Part of Series
London, 1966. The TARDIS materialises in the shadow of the newly-completed Post Office Tower in London and the Doctor senses a strange energy in the air. He instinctively knows that evil is at work nearby. Posing as a scientist, the Doctor and his 'secretary' Dodo gain access to a suite at the top of the tower, and meet the driven Professor Brett. His life's work, the thinking computer WOTAN, is about to be linked up in a problem-solving network with many other machines around the world. But the Doctor is concerned. How can WOTAN possibly know the meaning of the word TARDIS and about the Doctor's travels through time and space? What is the strange control that WOTAN can exert over humans via a mere telephone call? And what is the computer's link with the deadly robots being assembled in a Covent Garden warehouse? Soon, London will face an army of war machines, ruthlessly programmed to eliminate all who stand in their way...
Author
Ian Stuart Black was a novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Both his 1959 novel In the Wake of a Stranger and his 1962 novel about the Cyprus emergency The High Bright Sun were made into films, Black writing the screenplays in each case. He also wrote scripts for several British television programmes from the 1950s to the 1970s, including The Invisible Man and Sir Francis Drake (for which he was also story editor), as well as Danger Man (on which he served as associate producer) and Star Maidens. In addition, he wrote three stories for Doctor Who in 1965 and 1966. These stories were The Savages and The War Machines (with Kit Pedler and Pat Dunlop) for William Hartnell's Doctor; and The Macra Terror for Patrick Troughton. He novelised all three stories for Target Books. His final credit was for a half-hour supernatural drama called House of Glass, which was made by Television South in 1991. He was the father of actress Isobel Black.
