BASIC PLOT
While on holiday, Sarah Jane, the Brigadier, and Jeremy discover a mysterious castle holds a deadly secret. It is being used as a gateway by a species intent on conquering Earth. And the Doctor may not be able to stop the invasion.

DOCTOR
Third.

COMPANIONS
Sarah Jane Smith, the Brigadier, Jeremy Fitzoliver.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pgs 19/21 In the great hall of the castle of San Stefano, Italy, present day.

Pg 40 The rear courtyard of the castle, present day.

Pg 78 In the woods on the east side of the island, early 1500s.

Pg 122/125 The TARDIS materialises in the castle in 1818 (offscreen).

Pgs 166/175 The rear courtyard of the castle again, present day.

Pg 178 The castle, 1818.

Pg 217 The castle, present day.

PREPARATORY READING
The Paradise of Death. Alas.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 4 "It was all very well dudgeoning out of Chlorinda's office like a mardy adolescent..." Chlorinda is Sarah's boss, as established in The Paradise of Death.

"Coudln't she see that the Dalek piece was the biggest scoop of all time, the soft cow?" Death to the Daleks.

Pgs 4-5 "As if she's pretend she'd been to another planet and all; and invent a living city and mechanical snakes and stuff." Death to the Daleks.

Pg 5 "Every time she'd been with the Doctor in his TARDIS - back into the past, chasing the Sontaran; the trip to Parakon, with its giant bats and butcher toads; and now the Exxilon affair - she'd come back convinced that she'd got the story of her life, only to have Chlorinda spike it on the grounds of implausibility." The Time Warrior, The Paradise of Death, Death to the Daleks.

Pg 6 "Sarah was good at sailing, having undergone a period of intensive tuition (just after she'd left school) from a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy who'd called her 'old thing' and sworn undying love before thankfully disappearing Hong Kong-wards." This is so similar to Harry Sullivan, you wonder if Barry Letts is hinting that the two had been former lovers. Surprisingly, that wouldn't be the worst thing about this book.

Pg 17 "Darkness had descended as suddenly, it seemed, as nightfall in Africa the time she'd traveled from the Carribean to the odl Slave Coast on the Voodoo Witch-Doctor story which got her a job on Metropolitan." This is the magazine Sarah was working for when she met the Doctor (The Time Warrior).

Pg 25 "I mean, it wasn't a real monster, like the ones on Parakon." The Paradise of Death.

Pg 29 "The clock in the tower struck seven, Sarah's usual getting up timeif she was going for a run on Hampstead Heath (which was its old self again now hey'd pulled down Space World)" The Paradise of Death.

Pg 31 "I know full well that I put my ion-focusing coil back in its place after Bertie Wells borrowed it for his invisibility experiment" H.G. Wells, seen in Timelash and often namechecked by the Doctor.

Pg 41 "It was the force the Master used to raise the last of the Daemons." The Daemons.

Pg 48 "'Serendipity,' said the Doctor." Much like he does in The Green Death.

Pg 73 "The last time he'd nearly been eaten by that Gargan beast." The Paradise of Death.

Pg 77 "And don't forget to leave your wrist-watch behind. It's the biggest giveaway of the lot." The Time Meddler.

Pg 98 "The thought flashed through his mind that if he'd been a cat he'd be down to about six lives now (he must have lost at least a couple on Parakon)." The Paradise of Death.

Pg 107 "The fact that Sarah had once seen the Doctor fall - and a lot further than twenty feet - made no difference." The Paradise of Death.

Pg 116 "It's one of the small stun guns from Parakon." The Paradise of Death.

Pg 117 "I nicked it when Onya wasn't looking" The Paradise of Death.

Pg 122 The Doctor gives Sarah jelly babies, prefiguring the fourth Doctor.

Pg 135 The sonic screwdriver makes an appearance (Fury From the Deep et al).

Pg 145 "I have been judged guilty by my peers of the unutterable sin of intervention in the affairs of the peoples of this universe" The War Games.

Pg 146-147 "Funnily enough, people are always asking me to explain Blinovitch." The Blinovitch Limitation Effect (Day of the Daleks).

Pg 147 "'Are you sitting comfortable?' said Sarah. 'Then I'll begin.'" This is from Listen with Mother and was later used as the basis for The Idiot's Lantern.

Pg 178 "'As you'll remember,' he went on, continuing his work, 'the TARDIS energy banks wer totally drained by the beacon of the Exxilon City -'" Death to the Daleks.

Pg 196 "Sarah bent down to see if the key was in the lock. If it was, she could maybe do the old trick of... It wasn't." The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Pg 210 "I was once travelling through the mountains on Gallifrey with my old teacher." The Time Monster, Planet of the Spiders.

Pg 223 "Exactly the same answer he'd had from all the crummy lot he'd tried to get jobs from before Uncle Teddy pulled a few strings and got him onto the Metropolitan." The Time Warrior.

Pg 264 "First thing in the morning she'd give Chlorinda a ring." The Paradise of Death.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Uncle Mario, Umberto, Roberto.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Pg 32 N-Space is described as a mirror to reality, basically a place where ghosts are real. But in Full Circle, for which Barry Letts was executive producer, N-Space was normal space, or our reality. So the definition here is precisely the opposite of what was previously established.
2. Pg 26 "Her voice had the hollow sound that she remembered from her childhood" It's not this book's fault, but later we'll discover (in The Sarah Jane Adventures) that Sarah's parents were killed when she was a child.
3. Pg 182 "Probably the worst had been very near its very beginning when, as a small boy in the public shelter in the middle of Eaton Square during the 1940 blitz on London, he had been woken by an explosion and a rumbling crash which felt as if the world was being torn apart" There are several issues here. In The Island of Death, we learn that the Brigadier grew up in India, not England. Furthermore, in Letts and Dicks' Deadly Reunion, the Brigadier was an adult soldier in 1945.
4. Pg 211 "So I stripped to the buff and followed him." The Doctor getting naked isn't technically a continuity cock-up. But it should be.

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

1. There are clearly two terminologies. But it must get confusing in the Encyclopedia Galactica.
2. Sarah's probably thinking of her Aunt Lavinia and one of Lavinia's boyfriends, who fulfilled the role of parents for her.
3. The Brigadier's family visited England in 1940, which was unfortunate holiday planning. And, as we note in the Deadly Reunion entry, he must have been 15 there.
4. Remember how the Doctor got naked in The Paradise of Death as well? Yeah, I wish I hadn't either.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 41 N-Forms, creatures created by negative emotion that live in N-Space.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 13 The islands of San Stefano Maggiore and San Stefano Minore, as well as various boats in the vicinity, present day.

Pg 52 N-Space.

Pg 71 The early 1500s.

Pg 178 1818.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
The hideous prose. Sarah's shockingly poor attempt to write a novel. Sarah thinking that Daleks in a futuristic Exillon city will be a "scoop" for a 1970s magazine. The Brigadier having a comedy Italian uncle. The Brigadier being part Italian in the first place. The sheer coincidence of Sarah and Jeremy running into the Brigadier in Italy. Uncle Mario's comedy English. Roberto's Elvis impersonations. Jon Pertwee naked (again!)... Is this death?