Target Book Memories

[Rob McCow]

Target books. Once a vital part of a fan's existence, now a piece of long-gone nostalgia. The new BBC Audio readings may have resurrected the stories, but they haven't got the distinctive Target logo on the spine!

So what are your memories of Target books? Here are some questions to get you started - you don't have to answer them all, only if you've got a memory to share.

First book - Where did you get your first Target book? What was it? Why did you choose that one?

Favourite book - Which book was your favourite? Can you remember anything about it now? Which book had the best cover?

Condition - Did you take care of your books? Did you ever lose a Target book? Have you ever destroyed (nooooooo!) one?

Borrowing - Did you share them with friends? Did you take them out from the library? Have you ever stolen a Target book?

Collecting - Where did you get most of your Target books from? Were there any that were difficult to track down? Where is the most unexpected place you've ever found a Target book? What was your best ever book bargain?

Do you still have your Target books or have you sold them on? Have you made a profit out of them? Did you collect them all?

Tell us about your Target memories! But please, remember to stop if you get to 144 pages.

[Si Hunt]

I collected about 85% of the range, then sold the lot to Burton Books for £150. Easy to regret now, but I'm sure that money came in handy. I do regret selling my copy of "The Smugglers" signed by Michael Craze because it had a memory attached, but then I still have the memory. Now of course we've bought them all over again! But it's not quite the same when you don't have a story attached to each book of how and where you bought it.

My fondest memory is of a book shop that used to exist behind the bus station in Clacton. One day I chanced to go in there and there was a huge box full of Targets on the counter - and the rarities! Well, "Fury from the Deep" was there, as was a first edition "War Games" and who knows what else. But I was young and foolish and I knew not the scarcity difference between a "Macra Terror" and a "Nightmare of Eden". I rushed to M&S and borrowed a bit of money off my Mum before heading back and snaffling a foolish selection which included "Full Circle", still only available in every second hand book shop in Britain.

The next day I returned for the rest but they were ALL GONE. The man suggested I check back, and so, every week after that, I called in.
"Any more Doctor Who books come in?" I asked. He'd shake his head sadly. How he must have chuckled as I popped in, month after month, on my fruitless search. Never again did that shop stock a single Target, and I was left to wonder who got that lucky "Fury from the Deep" bargain...

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

My brother collected a few, being slightly older than me, but once I got the bug I ended up eventually collecting the lot - maybe I'm just more anal than he is!!!

I do vividly remember my first two books, which were The Sontaran Experiment (which was the first one I read) and The Android Invasion. I also recall the innocent excitement, in the days when we knew nothing about the stories - when bruv got The Three Doctors for his birthday one year it was just so exciting because although the idea of a story with all three doctors in was legendary, the actual detail of the story was completely unknown to us.

At the point when I got The Deadly Assassin in about 1985 I had the complete set, and then obviously kept up to date with them as they came up - John Fitton's subscription service was superb, meaning that I would get a new book every month.

I've got... most of them now. Alas, with dollar signs flashing in my eyes, I've long since sold on The Edge of Destruction and The Wheel in Space, and also the Trial of a Time Lord books (to Tim, in fact!). But the rest of them remain upstairs on my bookshelf, where I see them every day.

One other strong memory is a holiday to Scotland in, I think, 1982, where I picked up a load of books, some of which I didn't even know were out yet. That's where I got Logopolis, and also Masque of Mandragora and The Seeds of Doom.

[Dino]

First book was "Doctor Who And The Sontaran Experiment. It belonged to my brother and was a sort of hand me down. Got given "The Crusaders" first print as a child b a friend as a gift. Not exactly mint now... in fact I think it might have been thrown out as loads of pages went missing?
I remember buying "An Unearthly Child" book from a B&Q on a holiday in Glasgow.
I loved seeing the Terrence Dicks books in the library. Death To The Daleks, Underworld, (woeful, woeful book!) and Planet of the Spiders. Seemed to look at the covers more than take them out and read them. I can't find any original Doctor Who books on the shelves now? It's all that modern toss...

Bought the 25 years editions of two books stuck together. Really unusual mix and matches. They gave different impressions of the same Doctor. And I loved The Face Of Evil/The Sunmakers and The Daemons/The Time Monster.

Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon is probably the greatest novel ever written! Was so gutted the show never matched it, but then how could it given Hulke's writing and background?

