BASIC PLOT
In the sleepy New England town of Blackwood Falls, something long formant has awoken. This will be no ordinary Hallowe'en.

DOCTOR
Tenth.

COMPANIONS
Martha Jones.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 25 In the backyard of a house in Blackwood Falls, 2008.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 9 "Some old movie he'd seen on cable the night before, something about a guy who shrank to the size of an ant and had a fight with a giant spider" Planet of Giants.

Pg 26 "Is that New England on New Earth or New England in Old America?" Gridlock.

Pg 32 "The man took the psychic paper and peered at it." The End of the World et al.

Pg 39 "Aren't bananas brilliant?" The Doctor Dances.

I knew a Rick once Well, a Ricky. Well, a Mickey really. Except there were two of them. And one of them was called Ricky, but I didn't really get to know him all that well." Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Pg 41 "You haven't met the future me by any chance, have you? [...] I wanted to know whether I was ginger." The Christmas Invasion/The End of Time.

Pg 58 "Your mother? I can't imagine her saying that." Francine, first seen in Smith and Jones.

"Been there, done that, got the bruises to prove it." From Jackie, in Aliens of London.

Pg 59 "Whenever they weren't dashing from one place to another, the conversation invariably seemed to trn to the Doctor's ex-companion." Rose.

Pg 62 "His words didn't appear to have any effect, however, until he touched the centre of Clayton's forehead with the tip of his right index finger." Battlefield.

Pg 65 "Came across one not long ago that took whole faces." The Idiot's Lantern.

Pg 73 "Is it the Carrionites again?" The Shakespeare Code.

Pg 87 "He'd once said something about not being keen on cats, but he seemed to be getting on OK with this one." Fear Her.

Pg 97 "I was getting quite fond of them again after all the friendly ones we met on New Earth." Gridlock.

Pg 107 "Martha would never have believe it possible that someone could snore even louder than her brother Leo after a few drinks." Smith and Jones et al.

Pg 110 Reference to Leo (Smith and Jones et al).

Pg 112 Reference to Leo and Tish (Smith and Jones et al).

Pg 121 "He had gained access to Etta;s house with nothing more than a bit of wire and his Alpha Centauri Table Tennis Club membership card." The Curse of Peladon/The Monster of Peladon.

Pg 122 "'Ah, K-9,' he murmered, 'where are you when I need you?'" The Invisible Enemy et al.

"If you ever get invited to a fancy dress party, don't go as a nun." New Earth/Gridlock.

Pg 161 Reference to the Carrionites (The Shakespeare Code).

Pg 164 "'Correctamundo!' the Doctor replied, before grimacing. 'Oh, I promised myself I'd never say that again.'" School Reunion.

Pg 168 "'When I was a kid,' she said, 'Leo and Tish once buried me up to my neck on Cromer beach'" Smith and Jones, The Three Doctors.

Pg 180 "Martha reached out and grabbed his hand. 'Run!' she said." Rose.

Pg 186 "I would request parlay in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation..." Rose et al.

Pg 206 "Your people were banished to the deep darkness by the Eternals when your endless, stupid war with the Carrionites threated to bring this universe and countless others crashing about your,,, well, I would say ears if you had any." Enlightenment, The Shakespeare Code.

Pgs 231-232 "Course, you'll have to keep an eye out for the Eternals whilst you're up there, but that's your problem." Enlightenment.

Pg 233 "Martha thought of her family: her mum and dad, and her brother Leo and her sister Tish." Smith and Jones et al.

"She'd seen Shakespeare's England and 1930s New York; she'd been on the prixon planet Volag-Noc and travelled on real-life spaceships; she'd survived encounters with Plasmavores and Daleks, real-life witches and giant, pollution-guzzling crabs." The Shakespeare Code, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, uncertain, The Infinite Quest, 42, Smith and Jones, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Rick, Scott, Thad, Etta, Mr and Mrs Pirelli, Mr Clayton, Chris.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Pg 9 "Tomorrow was Halloween" I wonder if the day after that will be Hallowe'en?
2. Pg 191 "Do you honestly expect me to believe all of this?" Rick's mother doesn't believe in aliens... but it's 2008 so where was she during the Cyber invasion of the world the previous year?
3. Pg 213 "He had arrived at the Pirellis' an hour before" Which is odd, because the family's surname is "Pirelli" (page 32), so you'd think he'd have arrived at the Pirelli's.

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

1. "Halloween" is an obscure celebration, peculiar to Blackwood Falls, that bears a number of similarities to Hallowe'en.
2. She was scuba diving with Donna Noble.
3. There's another, entirely dissimilar, family in town with the surname Pirellis. The Doctor went there first, by mistake.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pgs 29-30 Fist-sized creatures composed of a spindly tangle of black roots.

Pgs 49-50/105 The Hervoken. They're nine feet tall, impossibly thin and clothed in rotting rags. They have long, taloned hands, a huge, pale and fleshy head with deep-set eyes and a wide mouth filled with jagged teeth.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pgs 9/26 Blackwood Falls, New England. It's been three years (page 78) since 2005 (page 79), so it's 2008.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
The monsters make no sense, following fairytale logic rather than anything else. (Why is there a plot McGuffin book embedded in the earth? There just is.) Every other line of dialogue contains italics, as though this were written by a comic strip illustrator, rather than someone who could construct sentences so that the emphasis was clear from the wording along. And not only does the title make no sense (what's forever about the autumn? and why is it "autumn" and not "fall" if it's set in the US?), but Hallowe'en is consistently misspelled, including on the back cover. And yet... I loved this book. It flies by, with a plot that unfolds precisely the way it should, but no less entertainly for that. It's classic Doctor Who horror that manages to be creepy and unsettling, which is an impressive feat for a novel. The Doctor and Martha sound like themselves for once and there's even a supporting castmember with a bit of spark (Etta). Recommended.