BASIC PLOT
In a village in New Hampshire, Thanksgiving is coming, but winter might not let it arrive. A covert military group is searching for something that might have fallen into the hands of a doomsday cult, but people are disappearing and even the Doctor can't seem to help them.

DOCTOR
Fourth.

COMPANIONS
Leela

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Near Melvin Village, New Hampshire, present day.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 10 "One feast-fire story told of a hero who decided to mount a bold expedition to find a path around the barrier that guarded the Tesh fortress." The Face of Evil.

Pg 30 Reference to UNIT.

Pg 46 "Leela recalled the way Neeva had succumbed to his visions and thought of how the Doctor had always dismissed such hocus pocus." The Face of Evil.

Pg 69 "Leela recalled Neeva's claims of communion with the Great One" The Face of Evil (but see Continuity Cock-Ups).

Pg 79 "That time before, Leela had stood in the mouth of a metal giant constructed by men to battle with death in its cloud form." The Robots of Death.

Pg 138 "The invisible beasts that stalked the forest beyond the perimeter, for instance." The Face of Evil.

Pg 139 "And again she found herself thinking back tothose inside walls of the scoops on board the Sandminer." The Robots of Death.

Pg 206 "Kristal's grip on the wheel looked the equal of a Voc's, solid and unrelenting." The Robots of Death.

Pg 226 "Doctor, you speak the language of the Tesh." The Face of Evil.

Pgs 226-227 "She was stopped by the burn that locked around her throat like the lifeless metal hands of a Voc robot." The Robots of Death.

Pg 252 "I'm normally more of a ginger pop man myself." The Android Invasion.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Mackenzie and Morgan Shaw, Martha and Amber Mailloux, Joanna Hmieleski, Irving Pydych, Ray Landers, Kev O'Neill, Michaela Zabala, Dermot Beard, Melody Quartararo, Parker Theroux.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• Pg 69 "Leela recalled Neeva's claims of communion with the Great One" Xoanon was the Evil One, not the Great One. The Great One was the giant spider in Planet of the Spiders.

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

• Since the Sevateem worship The Evil One, it's not so surprising they might refer to him as "Great".

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
The ice creature, capable of possessing snow or ice. It came through a dimensional rift and consumes people for energy.

Melody and Parker are aliens who were stuck on Earth decades ago. They have assumed human forms and worked their way into the CIA.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Melvin Village and surroundings, New Hampshire, before Thanksgiving, present day.

Winnipesaukee road (page 282), present day.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Drift is a great little novel, with some extremely effective tension, vivid action scenes and a larger than usual role for the Doctor. It also has a nicely developed plot and some decent attempts at characterisation. Unfortunately all this is completely undercut by the fact that there are far too many superfluous characters running around. New characters are introduced every few pages, usually by a quick paragraph of description that completely fails to make us care about them at all. While there's a lot to recommend about this novel, it's almost impossible to keep track of who's who and the decent characterisation that exists unfortunately has to share far too much time with the introduction of yet another faceless soldier or villager. Recommended, but with caution.