dead romance

Author: Lawrence Miles
ISBN: 0 426 20532 4


Note: Almost all the events of 'Dead Romance' are filtered through the eyes of  Christine Summerfield, who is less than a totally reliable narrator. Much of it is told is flashback, hearsay and even dreams, so events may not have happened precisely as the text claims.

Pg 23
Cwej got his earring in 'Damaged Goods' (although he got it in the wrong ear).

Pgs 63-64
In Christine's dream Cwej is on Gallifrey.

Pgs 69-70
The treaty with the People is being altered ('The Also People').

Pg 71
Cwej decorates the room with wooden objects in bottles to remind himself he's in a bottle - It's the bottle from 'Interference' and/or 'The Ancestor Cell'.

Pgs 77-78
The Evil Renegade is the seventh Doctor. Chris details Roz's death in 'So Vile A Sin'.

Pg 80
Nanites were mentioned in lots of NAs. Ace wondered if she'd be able to get pregnant in 'Deceit', having been inoculated with them by the Doctor.

Pg 81
The creatures are called gods - they're the Gods of Dellah (revealed to be The Ferutu in 'Twilight of the Gods', which doesn't quite square with this).  The Ferutu first appeared in 'Cold Fusion' by Lance Parkin - they were from an alternate timeline in which Gallifrey was destroyed.  They manipulated the Universe using Majicks, and their name is an anagram of 'future'.

Pg 82
The Gods were made by superior beings whose ideas were dangerous and had who had since left  without records (Uncertain reference - possibly the Time  Lords, maybe not).

Pg 83
Reference to Where Angels Fear and the events on Dellah. Reference to 'Down' and Tyler's Folly.

Pgs 92-93
The Evil Renegade fights a one-man war against the Gods.

Pg 95
First mention of the war between the Time Lords and the Gods, though Chris says it's not going to happen.

Pg 97
"No time travellers". In 'Interference' the Doctor notes that they're having trouble with time travel in the bottle.

Pg 102
The pyramids are built by aliens (Osirans from 'Pyramids of Mars'), life on Mars (Ice Warriors). Lost planets in the solar system ('The Tenth Planet', Planet 14 from 'The Invasion').  Humanity is meant to start taking over other planets by the end of the 20th century ('The Ambassadors of Death').

Pg 107
The Inside Out World is the Dyson Sphere from 'The Also People' and various Benny adventures.

Pg 108
God expects to invent time travel by tomorrow luinchtime. We discover in 'Tears of the Oracle' that it isn't that simple. Reference to the Grel, from 'Oh No It Isn't!' and 'Where Angels Fear'.

Pgs 111-112
Cwej goes to Skaro to make a deal with the Daleks. The Time Lords had made a deal with them to let them build time machines, but they'd reneged and tried to wipe them out - hence the Doctor's mission in 'Genesis of the Daleks'. Christine dedicates the book to the Daleks.

Pgs 113-114
Is the House Lungbarrow? Maybe not - "bone people" without lips doesn't quite square. Chris may regenerate - he does so in the very next book.

Pg 118
One bottle inside another  - theory that the NA universe is inside the bottle of the BBC universe.

Pg 122
Reference to clockwork - The Time Lords are sometimes called the Watchmakers ('Christmas on a Rational Planet', 'Ghost Devices').

Pg 125
We get a timeline from Gods emerging, including sea monsters spotted on Tyler's Folly to Dellah being off limits ('Down' and 'Where Angels Fear')

Pg 127
Reproductive system is supposed to be the first to go - c.f. Ace thinking she might not be able to get pregnant.  There have been some vague indications the urinary and digestive systems of time travellers go all funny, i.e. there's no toilet in the TARDIS.  Diners at the Crystal Bucephalus don't get indigestion because they have a low reality quotient ('The Crystal Bucephalus').

Pg 129-130
The sphinxes spew out space, altering it. If they try to use time travel, the sphinxes will time loop them. In 'Alien Bodies' it was said that one of the first things done in the war was the blocking of time travel.

