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modernzorker's review
5.0
I'm not old enough (or British enough, for that matter) to claim original viewership of Doctor Who's inaugural broadcast on that November evening in the 1960's. Despite this, one of my early childhood memories does involve the program which was broadcast in the evening on WTTW, Channel 11, the public television station out of Chicago. Mom and dad were big fans of this, and even before I dove whole-heartedly into the fandom in the early 1990's, I know that "Doctor Who" was a curly-haired chap wearing a scarf far too long to be either fashionable or comfortable who fought evil aliens and rescued the innocent.
I have memories of sitting in the living room in my old house, creeping glances at the television from my hideout behind the sofa, and on the screen seeing a strange black pyramid descend from the sky to scoop up one hapless person after another. Then, since this was during pledge drive, I also remember the soothing voice of Marty Robinson when they took a break to offer some incentives to subscribers.
Why include this backstory in a book review, especially when the story doesn't involve this particular Doctor Who production? Because it influenced how I've viewed the show ever since. When I was around twelve years old, in the eighth grade, I decided to take the plunge and see what Doctor Who was all about. Mom dug out the VHS copy of The Five Doctors she and dad had taped off television a decade previously, and we watched it together. This, I am convinced, is the best way I could have possibly been introduced to the show.
I was utterly blown away by everything. Well, maybe not everything.... For a kid raised on a steady diet of Star Wars and other high-budget fantasy and sci-fi productions, the special effects were admittedly not as mind-blowing. Everything else though was phenomenal, especially the story, which thrilled me with an exceptional cast of heroes and villains, a deep conspiracy, and the revelation that the immortality we all covet would be a curse rather than a blessing. I quickly realized one got more out of the show if it (much like classic Star Trek episodes) was viewed through the lens of watching a stage production instead of a television program, where the producers and the actors did their parts, but the audience had to meet them halfway by willingly suspending disbelief so as to be fully immersed. Doctor Who delivered a considerably larger return on this investment than any other television show I've ever watched. The more I put into it, the more I got out.
I had to have more.
Unfortunately for me there weren't any other taped programs, at least not ones that were easily accessible. But mom remembered my dad had purchased a few of the paperbacks which novelized some of the television episodes, and she passed those on to me. Holy cow, was I in heaven--if there was one thing I loved more than watching television, it was stuffing my nose in a book and getting lost in my imagination.
Dad's Doctor Who library was small, consisting of only five titles: The Doomsday Weapon, The Genesis of the Daleks, The Stones of Blood, The Visitation, and The Day of the Daleks. Three of these (Genesis, Day, and Doomsday) had spine numbers, the other two did not, and so I made the decision of the first one to read based on the absolutely logical method of 'which one had the coolest title'. This was Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon, because did I mention I was twelve years old, and it was... Well, it was just OK.
I told my mom as much the next morning, and she said that some of dad's favorite episodes had to do with the Daleks, so why not try one of those stories before I gave up on them. Later that night, after school, I cracked open Doctor Who and The Day of the Daleks, and my world changed forever.
* * * * *
It starts on a cold, dark evening in the twenty-second century.
A leader of a resistance organization sneaks out of the labour camp where he's being held and meets up with other members of his group in an underground cellar. Through painstaking effort and dangerous acts of thievery against their masters, the resistance has constructed a device which will permit them to travel through time and undo the act two hundred years in the past which led to humanity's current enslavement. It's a dangerous job, tantamount to a suicide mission, but all three of his comrades eagerly volunteer for the assignment. Any of them would gladly give their lives if it meant freedom for their brothers and sisters. They would all give their lives if it meant an end to the brutality of the enormous, ape-like Ogrons, and the vile, armor-clad, emotionless weapons of destruction who could cow even these behemoths into submission.
