Dead Romance (novel)

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Dead Romance is the nineteenth Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novel and the second in a row not to feature Bernice Summerfield in the main narrative. This story almost entirely focuses on Christine Summerfield and Chris Cwej. In 2004, it was reprinted as part of the Mad Norwegian Press Faction Paradox line.

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.

Plot

to be added

Characters

References

Biology

  • Cwej's employers have altered his biology to make him more suited to dealing in their affairs. They also changed his memory of his time with the Doctor, making him the "Evil Renegade" instead.
  • The Time Lords give regenerative powers to their agents, Chris Cwej included.

Individuals

Literature

Locations

Planets

Species

  • Cwej comes back from a meeting with machine people implied to be the Daleks. Supposedly his employers "made a deal with them. Years ago," to let them build time machines.
  • Cwej's employers are the Great Houses.
  • Cwej's employers alter their treaty with the People, which means they can build time machines. God was present.
  • The Enemy is obliquely referred to.

Notes

  • At the start of the novel is 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 (PROSE: Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two), to use the device of bottle universes nested inside each other to establish that the Virgin New Adventures and BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures occurred in separate continuities. However, Miles admitted in a foreword to the Mad Norwegian Press edition of Dead Romance that this was a bad idea.
  • Starting on page 199 is a discussion of 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.
  • The Mad Norwegian edition contains several extras: a new introduction by Lawrence Miles, the essay The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic, and reprints of the short stories Toy Story and Grass.

Continuity

Cover gallery

External links