BASIC PLOT
April, 1242: the Doctor and Ruby answer a distress call sent from medieval Russia. The signal's sender? Ranavere, an alien girl forced to take part in a barbaric conflict between the armies of Estonia and Novgorod on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus.

DOCTOR
Fifteenth.

COMPANIONS
Ruby Sunday.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 11 In the middle of Lake Preipus, Estonia, April 1242.

Pg 190 On the bank of Lake Preipus.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 7 "The Doctor was leaning against the console, tinkering with his sonic screwdriver" Fury From the Deep et al.

Pg 20 "Move your centre of mavity over your feet." Wild Blue Yonder.

Pg 55 "'I'm not sure where I came from either,' she began." Ruby's origins have been shrouded in mystery since The Church on Ruby Rd.

Pg 56 "He concentrated on walking, each foot planted carefully in front of the other, bent slightly to extned his centre of mavity." Wild Blue Yonder.

Pg 76 "He drew the psychic paper from his pocket and held it out." The End of the World et al.

Pg 92 "'What did you do to him?' asked Ran. 'Venusian nerve pinch,' he said. He'll be all right. Faster lights out than a Sontaran War-Lullaby." The Venusians were mentioned throughout the Third Doctor's era and appeared in Venusian Lullaby. The Sontarans first appeared in The Time Warrior.

Pg 168 "He beamed as he was pulled into the warmth of the oxygen bubble and mavity reasserted itself." Wild Blue Yonder.

Pg 169 "The Doctor patted his chest. 'Er, hello? Respiratory bypass system, thank you.'" Pyramids of Mars.

Pg 176 "Atmospheric density masks: simplistic and not exactly long-lasting, but they'd do." Likely related to the atmospheric density jackets from The Web Planet.

Pg 179 "As if to prove her point, a series of images flickered behind the Doctor's eyes: Ruby, Mel, Donna, so many of his old friends." Mel first appeared in The Trial of a Time Lord. Donna first appeared in The Runaway Bride. Both were recently in The Giggle.

Pg 199 "Ruby felt a small flurry of freezing snowflakes pepper her head. She looked up, but the gentle fall had stopped almost as soon as it had begun. 'Was that real snow?'" 'Bound to be!' the Doctor said brightly. But Ruby could tell from the way he quickened his step that he wasn't sure." Snow appearing where it shouldn't has been a theme of Ruby's existence, since Space Babies.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Ranavere, Helgadane and Cellisamere Rentara.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS
None.

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

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 33 The Rentara are a family of galactic mercenaries. They're human-looking but not from Earth.

Pg 82/118 The Genetrix, squid-like parasites the size of a bumblebee, with a clump of tiny black eyes on the top of their heads. They can take over any living being, causing their eyes to glow ruby red.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 8 Estonia, April 1242. Of course, we only know the year from the blurb; it's never mentioned in the text itself, which broadly tells us it's the 13th century (Page 12) and then drops down to telling us it's April (Page 40), without bothering to specify the year.

IN SUMMARY - Stacey Smith?
This is a pretty workmanlike novel that's mostly pretty inoffensive. It does make a few rookie mistakes, like having two major characters with names starting with R... and "Ran" is such a terrible name for a charcter to begin with, doubly so in a Doctor Who book, where running happens all the time. The setting is novel, even if the book forgets to actually tell us what year it is (and you wouldn't know if you lost the dust jacket). It overplays the "mavity" joke (more than once per story is overkill) and has a grand total of one human guest star, who's promptly assimilated and then killed. Yes, the sisters are interesting, but was there really no room to show us more than one guard in passing to flesh out the setting? I sound more frustrated with the book than it deserves, because the biggest flaw is that it's such a throwaway.