Pg 133
Time Lord statues are built so they look artistic when they decay. There are significant Time Lord statues in 'The Infinity Doctors' and 'The Ancestor Cell'.

Pg 137
"A cat's cradle of beams and arcs"; "figures in robes that make them look like monks" - Time Lords of then look like monks a la 'The Time Meddler' or the
monk we see in 'Tears of the Oracle' who helps Cwej regenerate. The Time Lords also send a huge warship (to destroy earth) in 'Interference'.

Pg 138
First sight of Cwej's employers. They have huge shoulder pads and collars.

Pg 140
The two super sphinxes, the Kings of Space, are black and white. The equivalent of the Black and White Guardians? The sphinxes may be the Time Lords of a higher bottle universe.

Pg 141
Chris's reaction to having talked to the Daleks is appropriately horrific.

Pg 142
The Time Lords promised the Daleks they wouldn't time scoop them for the Death Zone (The Five Doctors - it's said that the Daleks weren't scooped because they played the game too well).

Pg 149
Jack the Ripper may be a renegade time traveller from a parallel universe - He's actually a possessed seventh Docttor from a parallel universe in 'Matrix'.  In 'The Pit' Jack is a Satanic fellowship (acc. I, Who.)

Page 156-157
Barbara Cartland stories of shy, good-hearted Victorian Gentlemen in the French Revolution ('The Reign of Terror'? The Doctor's Pre- 'The Unearthly Child' visit to Revolutionary France, as detailed in 'Christmas on a Rational Planet'?) or ancient Babylon ('Walking to Babylon').

Pg 164
Reference to Bernice on Dellah in the 26th Century.

Pg 166
Statue of Rassilon on Simia KK98 with eight arms holding rods, keys, orbs and sashes. The description of Rassilon matches his appearance in the Five Doctors.

Pg 167
There are stories of Rassilon's fights with the great Vampire beasts.

Pg 174
The Space-Time Vortex. Other things living in the vortex were given the opportunity to enter the bottle - eg Father Kreiner, who ends up there at the end of 'Interference'.

Pg 180
The capital of Simia KK98 is very similar to The Village from The Prisoner , complete with floating spherical guards and populated by former Time Lord agents.

Pg 188
Regeneration as torture, but only in Christine's imagination.

Pg 194
The Ouija board message contains the words "Interference", "Christmas on a Rational Planet" and "The Watchmakers are the men who will not be blamed for nothing".  That is another reference to the Whitechapel Ripper murders that was later used in a Sherlock Holmes film starring Christopher Plummer and James Mason - Murder by Decree.  It supposedly ties in with a theory that the murders were part of some masonic activities that involved the upper levels of Her Majesty's government.

Pgs 195-196
The house is very probably a Time Lord House, as Cwej is referred to as "Cousin Cwej". Its occupants are inbred Summerfields.  Call it House Summerfield.

Pgs 199, 201,202-203,205-206, 207, 208-209, 210
The Summerfield family tree.
Benny has ancestors Bene(dict) and Jason. The early records may be forgeries, though. No mention of the Summerfield in Damaged Goods, but only mentions direct
ancestors of Bernice. Admiral Isaac Summerfield was in 'Return of the Living Dad' and is reported dead in combat (fighting the Daleks) in 2543, but also in active
service in 2595. The dates for Benny cleverly don't add up. She lost 20 years because of travelling with the Doctor and the Benny NAs have been subtly consistent about this. Also, on page 206 Marshall Summerfield I is head of Caprisi Military Academy. Benny was born on Beta Caprisis, except in 'Sanctuary', where she said she was born on Earth.

Pg 202
Cwej can't reproduce. However, he already has several children scattered around ('The Also People', 'Happy Endings'), so he still had reproductive ability when he travelled with the Doctor.

