Nightshade (novel)

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Written by Mark Gatiss, Nightshade is the eighth installment 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 Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic.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

Characters

The Seventh Doctor
- The Doctor needs help on his missions and can't allow Ace to go.

Ace
- Ace's parents met on the dance floor of a sweaty nightclub.
- Decides to leave the Doctor for Robin, the Doctor deliberately lands on an alien planet, unable to let Ace go.

Edmund Trevithick
- He starred in Nightshade from 1953 to 1958.

Jack Prudhoe

Lawrence Yeadon

Robin Yeadon
- Ace kisses him to calm him from hysteria.
- Waits months for Ace to return.

Vijay Degun

Professor Thomas Edward Hawthorne

Betty Yeadon

Jill Mason

Constable George Lowcock

Abbot Mervyn Winstanley

Holly Kidd

Christine Cooper

Tim Medway

Billy Coote

Win Prudhoe

The Sentience

Notes

First Doctor Who novel for actor-writer Mark Gatiss, who would go on to write and appear in several of the independent spin-off productions before finding fame in the TV series The League of Gentlemen. In the 2000s he would go on to write episodes for the Doctor Who revival and play Richard Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment.
A character named Dr Shearsmith is mentioned, a possible reference to Gatiss' fellow The League of Gentlemen creator and co-star Reece Shearsmith.
The character of Nightshade was inspired by Bernard Quatermass.
A prelude to this novel was published in DWM Issue 190.

Continuity

NA: Set Piece explains why the Doctor's shoulder area is such a tender place.
Ace and the Doctor's interaction in this novel explains some of the events in NA: Love and War.
NA: Happy Endings reveals that Robin Yeadon married Ace's mum.
This story suggests that Susan Foreman was not the Doctor’s biological grand-daughter. It was later confirmed in the novel NA: Lungbarrow