BASIC PLOT
In the city-state of Hokesh, time plays tricks; the present is unreliable, the future impossible to intimate. A derelict street child, Joey Quine, finds himself subject to horrifying visions and fugues. His only friend in this, the only one to whom he can turn for help, is a mysterious stranger who calls herself Ace. And in an unknowable future the Doctor is busily inciting a state of bloody unrest, on the basis that one must be cruel to be kind - simultaneously, for preference.

DOCTOR
Seventh

COMPANIONS
Ace

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
An alleyway leading off the Plaza of Spinning Lights, Hokesh City, later timezone (page 20).

The bedchamber of Magnus Solaris, later timezone (page 85).

Near the statues of the Dead Gods, earlier timezone (page 90).

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 67 "I mean, I've been around, but that was mostly knocking around in spaceport bars and stuff." Dragonfire, presumably.

Pg 78 "She waggled the smooth, metallic club she held and grinned. It was used for playing a ball game, she had explained" This is the baseball bat from Remembrance of the Daleks (meaning this adventure must take place before then, as it was destroyed in that story).

Pg 95 "A patron deity - rather like those of a city with which I was once, I seem to recall, quite familiar. A pair of giants named Gog and Magog." These are two Great Old Ones, who have appeared in the comic strip. In Divided Loyalties, it's mentioned that the Time Lords have files on them.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Joey Quine.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• Pg 78 "I was heading back and I found this lot coming it with the zombie right behind me" Say what? Not just the tortured prose but the fact that there were several hundred zombies (Page 77), not just one.

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

• Ace is so shaken by outrunning the zombies that she's confusing her words.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 16 Dracori, the original inhabitants of the planet, with several hundred eyes and tentacles.

Pg 101 Sloater, when transformed, has a thousand temporary mouths and orifices on the surface of his flesh.

Pg 95 The City itself is a living creature.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Hokesh City, in a variety of timezones, all in the distant future.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Citadel of Dreams is an excellent novella, perfectly suited to the format. Dave Stone's distinctive voice is used well, but not overdone and the shorter page length helps enormously. The fact that there's only one additional character doesn't hurt the book at all, even when the Doctor and Ace are absent from large parts of the book. It gets a little confusing in places ("Smith" is sketched as though he's the Doctor, but he turns out not be), but it's eminently readable. Highly recommended.