A Novel(ization) Idea
SFX Magazine’s Twitter feed broke the exciting (if slightly garbled) news that in July BBC Books are re-releasing six classic Doctor Who novelizations, including David Whitaker’s superb 1964 novelization of The Daleks (as Doctor Who and the Daleks or Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks depending on which novelization you read). This followed with a full posting about it at the Cathode Ray Tube blog.
The Doctor Who novelizations, for those who may not know, were prose adaptations of Doctor Who TV stories that were done by Target books from roughly 1974 to 1992 (though the first 3 were written in 1964-65). There’s a very good website on the subject and an excellent book on their history. In the days before episodes being released on video, especially from the 1960s, it was fans’ only way to discover the series rich history for themselves. And in the days before the Internet, it was often the way many fans in North America (including myself) first experienced the newest stories airing in Britain as the novelizations often arrived in North America long before the TV episodes did.
These reprints will include new introductions by the likes of Neil Gaiman (on Doctor Who and the Daleks), Russell T Davies (on Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion), SF writer Stephen Baxter (on Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen), Gareth Roberts (on Doctor Who and the Cybermen), British TV writer Charlie Higson (on Doctor Who and the Crusaders) and Terrance Dicks (on Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters).
Disappointingly, Mark Gatiss isn’t writing an introduction. This is odd given he’s written a superb BBC Radio 4 documentary on the subject.
I love the Target novelizations. Indeed, I wish they were still doing them for the new series. And I’m happy to see them coming out for a new market. I kind of wish they’d go for the full facimile cover treatment and not try to superimpose the Classic Who branding (ie. McGann/Pertwee logo) on it, but I’m thrilled they’re using the original cover art by such brilliant artists as Chris Achellios. I also wish that the first wave might have included a couple of novelizations not from the original 10 or so printed by Target and included, say, Chris Bidmead’s excellent Castrovalva novelization or Ian Marter’s Doctor Who and the Ark In Space or Donald Cotton’s adaptation of The Romans. Still, this is a great thing. I can’t wait for July.
Posted by Graeme on Thursday, March 17 at 10:13 am
12 Comments...
Minor point Amazon CA said Random House UK not BBC Books but either way this is very cool.
Weird using that Classics line logo with the RTD era orange ala The Five Doctors DVD is a bit odd and doesn’t look that good with a white background. The originals at first had simple black block logos before the cut-down diamond one was used.
Era appropriate would even have been better. It would have also been nice to have the full “in an exciting adventure with” for The Daleks.
No doubt the people at DWM are upset it’s not called The Mutants.
Posted by Ryan on 03/17 at 03:32 PM
Ah nostalgia…
I remember when the Target books came out. I was in my last year of primary school, had long been an avid watcher of Doctor Who, but was not a great reader.
Probably a year or so earlier, I had tried to read a hardback copy of Whitaker’s “Doctor Who and the Daleks” from the public library, but had got bored and never finished it.
When “The Spearhead from Space” adaptation came out (my recollection is that was its title, not “Auton Invasion”, but I’m probably wrong), one of my school friends bought it immediately and eventually I got to read it. I loved the cover and I was hooked by the story (which I could remember from its original broadcast). I was hooked and rapidly acquired and read the other (initial) Target offerings.
Over the next three or so years I bought each Target novelization as it appeared (probably at least once a month). Target also published compilations of photos and monster descriptions, etc., which I dutifully purchased as well.
I remember owning each of the stories shown on the Cathode Ray Tube Blog. I remember in particular receiving “Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowman” as a stocking-filler early one Christmas morning and finishing it before anyone else was up! Boy how I loved those “Chris Achellios” covers.
Gradually (with time and the mounting scorn from my contemporaries), I moved on from Doctor Who, rarely watching the show once Romana II arrived. I guess I gave all my books to a younger kid before I left home for university.
All those first editions! Nooooooooooooo!
I will definitely by looking out for these re-issues. Thanks for sharing this news.
Posted by Andrew B on 03/17 at 04:04 PM
OK. So I just checked out the links and my first Target read was indeed “Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion”
Posted by Andrew B on 03/17 at 05:33 PM
I had my fingers crossed this would happen once BBC Books and Virgin Publishing (which owned the Target line) came under the same ownership umbrella a couple years ago. That and since BBC Audio has been producing readings of the books for several years now (I hope that will continue).
