BASIC PLOT
The third instalment of Cartmel's 'War-' trilogy is set some years after Warlock and sees the return of Creed and Justine, now worrying about their children. Meanwhile, Roz has been co-opted into a military dog-handling unit, Benny and the Doctor are holed up in the Doctor's house in Kent with a man in a cylinder and Chris... where is Chris?

DOCTOR
Seventh.

COMPANIONS
Benny Summerfield, Chris Cwej, Roz Forrester.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
The TARDIS is actually never mentioned, but it is assumed that it is parked somewhere near the Doctor's house on Allen Road and is used to get the Doctor and Roz across to the USA towards the end.

PREPARATORY READING
Cartmel's Warhead and Warlock are essential.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Hardly any, even to other Cartmel books. Very odd, as it is such a sequel to Warlock. There's a very brief description of some of the events of Warlock on pages 136-137 from Creed's viewpoint, and on p.198 from Benny's viewpoint.

The suggestion of Russian origins of Warlock on p.245 are actually a reference to the Doctor Who magazine prelude of Warlock.

p.248 sees Creed remembering rescuing Jack from the animal experimentation lab.

p.262: "Justine didn't want to think of what had happened in Canterbury." Read Warlock and find out.

p.301 Vincent: "You used me as a weapon." From Warhead.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
Justine and Vincent from Warhead. Creed, Mrs. Woodcott and Jack from Warlock. The House on Allen Road was created by Cartmel for a DWM comic and has seen appearances in all his books, as well as Transit, and will be seen in So Vile A Sin and The Dying Days.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
The 'White King' is a sort of amalgam of old friend and new enemy. Norman Peverell, Ricky McIlveen, Amy Cowan and Redmond could also make re-appearences, although it's doubtful if anyone but Cartmel would do it.

WRITING TRIUMPHS
Cartmel largely eschews a narrative style for descriptions and dialogue, but he occasionally lets rip, most notably in Creed's 2nd person thoughts on Amy Cowan on pages 35-36: "Your fingers graze the short bristles near the roots, tracing the delicate contours of that graceful skull so full of intelligence and notions, and dreams."

There's also lots of very unsettling descriptions of horrible actions, from the dogs' actions to Leemark's attack on Pangbourne on p.198: "He felt the fine pleasant muscular ache of his God-given body doing honest labour. And it was only when the ache turned into a cramp that he stopped swinging, and returned from the memory of that damp smoky morning."

WRITING DISASTERS
According to Amy, Vincent using the name 'Retour' (French for 'return') is "kinda clumsy and obvious". Couldn't agree more.

Jack subduing the dog-handler on p.294 is horribly contrived.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS
No continuity to non-Cartmel stories means no cock-ups.

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

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
None.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
The House on Allen Road, Kent; Heathrow Airport; a council estate in London; the Agency, Scopes School, Creed and Justine's house and environs, all somewhere in the USA (possibly Washington D.C.). The year isn't stated but A History of the Universe posits it being 2030.

IN SUMMARY - Klaus Pumpkin
"I'm afraid the past has come back to haunt us." The weakest of the trilogy by some way, suffering both from being so obviously a sequel (something that barely affected its predecessor) and by the author's seeming desire to write a movie rather than a novel. Huge portions of the text are given over to tense scenes involving the attack of the dogs, which would be great in celluloid but drag terribly in prose; with the resolution comparatively and noticeably hurried. However, it is still written by one of the best and most original voices in the New Adventures series, so it's far from all bad. Possibly the most misleading cover of the range, though: Ricky's the child of the title, not Eve.