BASIC PLOT
Idyllic life in a seaside village is disrupted when three aliens arrive. And one of them is quite handsome indeed and calls himself the Doctor.

DOCTOR
Eighth.

COMPANIONS
None.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 64 A room in a cottage.

Pg 151 Somewhere nearby the village.

(The Doctor also takes Ruth back to her homeworld, but we don't witness this, only the dematerialisation on page 143.)

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 42 "A long-haired stranger nursing a ginger beer in one corner" The fourth Doctor also drank ginger beer, in The Android Invasion.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Nine, Steve, Adam, Ruth, Ruth's parents.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• "...and was being taken out for dinner at the most expensive place for miles. fine. Great." (p68) In the most egregious error we've yet found, the word "fine" remains uncapitalised, meaning that... Okay, we've got nothing.

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

• fine.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Ruth's species, seven-fingered aliens who can disguise themselves as humans, are allergic to water and speak in a series of clicks (page 136).

FEATURED LOCATIONS
A village in Cornwall, plus a variety of boats, present day.

An alien flier.

(Ruth's homeworld is visited by the Doctor, but we don't witness this)

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Rip Tide is a fun little novella, almost childlike in its view of the Doctor and the way he interacts with the world. The only part that doesn't work is unfortunately the key scene where Ruth's brother crashes his flier, where it's written as though we think the book's referring to Steve and Nina instead. However, the various sea motifs are quite nicely done and it's refreshing to have a story that just exists to be an adventure, with no pretensions of being anything else. The sequence where the Doctor starts being reminded of another adventure and then catches himself is utterly hilarious. Fun.