BASIC PLOT
The Nosferatu-II takes Mel and Glitz to a space station, where they have to find off a death cult of teenagers and then solve a mystery aboard a sleeper ship.

DOCTOR
None.

COMPANIONS
Mel Bush.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
N/A

PREPARATORY READING
It's good to be familiar with The Trial of a Time Lord and Dragonfire. On, and The Ark.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pgs 2-3"Glitz had lost his previous ship, the Nosferatu (taken by one of Glitz's creditors, then blown to smithereens) and his previous ship's crew (sold to the same creditor for seventeen crowns each, after a failed mutiny)." We're given an extended summary of Dragonfire.

Pg 4 "We need to look for cold-dependent species like the Ice Warriors" The Ice Warriors, unsurprisingly.

Pg 12 "How could you go back to the everyday 9 to 5 on a world where your biggest challenge was a late library book after Vervoids and Nestene and Bannermen?" Terror of the Vervoids, Business Unusual, Delta and the Bannermen.

Pg 17 "Memories of her deadly visit to paradise Towers - a place that had proved the antithesis of its name - came to mind, and Mel felt her excitement start to wane." Paradise Towers.

Pg 23 "I do remember someone telling me Earth was a civilised place before all that unfortunate Ravolox business" The Mysterious Planet.

Pg 24 "In fact, the closest she ever felt to really travelling through space was an excursion on a Nostalgia Trips space-bus (which had almost ended in disaster - although that was pretty much par for the course!) back in her days with the Doctor." Delta and the Bannermen.

Pg 26 "That's a Vinvocci freighter. A Potanuse gunship. A Wallarian wingsoarer." The End of Time. Uncertain reference. The Wallarians were mentioned by Vorg in Carnival of Monsters.

Pg 35 "When the Great Engine of Seraphine hungers no more, we will go to the promised land" Probably not the same promised land as in Series 8, but you never know.

Pg 49 "The field that stopped energy weapons being used - presumably something similar to the 'state of temporal in the TARDIS - was on the trading floor only" The Hand of Fear.

Pg 57 "And in Paradise Towers, people were fed to the 'Great Architect' - although in that case, no one expected any of them to come alive again later." Paradise Towers.

Pg 84 "I don't suppose there'll be a sonic screwdriver, but something like a Laserson probe would do..." Fury From the Deep et al, The Robots of Death.

"'I had a sonic screwdriver one,' said Glitz. 'Good piece of kit, that. Won it off this beaky bloke in velvet togs in a game of Find the Lady.' The third Doctor.

"It's not my fault he didn't realise we were using Sontaran playing cards." The Time Warrior et al.

Pgs 84-85 "I was merrily walking along one day, minding my own business, when I trip over a scarf that someone's only gone and tied across the passageway. This tall feller, all teeth and curls, he helps me up, and next time I reach in my pocket, the sonic screwdriver's gone and there's a paper bag full of tiny gelatinous humanoids in its place!" The fourth Doctor (including jelly babies). The description "all teeth and curls" is from The Five Doctors.

Pg 99 "Mel had come across hydroponics before - although the Hydroponics Centre on the Hyperion III had been used for growing something rather more violent than lollo rossa." Terror of the Vervoids.

Pg 101 "Or there might be a hoard of gold, or jewels, or jethrik!" The Ribos Operation.

Pg 111 "And if it was the old Doctor, the exuberant, curly-haired fanfaron, that would scratch an itch she'd long had: the desire to say a proper farewell before he was ripped from her by the actions of amoral Time Lady the Rani and replaced by the cunning clown whom she liked just as much, but whom she felt - irrationally, she knew -had stolen her first friend from her." Time and the Rani.

Pg 117 "A mischievous creature, possible a Goblin or a Graske, was his top suspect" The Church on Ruby Road, Attack of the Graske.

Pgs 117-118 "He, for example, had no idea what had happened to his father, his mother, his one-time accomplice Dibber, or any of the three Ogron wives he'd married for tax purposes" The Mysterious Planet, Day of the Daleks et al.

Pg 126 "The crews work in shifts! And the crews who aren't on duty are miniaturised - or kept in suspended animation, that would make more sense." The Seraphine is a similar ship to the one seen in The Ark, complete with miniaturised people in storage.

Pg 148 "She was aware that in this time period, the Earth and its whole constellation had been dragged billions of miles across space, and that the movement had created a fireball that devastated the planet - a planet that had been renamed Ravolox." The Mysterious Planet.

"It was actually on Ravolox that the Doctor and Glitz had first met, and Mel herself had been present when the Doctor discovered the truth behind what had happened." The Mysterious Planet, The Ultimate Foe.

Pg 150 "She hadn't even begun to ask Glitz about the ins and outs of the Ravolox situation" The Mysterious Planet.

Pg 183 "But Ravolox was no paradise, no home-from-home for the escapees from Earth, Mel knew that." The Mysterious Planet. Although I'm not sure why she thinks that, as it's a pretty fresh and fertile planet by that time.

Pg 192 "For Mel, it brought back memories of facing the court when the Doctor had been put on trial for his life." The Ultimate Foe.

Pg 196 "'She comes from a "family" as dysfunctional as the Caesars - or the Borgias - or the Slitheen!" Aliens of London et al.

Pgs 196-197 "Mel had just drawn a card tell her to 'Go to Desperus. Go directly do Desperus. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 nargs'" The Daleks' Master Plan, The Two Doctors.

Pg 198 "She took her playing piece - the bow-tie-wearing Garm - and put it in between the first 20 and 50 narg notes" Terminus, The Two Doctors.

Pg 205 "Like when a Navarino steps on your toe and you try to garrotte him." Delta and the Bannermen.

Pg 240 "At least it's better than surviving the journey and ending up on that hellhole Ravolox again." The Mysterious Planet.

Pg 241 "A young man, bearded, wearing a silver jerkin, said 'Well, they're not from around here, Mr Glitz.' 'I know that, Dibber,' came a voice they all recognised." The Mysterious Planet.

"A tall man with fair curls and the most ridiculously colourful clothes ever assembled." The sixth Doctor.

"She thought she knew who Glitz might have copied the file from, a certain person known as the Valeyard." The Mysterious Planet.

"And while being a witness at the Doctor's trial for his life hadn't been much fun, it was there that she first met Glitz, and the seeds of her current life were sown." The Ultimate Foe.

Pg 242 "You shouldn't go to Ravolox" The Mysterious Planet.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
Sabalom Glitz.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Hope, Captain Livya Terle, Suim Pearleye, Caleb Havermine, Triptolemos, Rufus Kade.

Barry Day and Squixy the Squirrel (holograms).

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS
None.

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

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
None really, although we do have holograms of Barry Day and Squixy the Squirrel.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 3 On board the Nosferatu II, the far future (contemporaneous with The Mysterious Planet and Dragonfire, so around the year 2 million).

Pg 17 A supply station.

Pg 51 The Seraphine.

Pg 83 The Kazemi.

IN SUMMARY - Stacey Smith?
There's a slightly odd structure, with the kids on the space station feeling like an awfully extended prologue before the murder mystery, the villain of whose plot gets dealt with entirely offscreen. But the murder mystery is delicious and very clever, and the fact that the Doctor doesn't appear (especially when you think he's going to) turns out to be a surprising strength. And the Space Monopoly joke is hilarious! Overall, it's fun, offbeat and very readable - thanks to Jacqueline Rayner, clearly - and by no means a disaster, which these celebrity novels run the danger of being. Recommended.