Pgs 214-216
The Matrix on Gallifrey may have invented the Time Lords itself just so it could get built. Christine notes that it's a lot like the Gods themselves in that way - and that's just how the Enemy come about in 'The Ancestor Cell'. The Matrix had defences that get triggered when it notices things going wrong. The prison planet is probably Shada/Dronid (where the Doctor was said to have been killed in Alien Bodies).

Pg 216
Cwej eating a banana: "Nothing reminds you of your monkey genes faster than that." Reference to the Reverend Matthews in 'Ghost Light'.

Pg 218
"It's one of those old SF fairy tales. Clocks don't melt or start going backward if you go through a time warp." 'The Edge of Destruction'.

Pg 225
The Horror-sphinx is one-armed, just like Father Kreiner (and Grandfather Paradox, among others).

Pg 228
Cwej stands up to the Horror exactly the way the Doctor would.

Pg 235
Background on where the Gods came from.

Pgs 240, 285
The cover illustration is London after the invasion.

Pg 243
In the vortex were Time Lords, aliens, machines and humans. Some of them start swearing at Christine in funny accents. Presumably one of them is Salamander ('The Enemy of the World'). One machine has tentacles everywhere, squeezing in between the other shapes and bringing the Horror together. In the 25th century, some supercomputer or other had been dropped into the vortex by the Doctor during a duel - Is this an N-form? ('So Vile A Sin'?)

Pg 244
Father Kreiner is Fitz Kreiner after hundreds of years, from 'Interference'. He has a different style of armour to Khiste, wearing the voodoo mask of Faction Paradox. Described as "one of Cwej's people, but some sort of  renegade" (which is clever, because he's both human and an ex-companion) and one of the Doctor's followers, from some enemy faction. The fact that Father Kreiner is described so differently from Cwej and Khiste clearly says that Cwej's employers aren't Faction Paradox, as some have suggested.

Pg 247
Christine's life philosophy and her inability to carry it out is Slartibartfast's from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Pg 250
There's a reality/fiction dichotomy going on, which fits in with the general theme of the Benny NAs.

Pg 255
Rock-scissors-paper might be a reference to 'Destiny of the Daleks', but it probably isn't.

Pgs 261, 264
BBC2 is the round the clock news channel, but three pages later it's BBC1.

Pg 271
Despite much of the book being an unreliable account from a fictional (in more than one sense) narrator, we're told that all the background information is the truth, such as it is. It's even the first entry in the section "Notes on the Truth".

Pg 277
"Cwej used to be a policeman. Mr Good Cop." Chris and Roz played the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine in 'Original Sin' et al.

Pgs 283-285
The Time Lords invade Earth. Wearing high collared robes. They mutter like Logopolitans and the world gets changed to suit their needs.

Pg 287
The Time lords are planning on turning the Sun into "some sort of black hole" - a new Eye of Harmony for time travel.<

Pg 288
Earth is the same size and has the same length of day as Gallifrey. They turn the sky orange, as Susan mentions in 'The Sensorites'.

Pg 290
Humans see Time Lords the way Time Lords saw the Gods. That is, they're both a big threat but there's also the possibility that the Gods are Time Lords from a higher bottle. Cwej is dying and about to regenerate - we see this in 'Tears of the Oracle'.

Pg 291-292
Ordificia? There's a world called Shatner's Climax (!). Ultra Caprises is presumably near Beta Caprises, where Benny was born. Christine is on the ruins of Gallifrey - 'Alien Bodies', 'The Crystal Bucephalus' and 'Goth Opera' all told of a future Gallifrey in ruins after some great war.

Pg 292-293
The Gods are Time Lords from outside that bottle. They spend time getting used to the universe and sleeping. This contradicts 'Twilight of the Gods', where the Gods are revealed to be The Ferutu.

Pg 294
Christine is heading towards Dellah to contact Benny (she actually sends Benny a message when she takes a post at a university on Vremnya, in 'Twilight of the Gods').

- Robert Smith?