NA 9: Nightshade (Spoilers)

One thing that I've noticed with quite a few Doctor Who novels is a tendency for the author to write about tons of characters and then kill most of them off throughout the story. Sometimes it feels a bit superfluous, but in this case, it works very well. You really get the sense that this is a bustling village at the beginning of the novel and practically a ghost town at the end.

There are a few obvious plot points, of course, but they're par for the course once you realise how the monster works. After the first couple attacks, you assume that when someone mentions a lost loved one or a special time in their life, that's going to come back to haunt them. That's true in most cases, but there are some subversions.

Vijay, in particular, is good at not dwelling on the past and while he still holds a bit of nostalgia for the old days, is never attacked. Robin is having trouble dealing with the death of Betty and his dad and can't quite process it - so he never sees a ghost along the way. My personal favourite subversion, though, is that Edmund Trevithick never sees his dead daughter. And Gatiss doesn't just mention her in passing. She's mentioned again and again and yet, it's the monster from Nightshade that Trevithick sees. Maybe it's because he still has hope for that, but has moved on from his daughter's death. Maybe it's something darker than that - the work is what he truly cares about. I'm inclined to think it's the latter, given that even in his final moments, it's Nightshade he's talking about, Nightshade he's longing for.

There is also some fantastic imagery in this novel. There are two particular deaths that stand out for me as gruesome and horrifying - the monk, who misses his strong faith, embracing a false Christ and the death of Hawthorne, where he is killed by the racist image of a "tar baby" which had informed his xenophobia as a child. Two very different images, one heart-rending (the monk is a rather nice character for the most part) and one oddly satisfying (the novel's Hawthorne is not a nice guy) but still utterly horrific.

But the biggest emotional moment to me is when Ace summons the image of her mother. This works so well following Timewyrm: Revelation (her mum calls her Dorry and mentions Chad Boyle) and so well leading into Love and War. This is also an example of when something comes out of nowhere but works fantastically. Ace might mention her mother briefly in one of the early chapters but there's no major discussion of resentment or estrangement. It's something that relies on a reader's knowledge of the character from the TV series and previous novels and it works beautifully for me.

The only thing I might say against the book is that the ending happens so quickly that we're not given very much closure for Ace and the Doctor. This would be fine if Love and War started directly after Nightshade, but it doesn't. I've only skimmed it in the past (and listened to the audio twice) so I went back to read the first chapter or so to look for anything that resolved the cliffhanger here. There isn't anything. In fact, the novel says it "had been a long time since Ace had been kissed" - so not only do we not get a resolution, "a long time" passes between the two books. Whether that's down to Mark Gatiss or Paul Cornell or Peter Darvill-Evans is a mystery, but it just seems odd.

The abruptness of the ending aside, the book is a great example of great Who and it deserves its established status as a classic.

Most of the changes between the book and the audio spring from a simple truth: There's only so much you can do with two hours of time, limited money to hire actors and a complete lack of visuals. So, yes, they cut a lot of characters - the monastery is mentioned once in passing and the monks are never seen, Vijay and Dr. Cooper are absorbed by Hawthorne, Holly's role is sort of split between Hawthorne and Jill, Betty is completely replaced by her husband Lawrence, Billy Coote is removed entirely and many of the early disappearances are related rather than seen.

A couple of these choices tighten up the story. Hawthorne's original story in the novel would be very hard to realise on audio, and while Abbot Winstanley was a major part of the novel, removing him is understandable. Removing Vijay and Holly is a little more troublesome for me, because their story definitely does add something to the pacing and tension - Hawthorne's racism is completely removed and Holly is no longer one of the first people to be attacked by the monster. But I suppose if you're going to only pick one of the four radio telescope characters, you'd pick Hawthorne. He's the kind of ornery cuss that keeps dialogue flowing.

The only change that baffles me is swapping Betty out for Lawrence. In the novel, Lawrence is Robin's father and Betty is his step-mother. Lawrence's original role in the story largely revolves around what happens to Betty and as such, that original role is largely gone here. So why keep Lawrence at all? Why not just cast someone to play Betty instead? I don't think this is a major problem for the story or anything, I just think it's kind of strange, especially because another female voice would add a little diversity in the audio mix.

But basically, the audio keeps the core of the story - there's a monster feeding on nostalgia, Ace falls in love with Robin, the Doctor considers retiring and Robin loses a parent along the way. It does it well and I could see someone really liking this story from just the audio, but I definitely preferred the novel. A lot of the best imagery is gone, because this is a very description-based story. Someone said that in a previous thread about novel adaptations, actually - that they were surprised that Nightshade was being produced because of all the descriptive passages - and I totally agree. It would have made one heck of a TV story, but even then, I think it was in the best format to begin with. Of course, this is the first audio adaptation where I've read the original book, so these thoughts might in fact be common to all of the stories produced so far - after all, my entire criticism is basically "They only had two hours to work with and had to do it on audio" which is more a description of the range than a real critique.

I will add three final points where I thought the audio improved on the book significantly, the first being the moment when Robin picks up on a couple of Ace's anachronisms. In the novel, the scene goes nowhere and Ace later explains to Robin that the Doctor is an alien and she's from the future, a conversation which also goes nowhere. In the audio, Szikora combined the two and it feels a lot more natural.

While reading the book, I also really hoped that Sylvester would read out the "One day, I will come back." scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth in the audio, as it does appear in the text as he's trying to summon Susan at the end - and he does, and it works quite well.

Finally, the end with Ace deciding to stay. Oh, it's so much better. The Doctor and Ace actually talk instead of the abrupt, ambiguous ending of the novel. You can even see it as a sort of What Happened Next for the original novel. It's well-written and completely original to the audio production and is the biggest improvement therein.