Dead Romance (novel)
Publisher's Summary
'All right, let's start with the basics. The world ended on the twelfth of October, Nineteen Seventy...'
I don't know why I'm writing this. It's not like anybody's going to read it. At least, nobody who cares about the fact that I'm a desperate, dying, 23-year-old human being who's just had the whole of history taken away from her.
To whoever's out there, to whatever's left, this is the way things were, just before the end. This is the story about the last days of London, about murder and love and waking up in the ruins, about all the people buried in the wreckage...
I'm lying, obviously. This is my story. This is what I was doing, when October the twelfth came. Because, let's face it, I'm the only one who really matters.
I'm the only one who got out alive.
Characters
- Probably no relation to Bernice Summerfield, except in name.
- Lost her virginity at 15.
- Is an agent of the Time Lords.
- The Time Lords have altered his biology to make him more suited to dealing in thier affairs, they also changed his memory of his time with the Doctor, making him the 'Evil Renegade' instead.
- After meeting with the Daleks Chris comes back to Christine and has sex with her.
Khiste
- Has regenerated at least once (quite possibily more than once).
- Has sex with Christine to prove a point...sort of.
The Horror
- A gestalt of all the stuff lost in the vortex.
Cwej's Employers
- The Time Lords.
The Sphinxes
References
- Cwej comes back from a meeting with the Daleks, supposedly the Time Lords "made a deal with them. Years ago." to let them build time machines. (page 112).
- The Time Lords alter their treaty with The People which means they can build time machines, God was present.
- Chris Cwej recalls Roz Forrester's death.
- The bottle (universe in a bottle) is located at Simia KK98.
- Simia KK98 is a Time Lord base, inside there is an eight armed statue of Rassilon holding various artefacts.
- Cwej takes Christine to a market on Cygni 8.9, where she sees some Liquid Cats, which may be related to Wetworks Facility technology.
- Cwej's Employers are the Time Lords.
- Shada is described (page 215).
- Father Kreiner appears as the voice of The Horror that Christine speaks and negotiates with.
- Christine reads about Tyler's Folly.
- Khiste takes Christine to Ordifica.
- The Time Lords give regenerative powers to their agents, Chris Cwej included.
- Christine after being dropped off on Ordifica visits a number of colony worlds including: Shristostophon, Gardener's World, Hai Dow Seven, Lubellin, Shatner's Climax, Ultra Caprisis, then onto Gallifrey before heading towards Dellah.
- Christine writes much of her journal in the ruins of Gallifrey.
- The Enemy might have been referred to.
- Lady Diamond's shop is on Henrietta Street.
- The large machine intelligence is Pool the gestalt from above Arcadia.
Notes
- At the start of the novel it contains a note from Miles which states:
- Note for continuity purists and nobody else: the universe in which much of 'Dead Romance' takes place - the universe of the Gods, the planet Dellah and Bernice Summerfield - is the same universe in which 'Christmas on a Rational Planet, 'Down' and indeed every other New Adventure takes place. However, this absolutely and positively isn't the same universe in which any other books I might have written are set.
- Believe me.
This referred to Miles' attempt, here and in (EDA:Interference), to use the device of bottle universes nested inside each other to establish that the NAs and EDAs occured in separate continuities. This has been roundly ignored and contradicted by most other writers, and Miles admits in the foreword to the Mad Norwegian edition of Dead Romance that it was a bad idea anyway.
- Starting on page 199 is a discussion through the Summerfield Family Tree (from the 'real' universe, ie Bernice Summerfield's family tree).
- The cover of the novel is actually part of the plot, it is the photo Christine takes of London, shortly after the Time Lords take over the bottle Earth.
Mad Norwegian Reprint
Reprinted in 2004 by Mad Norwegian, not strictly as part of their Faction Paradox range but as a companion to it, the newer edition includes some additional material.
- A new foreword by Miles.
- The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic - An essay on the mechanics and cosmogony of universes and bottle universes. Originally intended as source material for other writers in the Faction Paradox range, it is nevertheless written 'in universe', like The Adventuress of Henrietta Street or The Book of the War.
- A reprint of Toy Story, originally published in Perfect Timing 2.
- Grass, a Faction Paradox related the short story originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction.
Within the main text of the novel, the terminology the BNAs had used to avoid mentioning the Time Lords directly was amended to the terminology the Faction Paradox range now uses for a similar purpose.
Continuity
- The Gods (which the Time Lords are preparing to escape from) appeared in BNA: Where Angels Fear.
- Chris Cwej last appeared in Oblivion.
- Roz Forresster died in NA: So Vile a Sin.
- Father Kreiner fell into the vortex in EDA: Interference - Book Two.
- The Time Lord - The People treaty was first mentioned in NA: The Also People.
- The concept of Time Lords regenerating for particular purposes/for war first appears in EDA: Alien Bodies and Time Lords in non-bipedal forms appear in EDA: The Taking of Planet 5.
- The bottle that appears here might/is/could be the bottle I.M. Foreman has in EDA: Interference - Book One.
- Also in Interference it's mentioned that the Time Lords are making 'Ogron Lords' by altering them to be time compatible, this concept is first introduced in this novel.
- Wetworks technology appears in BFA: The Genocide Machine.
- Henrietta street features more heavily in EDA: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.
- Pool appeared in NA: Deceit.
