Borrowed Time
by Naomi A. Alderman


Publisher: BBC
ISBN:849 90233 5

     

    BASIC PLOT
    A scam to lend people extra time is underway at one of London's biggest banks.

    DOCTOR
    Eleventh.

    COMPANIONS
    Any and Rory.

    MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
    Pg 29 Tokyo, 5087.

    Pg 38 In a storeroom in the Lexington Bank, London's Square Mile, 2007.

    Pg 250 In an abandoned warehouse on the Isle of Dogs, 1985.

    PREPARATORY READING
    A familiarity with the key events of The End of the World would be helpful.

    CONTINUITY REFERENCES
    Pg 27 "The crabs were created to gnaw out the otherwise indestructible hulks of marine vessels used in the Fifth World War." Likely a reference to the fact that The Talons of Weng-Chiang mentions World War Six.

    Pg 31 The sonic screwdriver makes an appearance.

    Pg 34 "What, like a raggedy Doctor in a magic box?" The Eleventh Hour.

    Pg 42 The psychic paper makes an appearance.

    Pg 45 "Piero de Medici died tragically of Urharborean Plague, but I don't think that was God, more a side effect of some temporal flux caused by Mandragora." The Masque of Mandragora.

    Pg 68 "Raston Warrior Glitch technology?" The Five Doctors.

    "Have you never even heard of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect?" Day of the Daleks.

    Pgs 82-83 "It wasn't a lot, remembering his favourite sandwich - after all those hundreds of years he'd looked after her in the Pandorica." Thousands Amy, thousands. The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.

    Pg 86 "The envelope wasn't hers - it was addressed 'To the Sontaran Ambassador' - she shrugged." The Time Warrior et al.

    Pg 87 "Real Mum, and real Dad. [...] But she also remembered, somehow overlaid on top of that, what it had been like not to have them there at all. What it had been like to grow up so lonely, only knowing that there ought to be stars and there were no stars, and that a raggedy man in a box would come back for her one day." The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang.

    "And she fell asleep under the same old duvet she'd had when she was a kid, with the old Roman soldier models under the bed in their same old box." The Pandorica Opens.

    Pg 118 "Still, she needed to make sure they didn't try anything more extreme - the Doctor had told her that the TARDIS's Hostile Action Displacement System would stop them actually getting in, but would also mean the whole box moved somewhere else" The Krotons.

    Pg 150 "I remember Al Capone telling me that once. Or was it Ghengis Khan?" Blood Harvest, Rose.

    "But that trade's been dormant since the Time War, it's..." The End of the World et al.

    Pg 164 "The tissue decompressor will have stored your bio-imprint to a 99.99999 per cent accuracy." Likely related to the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator (Terror of the Autons et al).

    Pg 205 "That was very good, Pond, very succinct, warning the nation, very direct I thought, you could do into politics maybe, if the whole... professional kisser thing doesn't work out." The Eleventh Hour.

    Pg 217 "It can't be. They told me all of you were gone" The Time War (The End of the World et al).

    Pg 226 "But time travel is sadly far more complicated than that,and even the Shadow Proclamation had failed fully to understand what a very clever team of experts with extremely advanced degrees were able to do by repackaging time." First mentioned in Rose and seen in The Stolen Earth.

    Pg 227 "The very last Time Lord to survive the Time War" The End of the World et al.

    Pg 236 Reference to UNIT.

    Pg 243 "I'm the Doctor. I'm here to help." Closing Time.

    "Usually, I'd walk away. I've started doing that more since the Time War." The End of the World et al.

    "We all know why your disgusting business was outlawed by the Shadow Proclamation centuries before it began." Rose, The Stolen Earth.

    Pg 244 "Police officers arrived very quickly at the scene of the damage, roped it off in the name of something called Torchwood. Those officers had a prolonged argument with soldiers from something called UNIT" Torchwood were first mentioned in Bad Wolf. You probably know who UNIT are.

    "THE OWNER OF YOUR CONTRACT, "DOCTOR OF GALLIFREY", HAS CANCELLED YOUR DEBT" Gallifrey was first seen in The War Games.

    Pg 247 "Where's a fez at a time like this?" The Big Bang.

    Pg 251 "Elsewhere, the Doctor was in Foreman's Yard, 76 Totters Lane, dealing with some unfinished business." Attack of the Cybermen.

    OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
    None.

    NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
    Andrew Brown, Sameera Jenkins, Nadia Montgomery, Jane Blythe (although her fate is uncertain), Symington and Blenkinsop, the Yomalet-Ram.

    There's also an epilogue with Marieke Jansen, although she doesn't meet the TARDIS crew.

    CONTINUITY COCK-UPS
    None.

    PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]
    N/A

    FEATURED ALIEN RACES
    Pg 27 Mutant crabs.

    Pg 94 The Time Harvester is a parasite.

    Pg 101 Walking sharks, who can disguise themselves as human.

    Pgs 137-138 The Yomalet-Ram, a small floating genderless humanoid figure with big eyes and a button nose but pale, almost blueish skin.

    Pg 147 Red-metal robot men.

    Pg 153 A genetically modified cockroach.

    Pg 225 The Time Market.

    FEATURED LOCATIONS
    Pgs 37/60 London, 2007.

    Pg 26 Tokyo, 5087.

    Pg 250 The Isle of Dogs, 1985.

    Pg 253 Heemstade, The Netherlands, 1636.

    IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
    This is absolutely fantastic. The small-scale focus of ordinary humans being offered a deal from the devil is just superb, with the sequences of borrowed time incredibly creepy and effective. The regulars are all rounded characters, with Amy's use of her extra time all too heartbreakingly plausible. The first half is sublime, while the second can't quite match it, but still ends with an excellent use of the Doctor's character. And the supporting cast are vivid and relateable. All in all, one of the best NSAs there is. Pity it's the last of its kind, then, but at least the short hardcovers went out on a good note. Far better than they deserved.