Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Authors
Also available from BBC Books
Title Page
Introduction by Stephen Baxter
The Changing Face of Doctor Who
1. The Secret of the Snows
2. The Creature in the Cave
3. Live Bait to Catch a Monster
4. Jamie Traps a Yeti
5. The Secret of the Inner Sanctum
6. A Yeti Comes to Life!
7. A Plan to Conquer Earth
8. Revolt in the Monastery
9. Attack of the Yeti
10. Peril on the Mountain
11. The Final Battle
12. The Abominable Snowman
Between the Lines
Copyright
About the Book
‘Light flooded into the tunnel, silhouetting the enormous shaggy figure in the cave mouth. With a blood-curdling roar, claws outstretched, it bore down on Jamie.’
The Doctor has been to Det-Sen Monastery before, and expects the welcome of a lifetime. But the monastery is a very different place from when the Doctor last came. Fearing an attack at any moment by the legendary Yeti, the monks are prepared to defend themselves, and see the Doctor as a threat.
The Doctor and his friends join forces with Travers, an English explorer out to prove the existence of the elusive abominable snowmen. But they soon discover that these Yeti are not the timid animals that Travers seeks. They are the unstoppable servants of an alien Intelligence.
This novel is based on a Doctor Who story which was originally broadcast from 30 September–4 November 1967.
Featuring the Second Doctor as played by Patrick Troughton, and his companions Jamie and Victoria
About the Authors
Terrance Dicks
Born in East Ham in London in 1935, Terrance Dicks worked in the advertising industry after leaving university before moving into television as a writer. He worked together with Malcolm Hulke on scripts for The Avengers as well as other series before becoming Assistant and later full Script Editor of Doctor Who from 1968.
Working closely with friend and Series Producer Barry Letts, Dicks worked on the entirety of the Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s era of the programme, and returned as a writer – scripting Tom Baker’s first story as the Fourth Doctor: ‘Robot’. He left Doctor Who to work as first Script Editor and then Producer on the BBC’s prestigious Classic Serials, and to pursue his writing career on screen and in print. His later scriptwriting credits on Doctor Who included the twentieth-anniversary story ‘The Five Doctors’.
Terrance Dicks novelised many of the original Doctor Who stories for Target, and discovered a liking and talent for prose fiction. He has written extensively for children, creating such memorable series and characters as T.R. Bear and the Baker Street Irregulars, as well as continuing to write original Doctor Who novels for BBC Books.
Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln
Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln worked, together and separately, on scripts for various TV series in the 1960s, including Doctor Finlay’s Casebook, Emergency Ward 10 and Doctor Who. They also wrote the script for the 1968 horror film Curse of the Crimson Altar.
Two of their Doctor Who scripts featured the Yeti – servants of an alien Intelligence – which proved very popular and memorable. The second of these stories, ‘The Web of Fear’, also introduced the character of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart who – promoted to Brigadier – became a regular character when the Third Doctor worked with UNIT during the early 1970s. Their third script together, ‘The Dominators’, credited to the pseudonymous Norman Ashby, introduced the Quarks.
Haisman, who had previously been an actor, and managed a theatre company, continued to write television during the 1970s and 1980s. He died in October 2010, aged 82.
Lincoln, who had also been an actor under his real name of Henry Soskin, developed a fascination with the mysteries surrounding the French village of Rennes-le-Château and scripted and presented a series of documentaries about it for the BBC in the 1970s. He co-authored the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, much of which was based on his own research and ideas from which were incorporated into Dan Brown’s phenomenally successful novel The Da Vinci Code. Lincoln now lives and works in Rennes-le-Château.
Also available from BBC Books:
DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS
David Whitaker
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CRUSADERS
David Whitaker
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CYBERMEN
Gerry Davis
DOCTOR WHO AND THE AUTON INVASION
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CAVE MONSTERS
Malcolm Hulke
INTRODUCTION
BY
Stephen Baxter
This novel is based on the Doctor Who serial ‘The Abominable Snowmen’. I was not quite 10 years old when this serial was first broadcast by the BBC from September 1967. All these years later, I can remember the family watching the programme together in our living room, and I recall vivid images and scenes from the show: in this case the brooding mountain-top monastery, the enigmatic monks, the mixture of strange monsters and alien high-tech, the unfolding mystery: ‘That horrible creature… What was it?’ ‘I dinna ken, lassie. But it was verra strong. Did you see what it did to my sword?’
‘Snowmen’ was a highlight of the second season starring Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor. Troughton has always remained my own favourite Doctor, thanks to his charismatic mix of physical comedy, kindliness, cheeky quick wits, and, when he needed it, a deep authority. But Troughton was blessed with some excellent scripts and cracking productions. ‘Snowmen’ was sandwiched between a Cyberman adventure and the debut of that eerie foe from Mars, the Ice Warriors. It was (almost) enough for us fans to forgive the BBC for apparently killing off the Daleks at the end of the previous series… Of course, as the Doctor knows, you can never write off the Daleks.
Shot in August and September 1967, this story featured a lot of location work, with Snowdonia in Wales standing in for Tibet. Professor Travers was played by the real-life father of Deborah Watling, who played the Doctor’s companion Victoria. Even before ‘Snowmen’ was screened, the production team were so pleased with it that they commissioned a sequel, ‘The Web of Fear’, shown later in the same season, which features the Yeti infesting the London Underground: ‘London, in fact the whole of England, might be completely wiped out!’
In 1973, when Target Books, a new imprint publishing children’s titles, got the chance to publish novelisations of the Doctor Who serials, a call to the production office at the BBC brought an enthusiastic response from Script Editor Terrance Dicks, who volunteered to write some of the books himself. The first serial to be novelised was Jon Pertwee’s debut adventure ‘Spearhead from Space’ (published as Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion and reissued along with this novel). It was the first book of any kind Dicks had written.
And it was the start of a seventeen-year association between Target and Dicks, who went on to write an astounding sixty-four novelisations, including Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen and Doctor Who and the Web of Fear. He also wrote Doctor Who tie-in books, stage plays and audio plays, and later contributed original Doctor Who novels for Virgin Publishing and the BBC, in addition to writing his own original children’s books.
Working on Doctor Who was clearly a labour of love for Dicks – as well as a steady source of income, always invaluable for a freelance writer. In a history of the Target books published in 2007, Dicks said that some of the scripts for the new era of the show had been ‘written by people who grew up
reading my Who novelisations at their mother’s knee. Some of them have been kind enough to tell me so… It was nice to still be a small part of the legend.’
Dicks deserves to be remembered, for his work showed a great deal of skill. He rendered the television stories into clear, straightforward, compelling prose. The novelising writer had to work in seamless introductions to the show’s premise for new readers, as well as background character sketches of the companions. Sometimes other changes were necessary. In ‘Snowmen’, the writers had used the names of figures from the real history of Buddhism. Doctor Who’s then producer, Barry Letts, suggested Dicks change these slightly to avoid any risk of offence.
Dicks always worked hard to make his novels a proper reflection of their sources in the TV serials. He was quoted in that Target history as saying, ‘I see the task of the novelisation as reproducing the effect of watching the TV show in the reader’s head. Sometimes, with no budgetary restrictions, you can even improve on it.’
When the first Target books were published in 1973, I was a little older than the intended readership – though I read a good few of the books anyhow. And with the passage of time these books assumed an unexpected importance. The disastrous wiping of tapes of archived 1960s Doctor Who episodes is well known. The Troughton era seems to have been particularly hard hit; only one episode of ‘Snowmen’ is known to exist (Episode 2), and one of ‘The Web of Fear’ (Episode 1). (You can view these and other relic episodes on the BBC DVD Lost in Time.)
Nowadays there are audio versions of some of the lost shows, and even animated recreations of some missing episodes. But for a very long time the only way to experience these much-loved but long-vanished serials was through the Target novelisations. Thus Terrance Dicks and the other Target writers performed a quite invaluable service in ‘saving’ these stories, not only for the benefit of the original viewers of the lost shows, but also for the subsequent generations of fans who never got the chance to see them even once.
So don’t think of this book as just another novel. It’s a slice of Who history. And as you turn the page – travel back in time, to September 1967. It’s only a year since England’s World Cup win. In the year of the Summer of Love, the Beatles and the Stones are at their peak. As a Who fan you’re sure to be aware that Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons has just made its TV debut.
And now it’s twenty-five past five on a Saturday afternoon, the Grandstand teleprinter has finished clattering out the football scores, and you join Dad before the thick glass screen of the family telly. The familiar radiophonic theme tune hisses out of the set’s tiny speaker… a rush of psychedelic effects in silvery black and white washes away to reveal the Second Doctor’s smiling face… and we dissolve to a scene of a sputtering camp fire on a bleak Tibetan mountainside… a lonely figure, huddled in the dark… an eerie scream… a huge, looming figure… a familiar blue box materialising…
The adventure begins.
The Changing Face of Doctor Who
The Second Doctor
This Doctor Who novel features the second incarnation of the Doctor. After his first encounter with the Cybermen, the Doctor changed form. His old body was apparently worn out, and so he replaced it with a new, younger one. The scratchy, arrogant old man that had been the First Doctor was replaced with a younger and apparently far softer character. The First Doctor’s cold, analytical abilities gave way to apparent bluster and a tendency to panic under pressure.
But with the Second Doctor more than any other, first impressions are misleading. The Doctor’s apparent bluster and ineptitude masks a deeper, darker nature. But there are moments too when the Second Doctor’s humanity also shines through. There is ultimately no doubt that his raison d’être is to fight the evil in the universe.
Jamie
James Robert McCrimmon is the son of Donald McCrimmon, and a piper like his father and his father’s father. Coming from 1746, Jamie is simple and straightforward, but he is also intelligent and blessed with a good deal of common sense. Almost everything is new to him, and while he struggles to understand he also enjoys the experience. Jamie is also extremely brave, never one to shirk a fight or run away.
Ultimately, Jamie sees the Doctor as a friend as well as a mentor. While he relishes the chance to travel and learn and have adventures, he also believes that the Doctor really does need his help.
Victoria
Victoria is a reluctant adventurer. She travels with the Doctor through necessity rather than choice after her father was exterminated by the Daleks, leaving her stranded on Skaro. Until she was kidnapped by the Daleks, Victoria led a sheltered and unsophisticated life. But she is clever and intelligent.
Despite the fact that both tease her at every opportunity, Victoria cares deeply for the Doctor and Jamie. But while she enjoys her time in their company, she still misses her father. She remains forever an unwilling adventurer.
1
The Secret of the Snows
High on the Himalayan mountainside the little camp fire was burning low. Edward Travers shivered, and huddled deeper inside his sleeping-bag. He was drifting in and out of an uneasy slumber, fantasy and reality merging and blurring in his mind. In his dream, he was at the Royal Geographical Society, addressing a scornful and hostile audience.
‘Gentlemen, I assure you – the body of evidence that has accumulated over the years is undeniable. The Abominable Snowman does exist.’
He heard again the hated voice of his old rival, Professor Walters. ‘If you’re as sure as that, my dear Travers, I suggest you go and look for the beast!’
Once more Travers heard the scornful laughter that followed. He heard his own voice. ‘Thank you for the suggestion, sir. Perhaps I will.’
Travers twisted and muttered in his sleep. Scene followed scene in his mind, like a jerky, speeded-up old film: the desperate struggle to raise money for his expedition; the final, half-scornful agreement of a Fleet Street editor to back him; the long journey to India; the endless days of overland travel to reach the slopes of the Himalayas; still more days spent climbing, always climbing, to reach this remote point. And all for nothing.
Soon they would have to turn back, the expedition a failure. Back in London there would be polite sympathy, concealing quiet amusement. Only Mackay would stand by him. Mackay, his oldest and best friend, the only man who had agreed to join his expedition. Yet now it seemed that even Mackay had turned against him. Mackay was laughing at him, screaming insults.
Suddenly Travers jerked fully awake. He really could hear Mackay’s voice. It was calling to him. Screaming for help… Travers rubbed his eyes and looked across the circle of light round the camp fire. Mackay’s sleeping-bag was empty. There were tracks leading out into the darkness. Travers fumbled for his rifle and struggled from his sleeping-bag. Then he set off towards the sound of Mackay’s voice. He scrambled over the edge of the little plateau, and down the rocky slope.
In the darkness ahead of him he could see two struggling figures. One was Mackay. But the other… It was enormous – a giant, shaggy form. Travers tried to call out, but could only produce a sort of croak. Instantly the creature flung Mackay to the ground. It whirled round to attack Travers. He raised his rifle, but before he could fire it was wrenched from his hands. Travers caught a brief glimpse of glowing eyes and savage fangs. Then a blow from a giant, hairy paw smashed him to the ground.
Back at the little camp-site the fire was almost out. The guttering of the flames threw a feeble light on the two empty sleeping-bags. The shadow of a huge shuffling figure fell over the site. Something was tossed contemptuously into the dying fire. It was Mackay’s rifle. The barrel was bent almost double, the stock shattered into matchwood. The giant shape moved away and vanished into the night.
Next morning, a little higher on that same Himalayan peak, a wheezing, groaning sound shattered the peace and stillness of the mountain air. An old blue police box appeared from nowhere, transparent at first, but gradually becoming solid. It perched on a
snowy ledge, looking completely out of place.
Inside the police box was an ultra-modern control room, with a centre console of complex instruments. There was something very odd about this police box. Somehow it was bigger on the inside than on the outside.
There were three people in the control room. One was a middle-aged, middle-sized man with a gentle, rather comical face, and a shock of untidy black hair. He was wearing an old black coat, and a pair of rather baggy check trousers. Watching him were a brawny youth in highland dress, complete with kilt, and a small, dark girl dressed in the style of Earth’s Victorian age. Appropriately enough, since her name was Victoria.
She was the daughter of a Victorian antique dealer, who had lost his life during a terrifying adventure with the Daleks. Alone and friendless, Victoria had been taken under the protection of a mysterious traveller in Space and Time known only as the Doctor.
Much the same thing had happened to Jamie, the Scots lad, whose fate had become caught up with the Doctor’s during the Jacobite rebellion. Now both young people, wrenched from their own times, spent their lives travelling through Time and Space with the Doctor in the strangely disguised craft known as the TARDIS. (The Doctor had told Victoria that the initials stood for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space – which left her none the wiser.)
Victoria sometimes wondered if her decision to join the Doctor had been a wise one. He was very kind, in his vague, erratic way, and she was very fond of him. But he did seem to have a knack of wandering into the most appalling danger. Victoria, like most girls of her time, had had a rather sheltered upbringing. Her travels with the Doctor had brought her a number of rather nerve-shattering experiences. But despite her initial timidity, she was discovering unexpected resources of courage inside herself.
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