BASIC PLOT
Europa is a resurrected Europe that lives in an imaginary past, filled with historical figures who live again. But the pop ahs been murdered, and the Doctor and Sarah are the obvious supects.

DOCTOR
Fourth.

COMPANIONS
Sarah Jane Smith.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pgs 20/23 The Sistene Chapel, Europa, Earth, 3278 (page 28).

Pg 327 Inside the Rite of Passage, which is inside the Globe Theatre, which is in the vortex.

In an alleyway off the Grand Canal in Venice, Europa.

PREPARATORY READING
This builds very slightly build off the ending of Goth Opera and ties in a tiny bit to Original Sin. Neither is required, however.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 25 "The moment of abstraction lengthened, then he shook his head and broke into a smile as he pulled out a yo-yo and put it into play." The Ark in Space.

Pg 26 "Vatican City was remodelled in the 31st century by colonists from the Overcities" Original Sin.

Pg 31 "'Now they know where I am,' he muttered under his breath. 'Hell's teeth.'" This was Tegan's made up swearing in Logopolis.

Pgs 41-42 "The caller was Aunt Lavinia, ringing from Moreton Harewood." The Time Warrior, K9 and Company.

Pg 42 "When she first met him in his third incarnation as a crease-featured grey-haired man, apparently in late middle age, she almost came to look on him as a father figure." The Time Warrior.

"But with the Doctor's regeneration into a younger man with hair like an exploding Brillo pad, the father-figure issue never arose." Planet of the Spiders/Robot.

Pg 43 "It wasn't E-space - or N-space for that matter." Full Circle, The Ghosts of N-Space.

Pg 51 "I was buried alive in one like this once. Thoroughly unpleasant experience." Uncertain reference.

Pg 54 "'Where there's life, there's hope,' she acknowledged with a wince." The Monster of Peladon, Planet of the Spiders.

Pg 56 "I was in that play with Will Shakespeare when it opened at the Globe Theatre." Similar to the Doctor helping Will write his plays in City of Death.

"The whole adventure started in Venice long ago, when I had just the one heart -" The Empire of Glass.

Pg 58 "Always look on the bright side of death." Sarah sings the song from Life of Brian, which was released in 1979. This is likely a subtle reference to her being from 1980 (Pyramids of Mars). Either that or the Doctor took her to the movies in the future and this is what they watched together...? No, I didn't think so either. On the whole, UNIT Dating suddenly seems a lot more plausible.

Pg 62 "The Switzia he'd decided upon was built on the original site of Switzerland after the fall of the Earth Empire." So Vile a Sin.

Pg 64 "Legend traced their origins to two vampires from space, known as Lord Jake and Lady Madelaine, destroyed in the twenty-fourth century by Jonquil the Intrepid." Jakes and Madelaine are from Goth Opera and were last seen heading out into space in a lovely romantic ending that's cruelly wiped out in backstory here.

Pg 103 "'I wish I had my sonic screwdriver,' grumbled the Doctor, absently going through his numerous pockets." Fury From the Deep et al.

Pg 121 "Europa was fashioned over two centuries ago from Earth's ruins by a cabal from the Overcities" Original Sin.

Pg 122 "'Gallifrey?' Sarah ventured." The War Games et al.

Pg 137 "I was looking for a recorder." Power of the Daleks et al.

Pg 139 "He was assistant to John Dee, Elizabeth I's astrologer." Who was one of Muldwych's aliases in Birthright.

Pg 148 "'Who's Jeremy?' ''Oh, this guy I went with on holiday in Sicily a while back." The Ghosts of N-Space.

Pg 150 "There were others. The Meddling Monk et al. But the Master is the most likely culprit." The Time Meddler et al. Terror of the Autons et al.

Pg 151 "The Master, is he an old enemy of yours?" Perceptive guess, Byron.

Pg 158 "'I wish I had my sonic screwdriver,' the Doctor said." Fury From the Deep et al.

Pgs 159-160 "Give me five minutes and I'll have them galloping to the manor born, or I'm a Cyberman." The Tenth Planet et al.

Pg 161 "Fine, each Dominions stayed roughly true to its own time period, but then there was the Vatican, hovering like an Overcity and bristling with psychotronic gadgets." Original Sin.

Pg 164 "On its frame was carved, in Cyrillic script, three names: John Dee; Edward Kelley; Elizabeth Bathory." John Dee appeared in Birthright.

Pg 179 "All he - I - did was wave a sword about from time to time." The Sea Devils, The Time Warrior.

Pg 232 "Anachronistic potion from the Overcities" Original Sin.

Pg 263 "The yo-yo hung motionless for a score of seconds, then started to swing." The Ark in Space.

Pg 266 "A lord named Rassilon expelled the creature, with abundant assistance, and after a titanic struggle" The Deadly Assassin et al.

Pg 285 "The Theatre of Transmogrification was born in the Overcities" Original Sin.

Pg 328 "Perhaps we ought to get back to UNIT; we're supposed to be on our way to it, after all." Lead-in to Pyramids of Mars.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
Pg 2 The original William Shakespeare is in the prologue, although he doesn't meet the Doctor here.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Mary Shelley, Miles Dashwood, Crocker, Dangerous Byron, Cardinal Richelieu, Percy Shelley, Cardinal Altzinger, Cardinal Torquemada. (None of these are the original historical figures, however.)

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Pg 39 "What is this infernal heathenish machine? What sorcery obstructs us from walking through an open door?" Yes, why can't they enter the TARDIS when the door is open? That never stopped Leela or the Mandragora Helix.
2. Pgs 41-42 "The caller was Aunt Lavinia, ringing from Moreton Harewood. There'd been a car accident. Mum and Dad hadn't suffered." Not this book's fault obviously, but this is totally different to the backstory we later see in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
3. Pg 84 "For a woman, you have an excellent head for heights." Except that Sarah had no head for heights at all in Genesis of the Daleks.

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

1. It's later revealed that they can (Page 308), they just have to think their way in. Which probably explains the Mandragora Helix. But what about Leela?
2. The Trickster altered Sarah's memory of her parents' death so many times that she remembers it differently on different days.
3. Her terrible head for heights is nevertheless impressive compared to the other women Byron knows.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 67 Vampires.

Pg 113 Reprises. They're clones with virtual memories from an historical data bank.

Pg 127 Necrodryads, ghostly figures attached to trees. One touch and they'll fill your veins with sap and absorb you into themselves.

Pg 266 The Mimic, a creature that copies and repeats but has no intelligence and no form without a host.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 1 London, June 1613.

Pg 7 The Black Forest, Bavaria

Pg 26 Europa, Earth, 3278.

Pg 64 A Draco (an air scooter).

Pg 86 Another Draco.

Pg 211 An inverted flying church.

Pg 234 More Dracos.

Pg 268 An Angelus, some sort of aeroplane.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
This is dark, atmospheric and different from just about any book out there. Recreating Europe and populating it with reborn historical characters is a great idea. Basing the plot around theatre is a sublime angle. The anagramatical wordplay is a brilliant concept - and the title sheer genius. Unfortunately, while I can see its merits and appreciate the attempt to do something out of the box, I found this an enormous slog. The writing actively works to make everything dull, while Sarah is treated abominably, both by other characters and also in her thought processes, which are very poorly done. And where the linking to Jake and Madelaine had the potential to make the MAs cohere in a way that could have been stupendous, killing them off in backstory is terrible. That's this book in a nutshell.