Using the device sends the three members of the resistance into the past...and smack into a collision course with not only the Doctor, his assistant Jo Grant, and their employers at the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), but also history itself. They must assassinate Sir Reginald Styles, a well-respected British diplomat who, in an act of unforeseeable treachery, is planning to murder a delegation of Chinese, Russian, and American ambassadors all gathered on British soil for peace talks. The deaths of these high-ranking politicians unleashes World War III. The wreckage of the planet and decimation of the human population which results makes the Dalek invasion and enslavement of humanity mere child's play.
Once again it's up to the Doctor to save Earth from a fate worse than death, but can even a Time Lord strike the balance necessary to both prevent a planet-wide calamity and save the life of a man who may not be as guilty as the history books of the 22nd century recorded? Especially once the Daleks get wind of the operation and start sending forces of their own to ensure the genocide happens as planned?
* * * * *
To say I love The Day of the Daleks is to misunderstand the very foundation of the verb. What Terrance Dicks does with this story is nothing short of brilliance, despite the cover artwork which is obviously trying to attract Star Wars fans with that fancy ship that looks like a cross between a Y-Wing fighter and a blockade runner (and which never actually appears in the story). I can't blame Pinnacle for their efforts, considering this was published a mere two years after A New Hope's theatrical release and George Lucas had raised the American public's sci-fi consciousness to the nth degree, but still.
What's hilarious to me, at least about this edition, is noted curmudgeon Harlan Ellison's introduction, in which he relates an incident at a World Science Fiction Convention where he declared Star Trek, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to be utter tripe, contended further that Doctor Who was the best science fiction series of all time, then threatened his intention to fight everyone gathered there, one at a time or all at once, who felt he was in error. So of course the cover includes a Star Wars-looking space ship, despite one never appearing in the book. I like to think seeing this drove Ellison into apoplexy considering how prominent his name is at the top of the cover, but knowing Ellison he probably cried all the way to the bank.
Back to the story.
The atmosphere Dicks generates, whether it's the dark depiction of the 22nd century that could very well have inspired James Cameron's future envisioned in the Terminator films, or the cool countryside evening of 20th century England where the time travelers emerge to carry out their grim task, is phenomenal, and all the moreso because the book runs a mere fourteen chapters over 139 pages. Even if you've never seen an episode of Doctor Who, Dicks makes sure you know what one is supposed to feel like. Everything's just the perfect degree of 'off'. It's not a horror novel, but it depicts the horror of an enslaved humanity with the insights of a writer who witnessed the atrocities of World War II through his own eyes as a child. It's not hard to conjure up mental images of black and white photos displaying Jews rounded up in German concentration camps as Dicks shows the human race's fate at the hands of the Daleks. That's not surprising: why re-invent the wheel when the uncensored evidence of German brutality was still deeply etched into the living consciousness of 1972 (when this episode was first broadcast)?
This being a Third Doctor adventure, there are action scenes galore: UNIT solders get into ferocious running gun battles with Ogrons and Daleks, the Doctor and Jo steal an all-terrain vehicle to escape from a Dalek encampment causing a Mad Max-style chase across the rubble-filled landscape of 22nd century Earth, and there's plenty of subterfuge and sneakiness as the future assassins try to slip between the cordons of UNIT sentries and locate Sir Reginald. Dicks plays these for all they're worth, unleashing a virtuoso array of things one couldn't hope to show on 1970's television--at one point, the Doctor drives his ATV up one side of a building and down the other in an effort to shake off his pursuers, something I'm sure was never in Louis Marks' original script. There's an additional gag of the Doctor and Jo temporarily meeting themselves thanks to a temporal distortion that serves as some comic relief--part of this scene made it into the first episode of the television show, but whether for budgetary or pacing reasons the second half of the scene where Jo and the Doctor run into their duplicates from the other side of the TARDIS doors was left out. It's nice to see it, and a few other extra bobs and bits, show up in the novelization.
The Five Doctors might have been my gateway to Who fandom, but The Day of the Daleks ensured I stuck around and explored more of this intriguing world. In the end, it's hard to top Ellison's pull quote from the front cover: "Incomparable...extraordinary...my hero, Doctor Who!" The Day of the Daleks is all that and more, a story of a length and pace that demands it be finished in one sitting with your imagination given permission to put the pedal to the metal.
