BASIC PLOT
March 1941 and the Nazis have occupied British soil. While the Doctor investigates a possible problem in the timeline, Bernice finds herself facing a situation she hoped she'd never have to face...

DOCTOR
Seventh.

COMPANIONS
Benny, Chris Cwej, Roz Forrester, with appearances by Mel.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Page 18 Mainland Britain (despite the cover, the TARDIS is not on the Channel islands, except possibly for the prologue). The events take place in March 1941, but the TARDIS has been there since December 1940. The Doctor and Mel were also in Cairo in 1936 (flashbacks). Page 230 Benny materialises the TARDIS in a different part of the city, homing in on the Doctor.

PREPARATORY READING
It's not essential, but Just War provides another side of the Second World War, last seen in Timewyrm: Exodus.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Page 106 The Doctor is suspected of being the mysterious spymaster Doctor von Wer, the name the Doctor took in The Highlanders.

Pg 42 "The Doctor was in the middle of an anecdote. '...and when I turned around, they were all wearing -'"

Pg 125 "'...eyepatches!' he finished." This is Nicholas Courntey's anecdote from Inferno when (all together now) he turned around and they were all wearing eyepatches.

Page 159-160 Benny connects the Nazis to Daleks, referencing them in just about every possible way, except saying it outright.

"Two syllables, harsh in the mouth [...] Evil. [...] They exterminated everything that wasn't like them. [...] Indestructable monsters. [...] Divide and conquer. Invasion. [...] Advance and attack. Attack and destroy. Their right arms stuff, extended in a permanent salute. [...] Their rightful place, supreme being in the universe."

"A planet full of graves" is a reference to Heaven, which was a planet for the dead (killed in Dalek wars), that Benny was investigating when she met the Doctor in Love and War.

"Remembrance Day" Remembrance of the Daleks.

"Power. Conquer and destroy. [...] War machines pouring from their production lines" Power of the Daleks

"Genesis: an insane genius, wounded in last war. Wanting the best for his people, knowing that they must change in this hostile environment, become harsher, more disciplined, more loyal. Change their very genetic makeup. [...] Scintists, working in laboratories, conceiving new terrors [...] Germ warfare Powerful explosives. Their supreme ruler barking orders. I obey.[...] Racial purity. They ran slave camps, killed their prisoners for sport. Experimenting on the inmates. Twisted science. Permanent warfare." Genesis of the Daleks (and The Daleks)

"Their Nation must return to its former glory" Terry Nation.

"Resurrection." Resurrection of the Daleks

"Master plan" The Daleks' Masterplan

"The future, with London in ruins." The Dalek Invasion of Earth

"Destiny" Destiny of the Daleks

"Planet, Doctor, not universe" Planet of the Daleks.

"Revelation." Revelation of the Daleks.

Roz has a dream of dying violently, prefacing So Vile A Sin. In that book (page 306) we also find out that she kept a wedding dress, with white high heels, in the TARDIS, indicating that she was planning to return to George Reed.

Page 256 Aside from the Doctor, only one character is mentioned in both Exodus and Just War - Albert Speer, the famous Nazi architect.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
George Reed (Roz's fiance), Oskar Steinmann (who dies before Happy Endings, but leaves Benny's diary for her on page 250 of that book). Ma and Anne Doras.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Page 4 "This is Guernsey, late December 1941" It's not, it's 1940. The author admits that this was an error in A History of the Universe (page 68).
2. The Doctor is wearing a nun's habit (to fool a guard) at the end of this book, which leads straight into Warchild.
3. Roz claims she can trace her ancestry back to Nelson Mandela, but we find out in Decalog 4 that this isn't true.

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

1. The Doctor is confused about the end of years in the same way that everyone else gets confused about the beginnings (eg we write the wrong year throughout January, the Doctor has the opposite problem in December).
2. The Doctor got changed a bit later.
3. In Decalog 4, we discover that the Forrester family lied about their Mandela connection to elevate their importance.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
None.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Channel islands and mainland Britain, 1941.

Cairo, in flashbacks, 1936.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Just War is a powerful book. It takes a tale that could have gone drastically wrong - Doctor Who and the Nazis - and gives it respect, dignity and raw emotion. Benny's torture is impossibly painful to sit through and the Doctor's culpability in everything is incredible. It's a book that refused to have monsters in it and has no soft continuity references to the TV series. The Doctor playing Russian Roulette with Benny's torturer is incredible, especially for the suggestion that what we read may not have been the way it transpired at all. An amazing book.