Author Notes

The chapter title, obviously, is a reference to Mars Attacks!

The fact the tape is NTSC is a clue to its origin.

‘From the streets of ancient Uruk to the common room of a twenty-sixth century university’ is another meta reference – the very first New Adventure, Timewyrm:Genesys was set in ancient Uruk, the last one ends... well, we’re not there yet, so I’d better not say.

The history book with the scary eye is, of course, A History of the Universe, another one of my books, which was written before The Dying Days, so doesn’t refer to it. I seem to set the date of my death here – but we don’t know what year Benny is writing from. As the current Big Finish audios are set in 2601, and Benny’s not written her memoirs yet, it looks like I’m going to make it to at least ninety-nine years old.

I quite like the idea that the book starts with humans talking about terraforming Mars, and ends with the Martians attempting to aresform Earth. This section, in retrospect, draws from Quatermass II, with its secret silos full of alien nasty stuff.

The ‘perhaps I’ll just be retconned’ line proved to be a firm favourite in internet discussion of the book. It’s another meta reference – ‘retconning’ is short for ‘retroactive continuity’, briefly ‘going back and changing things so they all fit together better or make more sense’. It’s a term originally used in comics fandom, and Doctor Who fans retcon, for example, how the Brigadier retires from UNIT in 1976 according to one story, but was only made head of UNIT in 1979 according to another. Benny muses (not for the first time in the book) how The Dying Days fits into Doctor Who continuity.