If there's one downside to this Pinnacle edition, it's that it's technically incomplete. The Target novelization includes a handful of illustrations throughout the text--simple black and white, pen and ink pieces that help establish setting. Losing them isn't awful, especially if you're familiar with what Jo, the Doctor, and the Daleks all look like, but there's a small, rough map at the top of the first chapter showing the grounds of Austerly House where Sir Reginald stays, with its surrounding wall, gates, access road, copse of trees, and the disused railway tunnel. This helps establish the 20th century action scenes better in the mind, but I read the later Pinnacle edition which lacks this with no problems whatsoever. Of course, the Target edition lacks the hilarious Ellison introduction which opens all ten of the books published under the Pinnacle brand here in the US, so you might as well get both. Either way, I think you'll be satisfied with the outcome. This book made me the fan I am today--perhaps it can do the same for you.
Five sonic screwdrivers out of five.
I have memories of sitting in the living room in my old house, creeping glances at the television from my hideout behind the sofa, and on the screen seeing a strange black pyramid descend from the sky to scoop up one hapless person after another. Then, since this was during pledge drive, I also remember the soothing voice of Marty Robinson when they took a break to offer some incentives to subscribers.
Why include this backstory in a book review, especially when the story doesn't involve this particular Doctor Who production? Because it influenced how I've viewed the show ever since. When I was around twelve years old, in the eighth grade, I decided to take the plunge and see what Doctor Who was all about. Mom dug out the VHS copy of The Five Doctors she and dad had taped off television a decade previously, and we watched it together. This, I am convinced, is the best way I could have possibly been introduced to the show.
I was utterly blown away by everything. Well, maybe not everything.... For a kid raised on a steady diet of Star Wars and other high-budget fantasy and sci-fi productions, the special effects were admittedly not as mind-blowing. Everything else though was phenomenal, especially the story, which thrilled me with an exceptional cast of heroes and villains, a deep conspiracy, and the revelation that the immortality we all covet would be a curse rather than a blessing. I quickly realized one got more out of the show if it (much like classic Star Trek episodes) was viewed through the lens of watching a stage production instead of a television program, where the producers and the actors did their parts, but the audience had to meet them halfway by willingly suspending disbelief so as to be fully immersed. Doctor Who delivered a considerably larger return on this investment than any other television show I've ever watched. The more I put into it, the more I got out.
I had to have more.
Unfortunately for me there weren't any other taped programs, at least not ones that were easily accessible. But mom remembered my dad had purchased a few of the paperbacks which novelized some of the television episodes, and she passed those on to me. Holy cow, was I in heaven--if there was one thing I loved more than watching television, it was stuffing my nose in a book and getting lost in my imagination.
Dad's Doctor Who library was small, consisting of only five titles: The Doomsday Weapon, The Genesis of the Daleks, The Stones of Blood, The Visitation, and The Day of the Daleks. Three of these (Genesis, Day, and Doomsday) had spine numbers, the other two did not, and so I made the decision of the first one to read based on the absolutely logical method of 'which one had the coolest title'. This was Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon, because did I mention I was twelve years old, and it was... Well, it was just OK.
I told my mom as much the next morning, and she said that some of dad's favorite episodes had to do with the Daleks, so why not try one of those stories before I gave up on them. Later that night, after school, I cracked open Doctor Who and The Day of the Daleks, and my world changed forever.
* * * * *
It starts on a cold, dark evening in the twenty-second century.
A leader of a resistance organization sneaks out of the labour camp where he's being held and meets up with other members of his group in an underground cellar. Through painstaking effort and dangerous acts of thievery against their masters, the resistance has constructed a device which will permit them to travel through time and undo the act two hundred years in the past which led to humanity's current enslavement. It's a dangerous job, tantamount to a suicide mission, but all three of his comrades eagerly volunteer for the assignment. Any of them would gladly give their lives if it meant freedom for their brothers and sisters. They would all give their lives if it meant an end to the brutality of the enormous, ape-like Ogrons, and the vile, armor-clad, emotionless weapons of destruction who could cow even these behemoths into submission.
