TITLE

The Deadstone Memorial

AUTHOR

Trevor Baxendale

PREVIOUS FORM

for the defence: The Janus Conjunction (EDA); Coldheart (EDA); Eater of Wasps (EDA)

for the prosecution: Nothing that I've read.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT ALFIE?

The Doctor pops by to stop a little boy from having nightmares.

THE 100 WORD REVIEW

Rather late in the day, but the EDAs seem to be back on form. This one is unashamedly similar to Baxendale's previous book, with its relatively simple theme of human possessed by alien. But that's not a complaint - it's not pushing the envelope of Who, or trying anything new, and it's certainly not carrying an unwieldy story arc around its neck, it's just an exciting, 'traditional' tale, in which the Doctor is a clear hero, and where we care enough to want to find out what happens next. It topped the DWM poll recently, and it's easy to see why.

THE C WORD

There is a smattering of, if not exactly continuity, continuing themes, for all of the regulars here. Fitz' grumbling disatisfaction with the travelling life (as already mentioned in The Tomorrow Windows) comes up again, although ultimately with the conclusion that he feels more at home aboard the TARDIS than he does on Earth.

There are more references to Trix's past life - she telephones some institution to see how her mother is, although we don't learn any details. Curiously (or rather more to the point, wrongly) Trix's surname is given several times as 'MacAlister' rather than, as it has been so far, MacMillan. I don't think there's anything more sinister to it than, well, a cock-up on the proof-reading front, but I may be wrong.

The mysterious bearded figure glimpsed at the end of Sometime Never... pops up again, in a somewhat halluginogenic sequence involving the Doctor talking to a mirror. Here he is described as having "a neat, black goatee" which would seem to definitely settle it as being the Master. The sequence, judging by the description, appears to take place in the curtained area of the TARDIS glimpsed briefly at the start of the 1996 TV Movie, where the seventh Doctor locks up the Master's remains. I haven't seen any spoilers for The Gallifrey Chronicles, so maybe the Master really does return in that - or maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree entirely. It could even be I'm seeing trees where there aren't any, who knows.

On the subject of the TARDIS, we get quite a bit of, erm, red-hot TARDIS action in this book. We get to see the TARDIS' infirmary; we learn for certain that it has lifts as well as stairs; the striped bandage and the 'Fast Return' switch (both from The Edge of Destruction) pop up; and we even learn that the TARDIS has a ghost! The Doctor mentions it on pages 89/90, as wearing "dark, Victorian clothes" and having "long, white hair" (sounds familiar) but with the face of a skull... however, when Fitz sees the apparition on page 272, it has "intense, deep-set eyes and a long, bony nose" (now that really does sound familiar). Again, any on-going significance to this will be revealed sooner rather than later. Gosh, it's exciting isn't it!

Other passing fancies are the Doctor's knowledge that the people of Alpha Centauri have six arms; the fact that he knew Edgar Allan Poe; and the revelation that the Doctor's chess-set was a gift from Winston Churchill! Even more obscure, there are several references to UK Gold's showings of "Professor X" - anybody unfamiliar with this seminal (I hope that's the right word) show could do worse than check out the episode guide

Lastly, when Fitz says on page 173 that "I've travelled the length and breadth of time and space... I've seen a lot of strange things" it's hard not to be reminded of Han Solo's very similar line from the first Star Wars film. I'm just saying, is all...

I - AM - THE - DOCTOR!

This is an excellent book for the Doctor, a real reaffirmation of the eighth Doctor's character. Fitz at one point intimates that perhaps what they're doing (ie, trying to stop the nightmares of one boy) is a bit small scale, but the Doctor replies that although the bigger picture is one consideration, "in the end the important things in any universe are the people."

In terms of on-going themes the issue of the more-violent Doctor comes up again - on page 155 his first response to meeting 'the ghost' is to clobber it with half a table (although in his defence he was protecting Fitz); and on page 196 he's quite 'happy' to headbutt a disturbed old gypsy when the fists start flying.

If I'm really picky, there is some small discontinuity when the book refers on more than one occasion to the Doctor's breath being visible in the cold air - one of the stand-out scenes in Father Time revolved around the fact that this wasn't the case with either him or Miranda. However, that's a really mean quibble, since on the positive side this book has another, long overdue, stand-out scene involving the Doctor, when in a bid to show the boy's mother that the stars are closer than she thinks, and that there are more things in heaven and Earth, he leads her up onto the roof of her house to gaze at the stars. It's a beautiful moment, charged with the eighth Doctor's boyish enthusiasm and excitement.

His love of Earth is also brought to the fore, when Fitz asks him how he feels about it: "I love Earth. I love it. The people, the countryside, the animals. The arts, the sciences, the languages and music, and, of course, the cooking" (Incidentally he does a lot of cooking here, recalling very similar scenes in the earlier Vampire Science.) " Where would I be without the Earth? What would I be? And you've only got to look at the TARDIS to see how much the old thing loves Earth too. No matter where we go, or when, we always come back here because only this place feels like home."

I think, just in time for the end of the road, we may have got the eighth Doctor back. Fantastic!

MONEY IN THE BANK ZILDA!

This Book: Another unchallenging purchase from Play.com, another £1.00 saved.

Running Score: £115.80 saved against RRP to date.