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On Target: Season 1
What are your memories and thoughts of the Target novelisations of season 1?
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Well, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure With the Daleks. What more needs to be said? Absolute classic. I think the reason I like the Cushing film so much is partly because of that book, oddly enough. They seem to be opposite ends of the same approach, an adaptation filtered through the lens of the original. Brilliant.
I think I was a bit too old/young to really appreciate any of the other novelisations here; too young to appreciate the historicals, and too old to enjoy the future stories. The one exception is The Reign of Terror; there's just something about that story that really appeals to me, and Marter's adaptation - while not the most striking - carried that, too.
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I read them all quite recently, but can barely remember any detail about most of them. The Edge of Destruction was much better than the TV version, but still suffers from the same lack of any discernable plot. I always enjoy Marco Polo, and the book was just as enjoyable, but with a few strange differences from the original for no apparent reason.
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Well, The Daleks of course has always been out. My brother got the book for his 8th?9th? birthday, and I think we were both baffled by the opening. But it's a really well-written book, a proper children's novel.
Next up would have been The Keys of Marinus - I got this for Christmas in 1980, not having any idea what the story was about at all. I loved it, at the time reading that book it seemed to be the most exciting adventure possible, with what seemed like the most superb cliffhangers. Sadly, the TV version not only can't live up to the book, it doesn't even live up to the TV stories around it, and is a real drop into amdram territory. But I still have an absurd affection for the book.
Then An Unearthly Child, a Christmas pressie the following year - and of course I was in the previously unthinkable situation of reading a first Doctor story that I'd already seen!
Then the renaissance of the mid-80s brought us The Aztecs (from John Fitton), and then three which I got (and still have) in hardback from the same source - the much-compressed, but one I still enjoy, Marco Polo (Christmas 1984) and The Sensorites and The Reign of Terror. And finally I caught up with The Edge of Destruction, again from John Fitton. Although we spent a long time with very few Hartnells, in hindsight it's probably for the best that they weren't part of the Dicks' production line, and instead got to be adapted by (in most cases) their original authors, and given a new lease of life. Good times!!
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An Unearthly Child I borrowed from Croxley Library way back. Although I've not re-read it, I suspect that the caveman stuff is far, far duller in the book than it is on screen.
Dr.Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks I got from The Who Shop, again a very long time ago, with the Hartnell / Daleks cover. Simply wonderful and the presence of a Glass Dalek was the cherry on the cake.
The Edge of Destruction was one that my cousin bought, so I had to read it very gingerly. He was very keen to keep his books in good condition and I had a tendency to ever so slightly scuff them sometimes. Oh dear. Anyway, I remember it being brilliant, thrilling and spooky. And I love stories set in the TARDIS.
Marco Polo I borrowed from someone... and never gave it back. I don't remember reading it either!
The Keys of Marinus was bought in a jumble scale at Rickmansworth Park JMI. I agree with Andrew, it was a great book and so much better in the imagination! You can't blame Terry Nation for the way Marinus turned out on TV.
I must have bought the blue-spined re-issue of The Aztecs, but by then the video had come out so it went unread.
I must have read The Sensorites. But blow me if I can think when!
And The Reign of Terror is probably great as well, but I couldn't tell you. :)
So there's probably a couple of these that I should read for the first time!
