Nightshade (novel)

Written by Mark Gatiss, Nightshade is the eighth instalment in the series of Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who paperback novels. A New Adventure, it features the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

Publisher's summary
"I have done enough!"

Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding her company, seeking solace in the forgotten rooms and labyrinthine passages of his ancient time machine.

Perhaps he will find the peace he yearns for on his favourite planet, Earth, in the second half of the twentieth century — in the isolated village of Crook Marsham, to be precise, in 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding.

But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless.

What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radio telescope on the moor? What is the significance of the local legends from the Civil War? And what is the aeons-old power that the Doctor is unable to resist?

Plot
Somewhere a group of men gather, and one slips away into a room with eight boxes. He uses a key to enter one and it fades away. Meanwhile, someone has seen him leave and disapproves.

to be added

Characters

 * The Seventh Doctor
 * Ace
 * Edmund Trevithick
 * Jack Prudhoe
 * Lawrence Yeadon
 * Robin Yeadon
 * Vijay Degun
 * Professor Thomas Edward Hawthorne
 * Betty Yeadon
 * Jill Mason
 * Constable George Lowcock
 * Abbot Mervyn Winstanley
 * Holly Kidd
 * James
 * Christine Cooper
 * Tim Medway
 * Billy Coote
 * Win Prudhoe
 * The Sentience
 * Oliver Cromwell

The Doctor

 * The Doctor thinks of Susan almost every day now.
 * The Doctor's departure from Gallifrey was observed.

Individuals

 * Ace's parents met on the dance floor of a sweaty nightclub.
 * Ace decides to leave the Doctor for Robin Yeadon.
 * Jack remembers trips to Ilkley Moor with Win.
 * Bayles began working as a butcher in 1938.
 * Betty Yeadon blamed herself for the death of her brother Alfred Beadle, whom she had encouraged to enlist in the military.
 * Mr Pemberton was consumed by the Sentience.
 * Dr Shearsmith was one of the first people to disappear.

Locations

 * Marsham Castle was built in 1156.

Species

 * The Sentience absorbs the energy from Ace's Nitro-9.

Astronomy

 * The characters refer to features of space such as Andromeda, Bellatrix, black holes, supernovae and galaxies.

Television series

 * Nightshade was a series produced by the BBC. Edmund Trevithick starred as the titular professor from 1953 to 1958.

Continuity

 * PROSE: Set Piece explains why the Doctor's shoulder area is such a tender place.
 * The interaction between the Doctor and Ace in this novel explains some of the events in PROSE: Love and War.
 * PROSE: Happy Endings reveals that Robin Yeadon married Ace's mother, Audrey Dudman.
 * This story suggests that Susan Foreman was not the Doctor's biological granddaughter. It was later confirmed in the novel PROSE: Lungbarrow.
 * This story takes place contemporaneously with several sequences of PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird in which the Doctor and Ace likewise visit England in December 1968.
 * The prologue gives a different account of the Doctor's departure as compared to other sources. One distinction is that Susan does not leave with him. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

Associated Images
The e-book version published by the BBC on their website included several illustrations by Daryl Joyce. Titles of illustrations are as they were on BBC's site.