The Horns of Nimon

Target novelisation Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon

Author	Terrance Dicks
Published	1980
ISBN	0 426 20131 0
First Edition Cover	Steve Kyte

Back cover blurb: In the great maze of the Power Complex dwells the dreaded Nimon, a fearsome monster with immense scientific powers. The Nimon has promised to restore the Skonnan Empire to its former glory. But first it demands sacrifice - youths and maidens from the peaceful planet Aneth. The Tardis collides with the space ship delivering the victims, and the captured Romana is condemned to be sacrificed to the Nimon. Aided by the faithful K9, the Doctor goes to the rescue. In the heart of the maze he confronts the Nimon and uncovers a terrifying plot to enslave the galaxy.

• Myth and mania by Tim Roll-Pickering
• Never Bet Against Terrance by Jason A. Miller

Myth and mania by Tim Roll-Pickering 20/10/08

On screen, The Horns of Nimon is an unabashed party, appropriately transmitted at Christmas time. The novelisation didn't take long to follow, but by the time it arrived the series had become distinctly more serious. Here in print, there are signs of both the old and new approaches - the flippant attitude of the Doctor to his foes is preserved, but there are moments of serious contemplation, showing up the unquestioning approaches of some of the characters such as Soldeed. A prologue explains the rise and fall of the first Skonnan Empire, and how a middle-aged laboratory technician became the ruler of his people when a sphere arrived, helping to place the story in context. Soldeed is presented as slightly more seriously than on screen, but it would be near impossible to reproduce Graham Crowden's performance in print; it's a fair trade off for also losing the weak performances by the Anethans. There's still plenty of madness from the TARDIS being used like a cricket ball to the way the Doctor runs rings around his opponents time and again.

As with so many of its contemporaries, Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon is a solid short read, faithfully adapting the camera script. However, when adapting a story that is very much rooted in performances, this approach can fall flat. Much of the story is absurd even by the series' normal standards and so the Doctor's actions in putting the TARDIS at risk at the outset, the complete failure of the once rulers of a galactic empire to question why the Nimon is helping them or the risky nature of the Nimon's plan that relies on them being able to build multiple transmat stations in time before Crinoth is destroyed are all gaping absurdities that now stand out in full. The mythic roots of the story remain acknowledged, with the Doctor now wondering, as in both the televised and novelisation versions of Underworld, if the myths aren't confused retellings of the past but predictions of the future.

What emerges is a solid, if not particularly exciting, book. But then The Horns of Nimon is an especially distinctive adventure that would always have been a challenge to adapt well, and certainly not suitable for merely transcribing the camera scripts. 4/10

Never Bet Against Terrance by Jason A. Miller 25/5/19

For decades, the rap against Terrance Dicks' novelizations was that his books were too short and that they were merely transcripts of the shooting scripts, not adding anything interesting -- purely juvenile fare, and not worthy of the lofty heights of other writers in the Target stable.

I bought into this criticism for a while. I mean, just on the pure math alone, it's easy to assume that a guy who wrote eight novelizations a year, most of them barely cracking a hundred pages each, was going to cut corners and put out pretty rote, unmemorable work. Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon came out in October 1980. Target put out 11 books in 1980, and Terrance wrote 10 of those alone -- including a junior novelization of The Brain of Morbius. Only Philip Hinchcliffe with Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus got a book in to keep Terrance from monopolizing the year all to himself.

What amazes about Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon, then, is that, coming towards the end of a stretch where Terrance wrote ten books in 13 months, he still manages to be a wizard of clever, economic word choices, sly jabs at the original script and razor-sharp character insights. This is a short, short book, but it's got something to get you to nod your head vigorously with nearly every page.

Terrance starts off with a Prologue, which is something he typically reserved for more "epic" stories. Nimon on TV was most decidedly not epic, but it was based on Greek mythology, so the Prologue casts the backstory in overtly classical terms:

The aggressive streak that had brought them success was to cause their downfall. The noble families fell to fighting amongst themselves, Emperor followed Emperor in quick succession, rival Emperors set up against each other, and soon the Skonnan Empire, like Ancient Rome before it, collapsed from within.