Although I didn't make the mistake, like someone I know, of inviting all his hard Dr Who hating mates around to watch Spearhead From Space because they'd read that the monster at the end is half crab/ half octopus?
Ah the Dr Who related therapy he must be going through!

Thank you Target Books really. We will never see their like again!

[Awesome Wells]

I loved Target Books and still have all the ones I ever owned, but they invariably ruined the Doctor Who stories I'd never seen, particularly the Seventies stuff. What Uncle Terrance (or whoever) described in bland but exciting prose was inevitably better than the television stories themselves. Pertwee and Tom Baker, for me, are better in wrapped up in books than on the screen. Like in pretty much every other case throughout the literary/cinematic or televisual debate, the book's always better.

First book - Where did you get your first Target book? What was it? Why did you choose that one?

Not sure, but I think it was Castrovalva, with Peter Davison's huge, open face looming over the starfield. That was definitely a 'new' one, though - my first second hand one was (I reckon) The Giant Robot - the first exciting adventure of Doctor Who's fourth incarnation!

Favourite book - Which book was your favourite? Can you remember anything about it now? Which book had the best cover?

Hard to say, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be Doctor Who and the Crusaders, by David Whitaker. I borrowed the hardback, original, pre-Target, sixties edition out of the library on several occasions; and then, on one feted occasion, spotted it on the "withdrawn/to be sold" shelf. It became mine and, decades later, it still is. If I wanted, I could pop upstairs now and read about "Doctor Who's time ship Tardis sparkling through the stars. " Or something.

Condition - Did you take care of your books? Did you ever lose a Target book? Have you ever destroyed (nooooooo!) one?

They're all in fairly good condition, except Genesis Of The Daleks, which has become as spineless as Nyder.

Borrowing - Did you share them with friends? Did you take them out from the library? Have you ever stolen a Target book?

No, but as a teenager, when I discovered a pal who had a far better collection than me - about 90% of them, I reckon - I borrowed them all and read them. Two of them, he even gave me to keep. As for the libary, as mentioned earlier, I did indeed borrow. The trouble was, they stopped getting any new ones after about 1985 and I was reduced to getting The Five Doctors (silver cover), An Unearthly Child and the aforementioned Crusaders out time and time again.

No, I've never stolen one.

Collecting - Where did you get most of your Target books from?

Second hand bookshops, I think. I actually can't remember.

Do you still have your Target books or have you sold them on?

I still have them all. Twenty or so 144 page wonders, in a shoebox.



PS I always had a rather odd affection for the bits on the title page of the old edition, explaining which incarnation of the Doctor was portrayed on the cover. Always a nice touch, I thought.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Doctor Who and the Underworld

I read it, and remember thinking "wow this story sounds amazing, but I don't remember it ... hope to see it again someday". Poo!!!

The memory cheats ... and a good piece of fannish blurb can make a story seem cooler than it was (I always remember DWM talking about Frontier In Space / Planet of the Daleks ... "the Master is trying to provoke a war between Earth and Drakonians ... but the Daleks are secretly behind it" ... then I watched it 5 years ago and ...)

[SiHart]

I started my Target book collection 29 years ago today in WH Smiths in Bracknell when it was on the High Street, not in the shopping centre. I went and spent my birthday money on my first few books, carefully selecting the ones I wanted from the huge selection they used to have in there. I know for certain they included The Three Doctors (with the too old, too bad, too Welsh cover) The Giant Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, Brain of Morbius and The Armageddon Factor among others. I don't know which went through the till first, so which i ownded first is a mystery, but I know I sat and gazed at the covers for ages afterwards!

My introduction to the Target range came from my cousin, who offered to lend me one of his. He carefully selected a few books, laid them out on the floor and I got to choose one for Mum to read to me. I chose Destiny of the Daleks, so that story was a double first for me. I'm still rather fond of that cover to this day.

We used to borrow them from the library in the early days. All the wonderful hardbacks with those Archilleos and Cummins covers. The librarian at Bath library did a good job of laying them all out for me too when I went and joined with my Mum and Grandad, and i remember us racing through them, a chapter a night.
here we are reading Claws of Axos:



I learnt to read quickly so I could read them myself!

Si xx

[SiHart]

First book - Where did you get your first Target book? What was it? Why did you choose that one?

