Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden (novelisation)
Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden was a novelisation based on the 1979 television serial Nightmare of Eden.
Publisher's summary
A freak accident locks two ships together in space – and a distress call brings the Fourth Doctor, Romana, and the faithful K9 onto the scene.
The Doctor's efforts to separate the two ships involve him with treacherous drug smugglers, ferocious monsters, and a savagely dangerous planet called Eden...
Chapter titles
- Warp Smash
- The Collector
- The Attack
- Monster in the Fog
- Drugged
- The Fugitive
- The Rescuer
- Man-eater
- Monster Attack
- The Plotters
- The Secret of the Hecate
- The Smugglers
- Round-up
- Electronic Zoo
Deviations from televised story
- Secker's addiction killed him, rather than the wounds caused by the Mandrels in the televised story.
- Della is described as wearing space coveralls like the other passengers.
- Instead of claiming he originally had a crew of ten as on television, Tryst states it was just himself, Della and Stott.
- The Doctor notes that no-one ever discovered the source of vraxoin which was believed to have been lost when the last of the smugglers died.
- The thing that attacks Romana out of the Eden projection is specified as a Somno-Moth, an insect that takes a small amount of people's blood.
- There are several small dialogue changes, often removing the humour. For instance, Rigg dismisses the dying passengers as "tourist passengers" rather than "economy class" and Tryst reusing Fisk's "Because he's a criminal" explanation is replaced with him suggesting the Doctor used the collision as a cover to sneak on board.
- There is a number of examples of additional explanatory dialogue, such as Tryst stating he tried to drug Romana in order to stop her telling people about the unstable projection and the Doctor stating there must have been a matter interface behind the bulkhead they removed.
- The sequence of Stott saving Romana from a Mandrel is reordered to make it more logical, with Stott following the creature out of the interface rather than already being behind Romana.
- The Doctor advises Stott to have Eden quarantined at the climax to stop anyone else finding out the link between the Mandrels and vraxoin.
- The Doctor refers to Dymond's device as an encoder laser rather than an enchooka laser.
- The scenes of Fisk and Costa searching the passenger lounge after the Doctor and Romana have entered the Eden projection and Tryst discovering the CET machine has been tampered with are omitted.
- Romana is grabbed by the carnivorous Eden plant with the Doctor.
Writing and publishing notes
- The 1983 Target reprint erroneously gives 1978 as the year of first publication on the copyright page.
Additional cover images
1980 Hardback edition
British publication history
First publication:
- Hardback
- W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK
- Paperback
- Target
Re-issues:
Audiobook
This Target Book was released as an audiobook on 6 October 2022 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Dan Starkey.
The cover blurb and thumbnail illustrations were retained in the accompanying booklet with sleevenotes by David J. Howe. Music and sound effects by Simon Power.
Audiobook cover
