Dead Romance (novel)

 is the nineteenth Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novel and the second in a row not to feature Bernice Summerfield in the main narrative. This story almost entirely focuses on Christine Summerfield and Chris Cwej.

Publisher's summary
All right, let's start with the basics. The world ended on the twelfth of October, Nineteen Seventy...

I don't know why I'm writing this. It's not like anybody's going to read it. At least, nobody who cares about the fact that I'm a desperate, dying, 23-year-old human being who's just had the whole of history taken away from her.

To whoever's out there, to whatever's left, this is the way things were, just before the end. This is the story about the last days of London, about murder and love and waking up in the ruins, about all the people buried in the wreckage...

I'm lying, obviously. This is my story. This is what I was doing, when October the twelfth came. Because, let's face it, I'm the only one who really matters.

I'm the only one who got out alive.

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Christine Summerfield
 * Chris Cwej
 * Khiste
 * The Horror
 * Cwej's employers
 * The Sphinxes

Biology

 * The Time Lords have altered Chris Cwej's biology to make him more suited to dealing in their affairs. They also changed his memory of his time with the Doctor, making him the 'Evil Renegade' instead.
 * The Time Lords give regenerative powers to their agents, Chris Cwej included.

Individuals

 * Christine Summerfield is probably no relation to Bernice Summerfield, except in name. She lost her virginity at fifteen.
 * Chris Cwej is an agent of the Time Lords.
 * After meeting with the Daleks, Chris comes back to Christine and has sex with her, to make himself feel human.
 * Khiste has regenerated at least once (quite possibly more than once). He has sex with Christine to prove a point.
 * Chris Cwej recalls Roz Forrester's death.
 * The Horror is a gestalt of all the stuff lost in the vortex.
 * Father Kreiner appears as the voice of The Horror that Christine speaks to and negotiates with.
 * The large machine intelligence is Pool, the gestalt from above Arcadia.

Literature

 * Christine writes much of her journal in the ruins of Gallifrey.

Locations

 * Lady Diamond's shop is on Henrietta Street.

Planets

 * The bottle (universe in a bottle) is located at Simia KK98.
 * Simia KK98 is a Time Lord base. Inside is an eight-armed statue of Rassilon holding various artefacts.
 * Cwej takes Christine to a market on Cygni 8.9, where she sees some Liquid Cats, which may be related to Wetworks Facility technology.
 * Shada is described.
 * Christine reads about Tyler's Folly.
 * Khiste takes Christine to Ordifica.
 * Christine, after being dropped off on Ordifica, visits a number of colony worlds including: Shristostophon, Gardener's World, Hai Dow Seven, Lubellin, Shatner's Climax, Ultra Caprisis, then onto Gallifrey before heading towards Dellah.

Species

 * Cwej comes back from a meeting with the Daleks. Supposedly the Time Lords "made a deal with them. Years ago," to let them build time machines.
 * Cwej's employers are the Time Lords.
 * The Time Lords alter their treaty with The People, which means they can build time machines. God was present.
 * The Enemy is obliquely referred to.

Mad Norwegian Reprint
Reprinted in 2004 by Mad Norwegian, not strictly as part of their Faction Paradox range but as a companion to it, the newer edition includes some additional material.


 * A new foreword by Miles.
 * The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic - An essay on the mechanics and cosmogony of universes and bottle universes. Originally intended as source material for other writers in the Faction Paradox range, it is nevertheless written 'in universe', like The Adventuress of Henrietta Street or The Book of the War.
 * A reprint of Toy Story, originally published in Perfect Timing 2.
 * Grass, a Faction Paradox related short story originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction.

Within the main text of the novel, the terminology the BNAs had used to avoid mentioning the Time Lords directly was amended to the terminology the Faction Paradox range now uses for a similar purpose.

Continuity

 * The Gods (which the Time Lords are preparing to escape from) appeared in BNA: Where Angels Fear.
 * Chris Cwej last appeared in BNA: Oblivion.
 * Roz Forrester died in NA: So Vile a Sin.
 * Father Kreiner fell into the vortex in EDA: Interference - Book Two.
 * The Time Lord - The People treaty was first mentioned in NA: The Also People.
 * The concept of Time Lords regenerating for particular purposes/for war first appears in EDA: Alien Bodies and Time Lords in non-bipedal forms appear in EDA: The Taking of Planet 5.
 * The bottle that appears is implied to be the bottle I.M. Foreman has in EDA: Interference - Book One.
 * Also in Interference it's mentioned that the Time Lords are making 'Ogron Lords' by altering them to be time compatible, this concept is first introduced in this novel.


 * Wetworks technology appears in BFA: The Genocide Machine.
 * Henrietta street features more heavily in EDA: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.
 * Pool appeared in NA: Deceit.