Nightshade (Doctor Who)
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| Author | Mark Gatiss |
|---|---|
| Series |
Doctor Who book: Virgin New Adventures |
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Release number
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8 |
| Subject | Featuring: Seventh Doctor Ace |
| Publisher | Virgin Books |
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Publication date
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August 1992 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Cat's Cradle: Witchmark |
| Followed by | Love and War |
Nightshade is an original novel written by Mark Gatiss and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor and Ace. A prelude to the novel, also penned by Gatiss, appeared in Doctor Who Magazine #190.
The year is 1968, and as the BBC rebroadcasts episodes of the classic SF serial "Nightshade", the townsfolk of Crook Marsham prepare for a lonely Christmas. At the local retirement home, actor Edmund Trevithick learns that a reporter is coming to interview him about his role as Professor Nightshade, and goes to sleep dreaming of past successes. But later that night, the scientists at the local radiotelescope are baffled by a sudden energy surge from an unknown source, which floods their instruments and blots out the signals they were monitoring from a nova in the vicinity of Bellatrix. Trevithick wakes to find that his window has been smashed open, and he faints when an evil voice in the darkness hisses the name of Professor Nightshade. Meanwhile, Jack Prudhoe is drowning his sorrows at Lawrence Yeadon's pub, thinking back on the failure he's made of his life, when his wife Win runs by the window—young again, and as full of life as she was before the death of their young son crushed her spirit. Almost delirious with joy, Jack follows her out of the village to the moor… where something horrible happens.
The TARDIS materialises in Crook Marsham as dawn breaks. The Doctor is in a pensive mood, and he shouts angrily at Ace when she finds his granddaughter Susan's clothing and dresses in it as a joke. Telling Ace that he needs to think about things for a while, he sends her off to explore the town while he visits the local monastery to reconsider his self-appointed role as guardian of the cosmos. Ace meets Robin Yeadon, the pub owner's teenage son, and becomes curious when Vijay Degun, a technician from the radiotelescope, comes in search of a working telephone only to find that the entire town's phone system is down. Seeking excitement, Ace hides in the back seat of Vijay's car and is taken to the radiotelescope, and while exploring she finds a guard's rapidly decomposing body near a hole in the fence. She enters the building to tell the others, but nobody believes her claim; particularly not the head of research, the racist Professor Hawthorne.
Lawrence Yeadon's wife Betty goes into hysterics while preparing for a bath, claiming to have seen her dead brother Alf climbing out of the water. She has always blamed herself for his death during the war, since she feels she shamed him into enlisting. Lawrence sends Robin to fetch Doctor Shearsmith, but Robin finds Shearsmith's offices empty and instead goes to the old folks’ home to ask Jill Mason for help. Jill is seeing off her charges as they leave town to visit their families, and Constable Lowcock is questioning Trevithick about the previous night's incident. He and Trevithick accompany Robin back to the pub, where Lawrence tells Robin to take care of Betty while he and Lowcock fetch help from the next village over.
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