DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
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Nightshade
By Mark Gatiss
Illustrated by Daryl Joyce
The Changing face of Doctor Who: The illustrations contained
within this ebook portray the Seventh Doctor Who, whose physical
appearance was later transformed when he was fatally wounded
by gunfire.
His companion in this adventure is explosives expert Ace, a
teenager from the 1980s.
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
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Editor�s Note
Nightshade was originally written with a mature
audience in mind, and contains strong language. Some
characters also express racial attitudes prevalent in parts of
British society at the time the book is set. Nightshade may
therefore not be suitable for younger fans of the series.
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
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Author�s Introduction
Ah, nostalgia. So seductive. So dangerous. And so odd to
be feeling it for some of my own work. Nightshade, now
looking like the brittle-paged Tenth Planet I had as a kid, is
fourteen years old! Like a child I never had. I remember it
all so vividly. Seeing the Virgin writers� guidelines in DWB,
writing my specimen chapters, coming home for Christmas
1991 to find the fantastically encouraging letter from Peter
Darvill-Evans, the agonising wait to see whether the New
Adventures would run beyond the initial four books...
The idea for what was originally called Nightfall came to
me on a long coach journey from Leeds to - would you
believe Cardiff? - a city that was then a long way off
becoming the centre of the Doctor Who universe. I spotted a
sci fi novel called Nightfall so the title instantly changed!
The basic concept was this, wouldn�t it be fun if an actor
from an old TV sci-fi series started to see in real life the
monsters he faced in the programme?
At that stage, before the New Adventures had been
announced, I suppose I dimly thought of it as a kind of play
idea. A Play for Today idea, really. Although such things
were extinct by the early 90s. I hadn�t long graduated from
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
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college and was living a precariously hand to mouth
existence in a haunted house in Leeds (It really was! 97
Archery Rd. Go and have a look!).
I had yet to make any sort of mark in showbiz but, when I
read about Virgin�s plans to continue the recently defunct
Doctor Who I felt in my bones: I CAN DO THIS. What
appealed to me enormously, apart from the sheer thrill of
being published was to have a shot at writing Doctor Who
(the real thing, of course, was now impossible. Ha!). Not
only that, but to write Doctor Who as I thought it should be
done, effectively redressing what I felt to have been wrong
with the programme in its later years.
As a result, what surprises me now, re-reading the book
after so many years is how SERIOUS it is. Grim, in fact. But
you have to remember that I was reacting against the sort of
garish Who of the late Eighties that I�d found an increasing
turn-off. Things were undoubtedly getting better, just when
the programme was cancelled, but there was still a sort of
muddled quality, an almost perverse refusal to tell a straight
-forward story that I found very frustrating. So I wanted
�Nightshade� to be an ultra- grim and horrific adventure in
the mould of favourites such as Genesis of the Daleks, The
Caves of Androzani and Frontios.
I liked the irony also that it was a story about the dangers
of nostalgia that was in itself, nostalgic. But I�d better start at
the beginning, I suppose...
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
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Prologue
All around the cluttered cloisters, musty rooms and high,
vaulted halls there was a deep and tangible hush. The only
light in the virtually impenetrable gloom was of a peculiarly
pellucid green, spilling out feebly from every heavy wooden
door and misaligned stone. Everywhere, there was a terrible
sense of stagnancy, imbuing the whole place with a fetid,
neglected atmosphere as though some great cathedral had
been flooded by a brackish lagoon.
From out of the cobwebbed shadows emerged a little
group of very old men, resplendent in their ornately
decorated robes.
The least ancient of the group, a white-haired individual
with piercing eyes and a down-turned, haughty mouth,
lifted the hem of his robes as he detached himself from the
others, sending little flurries of dust over the flagstones. He
murmured a few words of apology to his comrades and
melted away into the shadows.
After a time he came to a small door inset in the
crumbling stonework. He looked about him, senses alert,