Author Notes

...and it was all a horrible dream, and the Doctor was alive after all. The seventh Doctor had dominated the New Adventures, and it would have been odd for him not to show up in the last book.

The narrative switches so that Benny is the main character, and we switch to diary entries – technically, extracts from her memoirs. We knew Benny was going to survive this book, because Virgin had announced she was spinning off. Her memoirs are, it seems, written when she’s an old woman. Phyllida Law, perhaps, instead of Emma Thompson.

One theory I’ve always had, one you see in all my Who books, is that the Doctor emits a sort of shield that protects his companions when he’s around. Not a real shield, but the narrative rules twist around him to his advantage. In Just War, for example, when a squad of Nazis fire machine guns at him and Chris, they all miss. But Benny, separated from the Doctor, is easily captured and tortured. The Doctor can just get away with things that ordinary people can’t. But with the Doctor dead, we’re back in the realm of ordinary things – people have to eat and wash. They need to look out for themselves.

Staines is a loyal servant of the crown, even if a Martian is wearing it.

Bernice’s lecture refers to what we know about the Martians from the books and TV episodes featuring the Ice Warriors. By the time of Transit, the human race is as technically advanced as the Martians, and wins a ruthless, genocidal war against them on Mars.

The BBC often cancel programmes that have a vague passing resemblance to contemporary tragic news stories. The Fugitive, for example, always gets postponed when there’s a train crash, because there’s a train crash in it. So they’ve cancelled the X Files the week of the Martian invasion.

Lex resurfaces after vanishing from UNIT HQ shortly after the Martian invasion. See? I hadn’t forgotten him.