The big question now is - does this open the door to BBC Books, for the first time since December 2005, publishing original novels featuring the first eight Doctors again? I hope so.
Regardless - bravo to BBC Books for putting these books back in circulation. Hopefully we might start seeing some of the Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures back in print too…
Posted by Alex on 03/17 at 05:36 PM
I should add that I have an extensive collection of the Targets. I think I’m only missing about 25 books (which isn’t a lot out of 154 published). I even managed to snag a copy of The Wheel in Space of which only about 20,000 copies exist because of some distribution warehouse fire back in the 80s. But I might still pick these new editions up because my original copies (my copy of the Daleks is one of the pre-Target editions from 1965) are getting rather brittle. I don’t have an issue at all with using the “new” logo because that’s the standard logo for all past-Doctor material coming from the BBC. And it differentiates these books from the original versions. I might not have minded if they’d reverted to the original TV titles (Spearhead from Space instead of Auton Invasion) for the benefit of those not aware that there’s a difference.
Looking at the first six, I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason to their release order, otherwise Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Day of the Daleks would have been in there.
Posted by Alex on 03/17 at 10:17 PM
@Alex: I guess the books were selected on the basis that we get two books for each of the first three Doctors. The Pertwee and Troughton books are (I think) the first two stories that Target published on each.
I guess they flipped a coin to choose between “the Zarbi” and “the Crusaders” for the 2nd Hartnell book.
Posted by Andrew B on 03/18 at 06:43 AM
If they do the first two for 4-6 next then that would be The Giant Robot and The Loch Ness Monster for 4, The Visitation and Time-Flight for 5 and The Two Doctors and The Twin Dilemma for 6.
Not bad but I’d rather they skip ahead a bit for 5 to Castrovalva and Earthshock.
Posted by Ryan on 03/18 at 11:38 AM
I don’t think it’s so much that they were choosing books from the first three Doctors so much as they were choosing from the first Target novels. They represent half the output from the first 12 Target novels published (including the 3 reprints from the 1960s).
Posted by Graeme on 03/22 at 02:00 PM
Graham you may be correct, but it seems me that if they had wanted to reissue 6 of the books, then they might as well have chosen to reprint the first 6 to actually bear the Target imprint, or the ‘best’ written six books from the first couple of years or indeed the the whole series.
However the fact that they’ve printed two books of each of the first three Doctors and that each of these books is amongst first two (or three) volumes published for these Doctors, suggest that variety of incarnation was indeed a factor that was considered.
But, short of a statement from the publishers, we’ll never know.
Posted by Andrew B on 03/22 at 02:27 PM
I honestly think given they’re all a) produced within the first year of the range (aside from the Hartnell reprints) and b) all have Achellios covers, they’re just looking for the earliest books.
Had they picked, say, Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen or Doctor Who and the War Games or Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth, there might be a case that they were picking from from those Doctors, but the fact is they stuck within the first 12 published.
The fact they have the all three Doctors seems to me simply coincidental—the first 12 books just featured all three Doctors.
Posted by Graeme on 03/22 at 02:40 PM
Greame: I’m sure that I’ll never convince you (and that’s OK) and as I noted earlier, unless we hear from the publisher, we’ll never know the reasons why these books were chosen,
Still…
... the first 12 Target books comprised three 1st Doctor stories,two 2nd Doctor stories and seven stories involving the 3rd Doctor. The reissues however feature two stories for each Doctor. Doesn’t it seem likely (even just possible) that this was a deliberate editorial choice to maximize variety in this series of reissues.
I agree with you that the editors are concentrating on some of the earliest books but note that to publish “the Abominable Snowmen” and “the Cybermen” stories (which were respectively, the 10th and 12 titles to be published) the authors are skipping “The Daemons”, for which there would be some interest. (A cyberman story should also be a good seller though)
best wishes…
Posted by andrew B. on 03/22 at 09:02 PM
Just to add to the debate above, it’s also possible these first books were chosen because BBC Books was able to iron out the rights to them first. Obviously DW& the Daleks would have to have first priority, but as far as the others go, it could be whichever books had the rights nailed down first. Plus, they’re getting big names to write the intros, so it’s possible they chose the books to come out first.
If these books are successful I’m sure there will be more. I’m just thankful they’re still doing BOOKS and didn’t announce these as Kindle releases or something.
Posted by Alex on 04/04 at 12:16 PM
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