BASIC PLOT
In the town of Redwater, the Doctor and Martha learn of a snake-oil salesman whose patent medicines actually cure his patient. But when the Doctor and Martha investigate they discover the truth is stranger, and far more dangerous.

DOCTOR
Tenth.

COMPANIONS
Martha Jones.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 24 Redwater, the 1880s.

PREPARATORY READING

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 18 Reference to the Ood (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit).

Pg 19 "The Starship Brilliant Story?" The Pirate Loop.

Pg 20 "When we were kids, me and Leo and Tish, we'd watch a cowboy film every Sunday afternoon." Martha's siblings appeared in Smith and Jones.

Pg 28 "'How about... Tombstone, Arizona? The gunfight at the OK Corral!' 'Been there, done that.'" The Gunfighters.

Pg 31 "Jules took a lot of convincing to cut out the stuff about the Silurians." Doctor Who and the Silurians et al.

Pg 38 "She eyes the teacher's long, broad black dress and shook her head/ 'I wore something like that a while ago. Wasn't really my style, if you know what I mean.'" Human Nature/The Family of Blood.

Pg 48 "Sarsparilla? Maybe a glass of milk would be more to your likin' English." The Gunfighters.

The sonic screwdriver appears (Fury from the Deep onwards).

Pg 56 The psychic paper appears (The End of the World onwards).

Pg 62 "Martha thought it through, as if it was a problem case turning up at the Royal Hope Hospital where she studied." Smith and Jones.

Pg 69 "'Na-ru, na-ru, na-ru,' hummed the Doctor [...] 'Venusian lullaby, the Doctor said, from the side of his mouth." The Curse of Peladon et al. Although it's odd to read this without the more usual "aroon" spelling. [Perhaps this is a different verse.]

Pg 84 "'It's New Earth stuff, actually,' he said. 'I borrowed the kit when I was there with Rose, a while back.'" New Earth.

Pg 91 "'I'd like to propose the Doctor for the job of Town Sheriff.' [...] 'I wore one of these once, ages ago, and all it got me was trouble.'" The Gunfighters.

Pg 106 Martha nicknames her horse "Rose".

Pg 107 Another reference to the Royal Hope (Smith and Jones).

Pg 118 "Martha thought about her own family, Mum, Dad, Tish and Leo" Smith and Jones.

Pg 127 "The Pawnee let out a gasp. 'The Brother of Coyote? The man who defeated the Bad Wolf?'" Reference to the 2005 arc words.

Pg 133 "Dalek pods in Utah, saucers under the Arctic, the mess left over from that UFO fender-bender in Roswell..." Dalek, uncertain reference, Dreamland.

Pg 141 "I've faced Judoon enforcers. Carrionites. Killer scarecrows. I've looked Daleks right in the eyestalk." Smith and Jones, The Shakespeare code, Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.

Pg 144 "I invoke the 15th convention of the Shadow Proclamation." The 15th convention is first mentioned in Rose.

Pg 145 "Many academics are split on the identity of the enemy; some believe they were a splinter nest of the Racnoss, while others favour the Null or the Movellans." The Runaway Bride,

Pg 195 "He couldn't help but think of the look her mother had fiven him in the aftermath of that mad night with Professor Lazarus and his experiment." The Lazarus Experiment.

Pg 207 "It forced him to see Rose and Mickey and K-9 deep in ashen wastelands as fusion bombs turned the ground into glass; it put Martha and Sarah Jane and Captain Jack in the combat arenas of the Isop Galaxy" Rose and Mickey first appeared in Rose; K9 first appeared in The Invisible Enemy; Sarah Jane first appeared in The Time Warrior and more recently in School Reunion; Captain Jack first appeared in The Empty Child; The Isop Galaxy is where Vortis and Boekind are located (The Web Planet, Bad Wolf).

"Feel the power! The power of life of death! Just like you did before... in the Time War." The background to the 2005 season.

Pgs 207-208 "The roaring of a milltion Battle TARDISes. The screeching of a sky full of Dalek saucers." The Time War.

"The Daleks had taken everything from him, and still they would not die." As pointed out in Evolution of the Daleks.

Pg 212 "If you had been merged with us back then, it would be the Daleks that were gone, not the Time Lords! If you had been part of us, your precious Rose would still be with you and the Cybermen would be nothing but scrap metal!" The Time War, Doomsday.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Nathan Blaine, Jenny Forrest, Sherrif Loomis Teague, Zachariah Hawkes.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• "A final pulse of energy, one tuned to very specific telepathic frequency" Say what?

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

• The Doctor was initially going to tune it to a number of specific frequencies, but changed his mind halfway through and only tuned it to one of them.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pgs 144/149/150 The Clades, intelligent guns who can inhabit the bodies of the dead, with a built-in regenerative capacity.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 7 A farm, outside of Redwater, the 1880s (pg 25).

Pg 18 Planet Hollywood.

Pg 28 Redwater.

Pg 105 Canyons between Redwater and Ironhill.

Pg 107 Ironhill.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
The parts set in Redwater are very good indeed, with some nicely drawn characters and a good evocation of the Wild West. Alvin Godlove is particularly effective, largely because he isn't in this section. However, the action then moves to Ironhill (for no particular reason) and the book nosedives somewhat. Godlove turns out to be much less interesting in the flesh (how much better would it have been if he were less of a stereotype and actually wanted to cure people?), the Ironhill residents aren't nearly as interesting and Walking Crow is a racist cliche, being all animal spiritual, the only character to be identified by his race in the narrative, and enjoying a noble sacrifice at the end, you won't be surprised to learn. There's an attempt to make this deeper, by having the Doctor give into temptation, but it still falls a bit flat. Worth it for the first half, though, which really is rather wonderful.