BASIC PLOT
How does Peri come to be the leader of a gang of rebel fighters on an outlying planet? Who is the mysterious 'General' that they are rebelling against so violently? Where does the so-called 'Supremo', leader of the Alliance forces ranged against the General, come from, and why is he so interested in Peri? The answers lie in the origins of a conflict that will affect the whole cosmos - a conflict that will find Humans, Sontarans, Draconians and even Cybermen fighting together for the greater good and glory. For the Supremo.

DOCTOR
Fifth.

COMPANIONS
Peri.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
A jungle planet (page 47).

The Hospice of Karn (page 51).

PREPARATORY READING
This is a prequel to The Brain of Morbius.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 5 "The orange and scarlet of the Prydonians vied with the green of the Arcalians, the heliotrope of the Patrexes dominated the more subdued colours of the lesser chapters." The Gallifreyan chapters were first introduced in The Deadly Assassin.

Pg 35 "This specimen is a human female. The hair is finer, the thorax of a different construction -" This paraphrases a line from The Time Warrior.

Pg 40 "He found Peri stretched out on a divan, sipping a glass of green Arcturan wine." The Curse of Peladon.

Pg 46 "He was drinking tea and leafing through his beloved first edition of The Time Machine." The Doctor is also seen reading this in the telemovie.

Pg 48 "Maybe even do a bit of fishing. Old Isaac always said there was nothing like -" The fourth Doctor mentioned fishing with Isaac Walton.

Pg 52 "By the Pact of Rassilon and the Vision of the Eye." The Vision of the Eye is likely a reference to the Pythia, whose followers became the Sisterhood of Karn (Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible).

Pg 54 "By the time the Solon of the future met the Doctor's previous incarnation, he would have completely forgotten the stranger and his wounded companion." The Brain of Morbius.

Pg 55 Reference to the Blinovitch limitation Effect (Day of the Daleks).

Pg 69 "Reverend Mother Maren is about as compassionate as a Drashig!" Carnival of Monsters.

Pg 89 "She drifted at last into an uneasy sleep, dreaming that the hand had climbed out of the locker and was crawling across the floor towards her." This is quite similar to The Hand of Fear.

Pg 101 "'Spot of teleportation,' he thought. 'They did it with the TARDIS once'" The Brain of Morbius.

Pg 111 Reference to the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton.

Pg 114 "After dark, however, he was unequalled." Grimoire is a vampire, although it's not clear if this is related to State of Decay or not.

Pg 122 "That's what these people are. Gaztacs." It's not clear if they're the same Gaztaks we saw in Meglos or not.

Pg 153 "'You really think this Morbius could be another Napoleon?' 'I fear so, my lord. I met the real one once, and they're very alike.'" The Doctor mentions having known Napoleon in Day of the Daleks (Ian and Barbara met him in The Reign of Terror, but the Doctor didn't).

Pg 154 "No, they exiled me to earth, which wa salmost as bad." The War Games.

Pg 167 "In cases of aborted bodily regeneration, it's the only effective treatment." The idea of aborted regenerations was introduced in Timewyrm: Exodus.

Pg 177 "We could raise a volunteer militia from the Shobogans, I suppose." The Shabogans were mentioned in The Deadly Assassin and various fan theories have said they are the same as the Outsiders from The Invasion of Time.

Pg 187 The planet Aridus presumably isn't the same as the planet Aridius from The Chase, although both have similar dry climates.

Pg 209 "Where is the Doc-tor? We have come to join him. Morbius must be ex-ter-min-ated!" The Doctor dreams of the Daleks.

Pg 212 "I tried folk-dancing once, round a maypole in a place called Devil's End." The Daemons.

Pg 287 "One dark and stormy night, two extraordinary figures hammered on Solon's door - a tall curly-haired man in a floppy hat and long scarf, and a slender girl." The Brain of Morbius.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
The Sisterhood of Karn, including Maren and Ohica.

Solon, Morbius, Borusa.

Possibly the Gaztacs (from Meglos). See page 122.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
President Saran, Rastibon, Commander Hawken, Lord Delmar, High Commander Aril, General Ryan, Ice Lord Azanyr.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Peri encounters the Sontarans and Cybermen here but doesn't recognise them later, in The Two Doctors and Attack of the Cybermen.
2. Pg 78 "Tricky devils. Come from some remote planet called Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborus." Karn and Gallifrey are quite close to one another. In The Brain of Morbius the Doctor claims to recognise the stars, saying that Gallifrey is a few billion miles from Karn.
3. Pg 94 "Solon went on, 'I have conceived a plan. A plan which will punish the Doctor'" The Doctor has gone to great lengths to hide his identity from Solon, calling himself "Mr Smith" instead, so Solon should not know his name. And on page 96 he calls him Smith again.
4. Pg 98 "But by that time, in what to them was the distant future, their power and influence had been shattered by galactic war." The events of The Brain of Morbius can't be the distant future, given that Solon is already head surgeon here and isn't much older then.
5. Pg 146 "Am I in a hospital soap opera? [...] The kind old Benton used to watch back in the UNIT days." In No Future, Benton says that he hardly ever watches TV, which is an important plot point for that novel.
6. Pg 171 "Welcome home Doctor." The Doctor has gone to Galllifrey in its past, and on page 166 it's stated that he's meeting Borusa for the very first time, so the Time Lords should have no idea who the Doctor is.
7. Pg 191 The Doctor states that their forces are inadequate, yet they already have the Sontarans on board, who can clone millions of soldiers at a moment's notice.
8. On page 197, Aril calls the Doctor Supremo before he is given the nickname on page 203.
9. Pg 212 "'I bet it is,' said Peri. She moved closer to him. 'Send her away. We don't need her.' [...] 'There's a saying on earth, Peri - try everything once - except folk dancing and incest.'" Okay, Peri making a pass at the Doctor isn't technically a continuity cock-up. But it should be.

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

1. Peri later suffers a bout of amnesia, also explaining why she sees the second Doctor on screen in Players, but doesn't recognise him later in The Two Doctors.
2. The Time Lords may shroud Gallifrey's reputation from lesser mortals, to protect themselves.
3. Solon guessed that Mr Smith was a Doctor, due to his apparant expertise.
4. Given all the time travel he does, the Doctor sometimes gets confused about relative time on the planets he visits.
5. Benton gave up watching TV altogether when his favourite soap opera got cancelled.
6. In the future the Doctor will make himself known to the Time Lords in the past and Borusa will then have to pretend not to know the Doctor when he meets him.
7. The Rutans have currently blockaded the worlds which have Sontaran cloning machines.
8. Aril is secretly a time traveller from the future and slipped up slightly.
9. I'm not touching this one.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Sontarans, Draconians, Ogrons, Cybermen, Ice Warriors.

An eagle-like creature (pages 48-49).

Various zombies, created by Solon.

Blue kangaroo-like creatures (page 187).

The crew of the Alliance are Denali (page 188).

Grimoire is a vampire.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Gallifrey, at the end of Morbius's presidency (which is contemporaneous with the far future, given the dating from The Brain of Morbius).

The jungles of Silvana.

A shuttle (page 38).

The Supremo's flagship.

Karn.

Lord Delmar's space yacht (page158).

Draconia (page 179).

Aridus (page 187).

The agricultural planet of Fangoria.

Assault craft (page 225).

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Warmonger defies a lot of sense and having a galactic war where every known race gets together to fight is surely a recipe for disaster... but there's something inexplicably charming about the book that means you can't help loving it in spite of itself. It's furiously paced, which helps a lot and after a while you just surrender to the flurry of motion going on around you. Inane, but fun.