learning the nature of time travel. This had led to tense relations between the Time Lords and The People. The People appear to be a combination of biological and artificial beings; they can switch their forms or their minds at will or even as punishment, one day a humanoid person, the next day the intelligence of a spaceship. Influences The title is a quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where in response to Arthur Dent's astonishment at the people and "things" he encounters Ford Prefect remarks that the things are also people. The society of the People has a very close resemblance to the Culture of Iain M. Banks: the "everything is free" moneyless utopia, the built-in ability of the humanoid citizens to change sex and control their reproduction, the origin of the humanoids as a genofixed merger of several humanoid alien species, the floating intelligent machines known as drones, the intelligent ships and their classifications, the coordination (arguably, quiet rule) of the structure by a single superintelligent computer. The influence has been openly acknowledged by Aaronovitch on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written; the book itself contains in the Acknowledgements the line "I'd like to remind everyone that while talent borrows and genius steals, New Adventure writers get it off the back of a lorry, no questions asked." References 1995 British novels 1995 science fiction novels Virgin New Adventures Novels by Ben Aaronovitch Seventh Doctor novels