summer', and 'Human Nature' ends
with "long ago in an English spring". Any particular reason? I don't
know. (Text
submitted by Urac Daria 'Ratbat' Sigma)..and then 'Happy Endings' closes
with "And a love for all seasons". And
a song and dance routine.