Ghost Devices (novel)

Ghost Devices was the sixty-eighth Virgin New Adventures novel. It was the first appearance of Clarence, a representative of the People who looked like an angel.

Publisher's summary
In the evening, when the sky was the colour of burnt umber, the factories crawled down the continental shelf to drink.

The Spire is an inhuman artefact, a construction almost three hundred miles high. But it is more than just a big dumb object. Those close to it can look into the future — a future which is going to be arriving sooner than they think, and which is as bad as can be.

In the here and now, Professor Bernice Summerfield, doyenne of twenty-sixth century archaeology and seedy space-port bars, is used to seeing strange things in her rooms. So it takes the unexpected arrival of an angel to get her away from increasingly desperate professional deadlines and off to investigate one of the seven hundred and seventy-six wonders of the galaxy.

However, Benny is not the only one interested in the Spire. A mysterious race of weaponsmiths, a mutogenic assassin and a sect of fanatically anti-religious reptiles all have their reasons for learning — or concealing — the structure's secrets. And, as she struggles to unlock this ancient mystery, it soon becomes clear that the life of an eccentric professor is of very little consequence indeed.

Chapter titles

 * Prologue: Necessary But Insufficient Causes
 * Chapter 1: Angels in Dirty Places
 * Chapter 2: Murder Must Advertise
 * Chapter 3: Dark and Stormy Light
 * Interlude: The Big, Big Picture
 * Chapter 4: Commerce and Visitations
 * Chapter 5: In Search of Ancient Astronauts
 * Chapter 6: Sailing to Bizzarum
 * Chapter 7: I Am the Assassin
 * Chapter 8: Doctor at Large
 * Chapter 9: High Dungeon
 * Chapter 10: You Can't Be Too Careful With Life
 * Interlude
 * Chapter 11: Nostradamus Was Right
 * Chapter 12: Turing Tests
 * Chapter 13: The Nuclear Way to Universal Peace and Brotherhood
 * Chapter 14: Mystery Under the Sea
 * Chapter 15: Ah Ha!
 * Chapter 16: When I Say Run, Run Like Rabbits
 * Chapter 17: Up, Up and Away!
 * Chapter 18: There Was Death From the Beginning to the End of Time
 * Chapter 19: Cover Stories
 * Chapter 20: Kill the Dog on Sunday
 * Interlude: The Future
 * Epilogue

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Clarence
 * Factory 34561239
 * The Air Vent
 * David Foreman
 * Morry
 * Sandra Johansen
 * Geth Kathath
 * Malkovitch Fellows
 * Jane Steadman
 * Tenomi III
 * Mandir
 * Ninjucoid
 * Vo'lach Negotiator
 * Oldest Factory
 * Vawn

Individuals

 * Bernice is unable to cope with her role in the temporal paradox. She overdoses on tranquilliser pills, but is saved by Clarence.
 * Clarence used to be a People ship. Bernice thinks he looks a bit like Keanu Reeves, though naked and with wings.
 * Factory 34561239 is one of the few sentient Factories on Vo'lach Prime. It turned away from producing weaponry and would instead make consumer goods. It is able to leave Vo'lach Prime's surface by detonating nuclear warheads below its surface and is able to fly through space using a hyperdrive. It thinks about excluding pears from its fruit and vegetable section when it hears Bernice state, "Everything's gone pear shaped".
 * Mandir is the leader of a coup on Canopus IV, A crippled priest, Mandir is driven by a desire to completely destroy the Gods (the Vo'lach) and control the universe - becoming an uberfascist antitheist due to the nonpresence of the Gods and his belief that humanity should have killed the Gods.
 * Someone (presumably the Doctor) tells Sul Starren he should invest in Telvos, Hoopla IV, and New Rarga and in plough shares on Spindrast Maxima.

Groups

 * The Grown Not Made Special Interest Group made organic ships for other people.

Objects

 * Benny's group are rescued by an Air Vent inside a life-hating submarine.

Planets

 * Ordifica is briefly seen here.
 * Vo'lach Prime has been converted into a desolate world by the Vo'lach - with all possible life being annihilated and profanity burned onto its continents with nuclear weapons. It is the second world in the Sadr system, with the first being a massive tachyon weapon.
 * The planet "They're All Nouns You Idiot" (otherwise known as Noun) was named due to a translation issue.
 * Vo'lach Prime orbits the star Sadr. The entire Sadr system has been carefully engineered by the Vo'lach.
 * Canopus IV is a world in the Canopus system.
 * The planet Telvos - and in fact the entire Telvos Nebula is controlled by the Mondesfiore family.
 * In the year 2594, Hoopla IV's Rattacatta mines are occupied by supporters of Prince-Imran Suleiman.
 * The Wompon coasts of New Rarga are in civil war in 2594.

Time travel

 * The Spire is one big time travel device, built by the Vo'lach to stop both red-shift expansion of blue-shift implosion within the entire universe through the creation of dark matter. It has several side effects - such as making some of the Canopusi time-sensitive and forming every single quasar in the universe.
 * The Spire cycles through multiple paradoxes before a balance is found between the missiles and destruction.

Continuity

 * Benny agreed to take on assignments for God in PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!.
 * The villain Morry is ostensibly a descendant of Professor James Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes (and who appeared in PROSE: All-Consuming Fire).
 * The name "Watchmakers" was first applied to the Time Lords in PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet.
 * The Watchmakers' Home Era is undergoing a "new liberalism", presumably that which followed on from the events of PROSE: Lungbarrow.
 * The Vo'lach reappeared, and their planet was mentioned, in PROSE: White Canvas, with the Vo'lach appearing in a minor role as one of the powerful species from across the Universe who attended the negotiations for the Christmas Needle Agreement. Both would later appear in PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy.