Book description
In 2070, the Earth's weather is controlled from a base on the moon.
But when the Doctor and his friends arrive, all is not well. They
discover unexplained drops of air pressure, minor problems with the
weather control systems, and an outbreak of a mysterious plague.
With Jamie injured, and members of the crew going missing, the
Doctor realises that the moonbase is under attack. Some malevolent
force is infecting the crew and sabotaging the systems as a prelude to
an invasion of Earth. And the Doctor thinks he knows who is behind it:
the Cybermen.
This novel is based on 'The Moonbase', a Doctor Who sci-fi story
that was originally broadcast from 11 February-4 March 1967.
Featuring the Second Doctor as played by Patrick Troughton, and
his companions Polly, Ben and Jamie
Gerry Davis was an experienced television writer when he came
to Doctor Who as Script Editor in 1966. Wanting to explore
stories rooted more closely in real science, Davis contacted Dr Kit
Pedler. The resulting collaboration resulted in several notable Doctor
Who scripts, and in particular the creation of the Cybermen. After
leaving Doctor Who, Gerry Davis continued to work with Kit Pedler, and
together they created the groundbreaking and controversial BBC series
Doomwatch. Gerry Davis returned to Doctor Who in 1975
and novelised several of his and Pedler's Doctor Who stories for
Target books. Davis spent most of the 1980s working in the USA on film
and television projects. He died in 1991.
Christopher ('Kit') Pedler was a medical researcher, and head
of the Electron Microscopy Department at the University of London when
he was recommended to Script Editor Gerry Davis as someone who might
be useful as an adviser to Doctor Who. Davis presented Pedler
with hypothetical, fictional problems and asked to extrapolate what
would happen, the answer to which formed the basis of Doctor Who
stories. Pedler told Davis that as a doctor his greatest phobia was a
time when spare part surgery had reached the stage where it was
commonplace. There would come a point where it was impossible to tell
how much of the original human being remained... From this fear was
created the Cybermen. Kit Pedler died in 1981.
