This book has actually been rumoured that is was going to be adapted by the television series a couple of times already. It is easy to see why. As well as being an excellent SF horror tale, it also deliciously links the fictional world of Doctor Who with one of its great early influences, Nigel Kneales Quatermass serials, here thinly disguised as Nightshade. There was even talk of Tom Baker playing the part of Edmund Trevithick, an elderly actor once famous for playing the lead role in a BBC SF drama. Sadly it was just speculation but it would have been an amusing touch in itself. The plot is the classic one of an English village that comes under attack by an ancient alien horror that has been buried under the earth for many centuries. An alien entity that can take on the form of anyone or anything that its victim feels guilty about or secretly fears. For Betty Yeardon for example it is her dead brother rising from the bath, the brother she shamed into joining up during WWII, only for him to be killed. For Trevithick, stuck in an old peoples home dreaming of past stardom, it is the insect monsters of Nightshade brought to life. And for the Doctor well he has so many ghosts on his conscience. The book is full of great horror set pieces as various characters are lured to their death. The sub-plot of the Seventh Doctor facing his guilt and reconciling with Ace is pretty strong too and would be great to retain in some form. Nightshade was Mark Gatiss first novel, written in 1992, before he became famous as one of The League of Gentlemen. (A Dr Shearsmith appears in the novel in fact, an in-joke only fellow Leaguer Reece Shearsmith would appreciate) As a result he pours all his love for gothic Doctor Who, 60s British horror and Quatermass into it and it shows in a thrilling story that deserves to be experienced by a much wider audience.
