by Phiip Hinchcliffe
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- December 1977
- (Book Number: 42)
Other Editions
Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora
UK / Hardback / Longbow/WH Allen / January 1978
USA / Paperback / Pinnacle Books / November 1979 / #8
Docteur Who: Le Masque de Mandragore
France / Paperback / Editions Garancière / August 1987 / No.6
Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora
UK / Paperback / Target Books / September 1991 / No.42
Back Cover Blurb — Target Books (1977)
Forced off course by the Mandragora Helix, the Tardis lands in the province of San Martino in fifteenth-century Italy. Here, the court astrologer, Hieronymous, has been taken over by the Mandragora energy-form — Hieronymous and the other members of his star-worshipping black magic cult will be used as a bridgehead, enabling the Mandragora Helix to conquer the Earth and rule it through their chosen servants.
The Doctor has to defeat not only the Mandragora energy, but the evil schemes of the murderous Count Frederico who plans to usurp the place of his nephew, the rightful ruler of the province.
Back Cover Blurb — Pinnacle Books
IN 1492, DOCTOR WHO CAME OUT OF THE BLUE
It is the Italian Renaissance during the corrupt reign of the powerful Medicis. Doctor Who, angry because he was forced to land on Earth by the incredible Mandragora Helix, walks right into a Machiavellian plot. The unscrupulous Count Frederico plans to usurp the rightful rule of his naive nephew. This, with the help of Hieronymous, influential court astrologer and secret cult member.
Intent on righting all wrongs, Doctor Who studies their political maneuvers. He uncovers a larger, even more malevolent plot — a plot to rule not only San Martino Province, but the entire world! Hieronymous has been taken over — both in mind and body — by the Mandragora energy ball, an alien, but all-powerful intelligence. Using Hieronymous and his cult members as a bridgehead, the Mandragora Helix intends to conquer Earth and dominate its people!
The question is, will Doctor Who prove a true Renaissance man? Will he be able to drain the Mandragora of its power and foil the Count as well?
Television Story
The Masque of Mandragora
Script Writer: Louis Marks
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
04/09/76 Part One
11/09/76 Part Two
18/09/76 Part Three
25/09/76 Part Four
DVD
All episodes exist and are due to be released on Region 2 DVD in the UK in 2010.
Regular Characters
Fourth Doctor / Sarah Jane Smith
Audio Book
- UK
- BBC Audiobooks
- 4 × CD / Download
- 3 hours 38 minutes
- April 2009
Unabridged reading of the novelisation, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith who played
Marco in the original television story.
Notes
- Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora was the second of Philip Hinchcliffe's three Doctor Who novelisations for Target Books, and like Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom, it was also a story which he had produced for the television series. His final work for Target would be novelising the Season One story The Keys of Marinus in 1980.
- The Masque of Mandragora was the last of Louis Marks' four stories for the television series, after Planet of Giants in 1964, Day of the Daleks in 1972 and Planet of Evil in 1975.
- Despite The Masque of Mandragora leaving the door open for a possible sequel set in the late twentieth century, the idea was never returned to in the television series, and it was left to Doctor Who Magazine to pick up the threads in 1991, when they published The Mark of Mandragora between issues 169 and 172. The previous two issues had featured prequels to the main story under the titles Darkness Falling and Distractions. All five parts were written by Dan Abnett (more recently seen writing the original Torchwood novel Border Princes) and were collected in April 1994, along with a number of other Seventh Doctor comic strips from the era, as The Mark of Mandragora (Virgin Publishing, ISBN: 0-426-203960-8).
More recently, an original novel featuring the Mandragora Helix, Gary Russell's Beautiful Chaos, was published as part of the New Series Adventures range in December 2008.