The title is a line murmured by Sarah Cracknell during the Saint Etienne song Nothing Can Stop us Now. The scene where Smith’s party are pulled off their feet echoes one in Timewyrm: Revelation. In that one, Ace lets go of the Doctor’s hand so he can get away. This time, Smith doesn’t let go.

Smith’s threat to August echoes one the Doctor makes to his enemy in that book also. These are some of the many ways in which this book thematically rounds off the seasons cycle formed by my first four New Adventures.

Smith’s words to Benny toy with the edges of Terrance Dicks’ famous ‘never cruel or cowardly’ lines, originally from The Making of Doctor Who and used so many times in the New Adventures that they virtually became a credo, then Verity comes out with them in complete form.

‘There should have been another way,’ is the closing line of Warriors of the Deep, and is used as a theme throughout this book. Some of these lines, and in the next chapter, echo quotations from Excalibur, one of my favourite films, and apt for the Doctor’s Merlin identity.

Death takes Smith in return for the Doctor’s dream bargain with her during Love and War, another way in which the cycle of books is concluded. ‘Another owl for Lord Rassilon.’ Hee hee hee! And the gods of Gallifrey are here directly identified as the Eternals from Enlightenment.

The First Doctor, on television, makes a couple of references to his ring being spooky and powerful, without ever letting us know in what way he means that, exactly. I make use of it in one of my Doctor Who Magazine comic strips also.

The Monks of Felsecar popped up in some of my fan fiction stories, and I reference them again a few times, most recently in the audio Seasons of Fear. It’d be nice if someone set an adventure amongst them one day. Then I could find out what they’re really like.

Chapter Fourteen

The Doctor is talking about his victory over Morgaine in Battlefield. And, as it turns out, making a bit of a pun.

In the first draft, the Doctor did just take Bernice and go. And I instantly knew it was a huge mistake. Having him go back and see Joan, that extra level of reality, is something that began in the Cartmel years on television, and was continued to great effect in the New Adventures. Besides, if it wasn’t for getting the Doctor to do things like that, what’s a Bernice for?