Destiny of the Daleks, because it had Tom and the daleks on it and I remembered it from TV.

Favourite book - Which book was your favourite? Can you remember anything about it now? Which book had the best cover?

How can you possibly choose a favourite from all of them? I remember really liking Web of Fear, The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Planet fo Evil in the early days, and Mind of Evil was a big favourite a few years later and I liked most of the McCoy ones a great deal.
My favourite cover is still the original Web of Fear. I don't know why, but it really stands out for me. I liked a lot of Alister Pearson's covers at the end of the range (before the blue spine versions)

Condition - Did you take care of your books? Did you ever lose a Target book? Have you ever destroyed (nooooooo!) one?

I swapped a lot of them over the years. I was a bit obssessed with having original editions of them all and having all the original covers. Along the way I got rid of some I wish I still had with the second or third covers. Still never mind, eh?



Borrowing - Did you share them with friends? Did you take them out from the library? Have you ever stolen a Target book?

I used to borrow ones I hadn't got with my friend Richard, and I used to borrow loads of them from the library too.
I never stole a Target book... oh no hang on I did steal the hardback of Tomb from school, but my Dad found it and I got a right bollocking and had to take it back.

Collecting - Where did you get most of your Target books from? Were there any that were difficult to track down? Where is the most unexpected place you've ever found a Target book? What was your best ever book bargain?

I used to get them everywhere. Piles from my Aunty Linda at Christmas, saved up pocket money and for treats when I'd been good and loads from jumble sales and school fairs. I had an army of people who used to look out for them for me when they were out and about!
I had real trouble getting The Mysterious Planet. In the end it was the last one I needed to complete the set and it took a few years to get hold of. I was lucky that i was buying the really rare ones from the later years as they came out so I never had trouble getting Fury or Wheel. I picked them up in WH Smiths!

Do you still have your Target books or have you sold them on? Have you made a profit out of them? Did you collect them all?

I collected them all and I still have them all. They're on the shelves in the spare room. I'd never part with them. I spent my whole childhood collecting the set and of all the Doctor Who things I own, they're the bits I will keep forever.

Si xx

[Stuart Wallis]

Hasn't changed a bit, has he!

I started my collection with The Cybermen. Dad and I saw it in a local newsagent looking lonely, and it had to come home. Nostalgia's placed it near the top of the list of favourites for that reason; it was through DWW/DWM and the novelisations that most of us learnt anything about the old days pre-VCR (Video killed Terrance Dicks!).

Favourite cover - the absolutely brilliant portrait of Roger Delgado on the Doomsday Weapon reprint.

I've tried to take care of them, bibliophiles and librarians do have a tendency to take care of books anyway. Rereading has taken its toll on some of them, it has to be said, and some weren't in the best condition to begin with, having been sourced from sources from WH Smith to second-hand book stalls (I got a copy of Deadly Assassin, signed by Tom, on a market stall for 10p - the stallholder can't have had any idea...) Dad came across a second-hand bookshop when he was working, and got a few books from there. Well, the word euphemism must be used here - second-hand books were a sideline for his main line of publications, the content of which Dad never discovered til he went in...

I did lose Arc Of Infinity last year, it fell out of my pocket on the way back from work. It was still there when I realised it was missing. The collection's complete. Ish. I've got them all, but The Faceless ones is the only one i don't have in paperback. I managed to get that for £2, and Slipback in paperback for £1, 2 months before they were released officially, from a secon-dhand bookshop in Ilford. Where they got them from...

[Andrew Curnow]

Favourite cover - the absolutely brilliant portrait of Roger Delgado on the Doomsday Weapon reprint

There are certain books I can vividly recall where & when I got them - this is one of them, my Auntie Mar bought it for me when she was staying with us in Carlisle (back when I was at Primary School). I was stood outside WH Smiths and she came out with it. Just brilliant.

[kevinwho]

First book - Where did you get your first Target book? What was it? Why did you choose that one?

One Christmas, probably in my early teens, my older sister gave me The Monster of Peladon and Full Circle. I read a lot as a kid and I was a Who fan, so it made sense, but I'll still never know how she ever came up with the idea. Heck, I don't think at that time I even knew there were novelisations.

I had seen Monster on PBS but I think Circle hadn't made it across the pond yet, so it turned out to be a nice combo in that regard.

Favourite book - Which book was your favourite? Can you remember anything about it now? Which book had the best cover?

