Covering Shada
Here’s an extra goodie in addition to our Advent calendar - the front cover of the forthcoming, long-awaited novelization of Shada, the never-completed television story written by Douglas Adams. The cover unsurprisingly doesn’t hide the fact that this is a Douglas Adams script as his name is more prominently featured than Gareth Roberts, who is doing the actual novelization, and the cover art is unique for Doctor Who (looking nothing like the old Target novelizations that I suspect many fans (including myself) will chronologically slot this book in the midst of on their bookshelves, but it does have a Douglas Adams feel to it going by some of the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series reprints since the film of the same name came out. One can completely understand the decision to go after the Douglas Adams market that might not be overly familiar with Doctor Who, though it is still might have been nice to reference the 4th Doctor in some way with the artwork.
Still, with this novelizaiton coming out, along with the audio novelization of Resurrection of the Daleks (and the expected subsequent novelization of Revelation of the Daleks) and the return of two previously lost episodes, it does feel that we are starting to get more and more of the missing pieces of Doctor Who given to us at last!
Posted by Luca on Monday, December 12 at 8:00 am
3 Comments...
As it isn’t the current series logo but the “classic” logo in gold rather than the more usual blue I think that it’d make a lot more sense to have the 4th Doctor on the cover.
As they are also releasing it in paperback at the same time could one hope that will be a better cover?
Probably not.
Posted by Ryan on 12/12 at 11:19 AM
They’ve released all their recent novelisations with the gold version of the classic logo. I think it’s becoming their brand standard for books.
I can understand why they went with a cover that doesn’t feature the Doctor. The bigger thing to highlight is the Douglas Adams connection, and the HHTTG-esque cover is probably the best way of doing it.
What I would have liked was for them to have an alternate cover on the opposite side of the dust jacket (or simply a variant) that did the cover as a proper Target Novel pastiche, complete with Andrew Skilliter illustration. Ah well.
Posted by Graeme on 12/13 at 01:55 AM
I’m so glad Gareth Roberts is writing it, he can write season 17 better than season 17.
Posted by John on 12/13 at 10:36 AM
Post a comment