The conversation between the Doctor and Joan is one of my most scary scenes, I think. And it picks up on Love and War, that pulling together of the threads again. In this book, the Doctor finds that he’s done to himself what he did to Jan in that one. Joan… Jan… Did you think this all happened by accident? Actually, a lot of it did. If there are accidents.

And here’s where the matter of Alton’s middle name pays off. The Time Lords, throughout the New Adventures, enjoy meddling with the biology of humans. Getting Greeneye into the food chain is quite a triumph for the Interventionists.

The last couple of lines were a matter of huge internal debate for me, whether to keep them or get rid of them. I knew they’d be popular with the audience, but I didn’t know if they were also true to the material. In the end, I think I went the right way.

Epilogue

The history retold here seems even more relevant now, concerning how wars are started for reasons other than ethics.

The military action described here is real, and took place at this time and date. Also, various British units were indeed forced onto their troop trains at gunpoint.

Conchie: a conscientious objector, one of the many who performed heroic service as medical staff and fire crew, having been branded cowards for refusing to go to war.

The last scene of the book echoes the first scene of Revelation, to complete the cycle. As what Tim’s great-granddaughter says completes the plot and theme of this book. The white poppy is the pacifist poppy.

The Doctor anticipates Oolis, the setting for the next book, Andy Lane’s Original Sin. That book begins at high speed, as it should to start the ball rolling again with its new companions, and Andy and I agreed that a set-up here was a good idea.

The ending echoes the start of Revelation again, with the Doctor quoting Oscar Wilde, someone else who liked to wear something shocking in his buttonhole. And do you know, I think Oscar got it exactly right.

Final Thoughts

I’m amazed that I managed to write this book with a floating point of view throughout. One of Rebecca Levene’s most sage pieces of advice, during the time she was presiding over her Golden Age of the New Adventures, was that prose worked best when it was characterised through the thoughts of one particular participant. One changed that viewpoint character, if necessary, only when one changed scenes.

I agree with and believe in that. But in Human Nature, I, the author, am hanging around the text like a ghost, dropping us into the thoughts of whatever character we need to hear from when we need to hear from them. The book’s written from a vague omniscient point of view, and rarely settles on a viewpoint character.