Names are given to the Skonnan battle cruiser pilot (Sekkoth, who isn't around for long), and co-pilot (Sardor, who is). I don't know if these names came from an older Anthony Read draft or if Terrance made them up, but now every named Skonnan character starts with an "S", which tells you lots about the Skonnan mindset. We also learn that Soldeed was a lowly lab tech who stumbled into his role as Skonnan leader quite by accident. Soldeed later grows his "pointed beard in an effort to add authority to his otherwise undistinguished features". Hopefully Graham Crowden didn't read that bit and shout out "I'm not undistinguished!"

You will find that the characters in this book are more muted than on TV, as it omits any changes to the script added in rehearsal (and rehearsal videotape of Tom Baker and Graham Soldeed egging each other on to more and more scenery-chewing excess would be something I'd watch, like, every other day). Sardor doesn't repeatedly shout "Weakling scum!" to the Anethans' faces, and Soldeed doesn't try to pull his face off while shouting three, he has seen three! Tom Baker doesn't pin a rosette on K-9 or give him mouth-to-mouth, but there's enough wit in Read's original scripts that the book is still funny without those extra ad-libs. And Terrance does call K-9 "the Doctor's valued, if sometimes irritating, companion", which is great.

On the other hand, Terrance really burrows into Sorak's head, and walks us thought by thought how Soldeed's second-in-command becomes disenchanted with his boss and looks for ways to relieve him of command. On TV, the Doctor says that Sorak won't be much better than Soldeed as Skonnos' new ruler, but in the book, Terrance leaves Sorak with a more optimistic fate -- which is justified by all the Sorak-POV scenes. Of course, Soldeed doesn't do too badly either; we learn that he's "merely bluffing" with his shows of confidence. Terrance basically turns Soldeed into Greek tragedy. When Sorak questions the Nimon's generosity, we learn that "Soldeed had sometimes wondered the same thing, but he pretended to be outraged". On TV, you feel sad when Soldeed dies because Graham Crowden played him so vividly; in the book, you feel sad when he dies because Terrance makes him quite the unfortunate sap.

Chapter 2 opens, "It was a dark and stormy day". I mean, I can't even. Remember that 1980 was the height of Charles M. Schulz's ongoing Snoopy-as-writer storyline, where every single one of Snoopy's manuscripts began "It was a dark and stormy night". So way to go for Terrance, both honoring Mr. Bulwer-Lytton, and reveling in the late '70s cultural zeitgeist.

Terrance restructures the Part One cliffhanger to remove the Nimon's appearance, and pushes it back into the Part Two material. The first description of the Nimon compares it to a buffalo or a "bull that had learned to talk and walk upon his hind legs like a man". The description of the Nimon's head having "no suggestion of a neck" is another clever cover for the Nimon's neckless on-screen costume. Not to mention covering the prolonged silence of all those non-Equity extras playing the Anethan sacrifices (who are in nearly every scene on TV but never say a word) with a "they're too frightened even to talk" zinger.

Terrance also continues his trend of whitewashing... at least as far as describing brunettes as "fair-haired". He had Harry Sullivan as fair-haired in several earlier books, and here the raven-haired beauty Janet Ellis is also "fair-haired" playing Teka. Seth also tells her to "shut up" at one point, which was thankfully never part of the TV episodes. But Terrance also provides a description of K-9's battery cycle, regenerative powers and fear of heights, which almost makes up for his weaker portrayal of Teka.

The ending includes Terrance adding material to cover up some plot holes from the rushed ending ("They hadn't left immediately after the explosion") and has the Doctor advising Sorak on how to be a better leader. The Doctor also tells Romana (and all the nine-year-olds reading the book in 1980) the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, making more obvious in print what was only heavily alluded to on TV.

In short, this is a little book, but Terrance doesn't waste a word. Character insights, classical allusions, lots of wit. It's not as farcical or whimsical as the TV episodes, but Terrance brings Anthony Read's scripts to life all the same. And all that in less than a hundred pages. Terrance can be the ruler of my own Power Complex any day.