Full Circle has a special place. It was all new, and I really enjoyed the story. Memory's foggy, but I know there was at least one Hartnell that was written with a different approach and which I thought was neat, and at least one of the fat Peel Dalek books surpised me by never seeming padded. Oh, and I know I relished the Dalek Masterplan (both books) as well.

Condition - Did you take care of your books? Did you ever lose a Target book? Have you ever destroyed (nooooooo!) one?

Well, mine are all read, and many read twice, though I am a reader who does not tend to crack spines, so most are still in quite good shape, considering. Some got beat up a bit since I would take them with me and stuff happens. The Mind of Evil got a bit abused at a music festival, was probably the worst. Haven't actually destroyed any, and haven't lost any.

Borrowing - Did you share them with friends? Did you take them out from the library? Have you ever stolen a Target book?

Share? Tough question. I know I shared New/Missing adventures with a fellow Whovian, but I don't recall if he ever borrowed a Target. I think I must lent at least a couple from time to time. To my knowledge, my library never had any, though I did work at a bookstore at one point, so many in my collection were acquired at an employee discount.

Collecting - Where did you get most of your Target books from? Were there any that were difficult to track down? Where is the most unexpected place you've ever found a Target book? What was your best ever book bargain?

Hmmm...pretty much answered above, I guess. My bookstore carried a pretty full selection at the time, so I had a pretty easy time catching my collection up. I fell behind again after I left that job and ran across a bunch in my local college comic shop. Vengeance on Varos was a bit tough to track down, until I learned it came out 2 years late or whatever.

Do you still have your Target books or have you sold them on? Have you made a profit out of them? Did you collect them all?

Sigh, collected them all. And the New/Missing Adventures, and the Virgin Benny books, and the BBC EDA/PDA books, and the Telos novellas, and the current BBC series, and various other ephemera like Masters of Luxor and Campaign and New Zealand novelizations and some other stuff. Over 500 Doctor Who books on my shelves and I've read them all, except the few most recent arrivals, which I am getting to.

Which means I haven't read anything else for close to 20 years. I just can't stop!

Tell us about your Target memories! But please, remember to stop if you get to 144 pages.

But I just did!!!

[Diddy Doc]

Hi
Well I remember an aunt of mine bought me Creature from the Pit shortly (or so it seemed) after seeing it on TV so I suppose that's the first Target I owned (still have the dog eared thing too) but I got into seriuos collecting/reading once the BBCV of Revenge came out in '83. I bought the Target of this story shortly before seeing it and,as others have said, after uncle Terrys fun prose the vid didn't live up to my expectations. After that I collected about 70 of the novels over the years after seeing them on TV or video.

I now have all of the original Target novels after I decided in about 2000 to complete my collection. Where from? Mainly The Who Shop in London (bad experience with them) and then overseas (USA) and finally on Ebay.

It cost me alot of money,time and effort to track them all down but i can say it was definately worth it

Not read all of them as yet but I will one day
Regards
Diddy

[J.R. Southall]

I was a little late discovering the Target books. I was already 7 years old and an avid reader, but even though I'd been watching Doctor Who religiously for several years already (my earliest clear memory was from the last episode of Planet of the Daleks, although I've some hazy memories from before that, too), I had no idea there was a series of books based on the programme.

Until I walked into the children's books section of John Menzies (a sort of proto-WH Smith) in Torquay, that is, in May of 1978. And there in front of me was an entire shelf of the things! It was like walking into Aladin's cave...

Mind you, faced with so many books to choose from, and only enough pocket money for one (although I returned every single week for just one more at a time, until I had the lot and started collecting them at release), I was faced with one heck of a dilemma.

Curiously enough, with criteria that included Daleks! Outer Space! A Doctor I could remember!, the choice was fairly simple in the end: Planet of the Daleks - which I didn't even realise was the same story as I could remember back to, until I read the book and recognised the last chapter or three.

In those days, I'd polish off a Target on a Saturday afternoon, and then another (albeit one I'd already read) the following morning.

Favourites? The two David Whitaker books, the two Auton books, Doctor Who and the Cybermen - so much creepier than on the telly. And yes, I collected and kept the entire series, although I don't have all the original covers, and most are in pretty good nick.

Glorious days. Today's kids will never have such exciting times as we had back then!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I rather think they probably will