The Web of Fear

[purplecat]

This was one of the first novelisations I ever bought (though I already had The Abominable Snowman - IIRC I bought this one because I recognised the yeti on the cover) and it completely terrified me. I seem to recall setting it aside because I couldn't continue it, and eventually got through it by reading backwards from the end in chunks.

It doesn't seem that scary these days.

Comments

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

How old were you when you read it? I don't think I was ever scared by a Target novel (maybe a little by Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons) but I was scared by some TV episodes.

[purplecat]

I've been trying to recall when I got it. My copy says it is the 1978 impression, so I must have been at least 7 at the time. This was before I started buying DWM (age 11) and I'm fairly sure I had The Making of Doctor Who "some time" before I started buying DWM but after I'd bought Web of Fear - mind you "some time" in the mind of a child may not be that long.

I would guess age 8 or 9, but its only a guess.

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

Ah, so probably about the same age as I was when I was scared by the Terror of the Autons novel and terrified by some clips of that story and Spearhead from Space that I saw on TV.

I think I first saw a glimpse of Doctor Who when I was about two or three years old (this would be season twenty-three or twenty-four - I think possibly the first episode of The Trial of a Time Lord and was so scared that I didn't go anywhere near it again until I was eight!

[purplecat]

My family were watching Doctor Who when I was very little so I almost saw it before I remember anything - my first memory is from Invasion of the Dinosaurs and my next from Planet of Evil - but I'm told that, age 4, I had strong opinions about the unsuitability of Tom Baker to play the Doctor.

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

My parents drifted away during the McCoy years, which explains my lack of exposure to it! My Mum and my Grandma took me to a Doctor Who exhibition when I was about seven (at the Museum of the Moving Image) which whetted my appetite and indicate that this programme was strange and wonderful as much as frightening. When there were some repeats on BBC 2 a year or so later, I was hooked.