Using the device sends the three members of the resistance into the past...and smack into a collision course with not only the Doctor, his assistant Jo Grant, and their employers at the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), but also history itself. They must assassinate Sir Reginald Styles, a well-respected British diplomat who, in an act of unforeseeable treachery, is planning to murder a delegation of Chinese, Russian, and American ambassadors all gathered on British soil for peace talks. The deaths of these high-ranking politicians unleashes World War III. The wreckage of the planet and decimation of the human population which results makes the Dalek invasion and enslavement of humanity mere child's play.
Once again it's up to the Doctor to save Earth from a fate worse than death, but can even a Time Lord strike the balance necessary to both prevent a planet-wide calamity and save the life of a man who may not be as guilty as the history books of the 22nd century recorded? Especially once the Daleks get wind of the operation and start sending forces of their own to ensure the genocide happens as planned?
* * * * *
To say I love The Day of the Daleks is to misunderstand the very foundation of the verb. What Terrance Dicks does with this story is nothing short of brilliance, despite the cover artwork which is obviously trying to attract Star Wars fans with that fancy ship that looks like a cross between a Y-Wing fighter and a blockade runner (and which never actually appears in the story). I can't blame Pinnacle for their efforts, considering this was published a mere two years after A New Hope's theatrical release and George Lucas had raised the American public's sci-fi consciousness to the nth degree, but still.
What's hilarious to me, at least about this edition, is noted curmudgeon Harlan Ellison's introduction, in which he relates an incident at a World Science Fiction Convention where he declared Star Trek, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to be utter tripe, contended further that Doctor Who was the best science fiction series of all time, then threatened his intention to fight everyone gathered there, one at a time or all at once, who felt he was in error. So of course the cover includes a Star Wars-looking space ship, despite one never appearing in the book. I like to think seeing this drove Ellison into apoplexy considering how prominent his name is at the top of the cover, but knowing Ellison he probably cried all the way to the bank.
Back to the story.
The atmosphere Dicks generates, whether it's the dark depiction of the 22nd century that could very well have inspired James Cameron's future envisioned in the Terminator films, or the cool countryside evening of 20th century England where the time travelers emerge to carry out their grim task, is phenomenal, and all the moreso because the book runs a mere fourteen chapters over 139 pages. Even if you've never seen an episode of Doctor Who, Dicks makes sure you know what one is supposed to feel like. Everything's just the perfect degree of 'off'. It's not a horror novel, but it depicts the horror of an enslaved humanity with the insights of a writer who witnessed the atrocities of World War II through his own eyes as a child. It's not hard to conjure up mental images of black and white photos displaying Jews rounded up in German concentration camps as Dicks shows the human race's fate at the hands of the Daleks. That's not surprising: why re-invent the wheel when the uncensored evidence of German brutality was still deeply etched into the living consciousness of 1972 (when this episode was first broadcast)?
This being a Third Doctor adventure, there are action scenes galore: UNIT solders get into ferocious running gun battles with Ogrons and Daleks, the Doctor and Jo steal an all-terrain vehicle to escape from a Dalek encampment causing a Mad Max-style chase across the rubble-filled landscape of 22nd century Earth, and there's plenty of subterfuge and sneakiness as the future assassins try to slip between the cordons of UNIT sentries and locate Sir Reginald. Dicks plays these for all they're worth, unleashing a virtuoso array of things one couldn't hope to show on 1970's television--at one point, the Doctor drives his ATV up one side of a building and down the other in an effort to shake off his pursuers, something I'm sure was never in Louis Marks' original script. There's an additional gag of the Doctor and Jo temporarily meeting themselves thanks to a temporal distortion that serves as some comic relief--part of this scene made it into the first episode of the television show, but whether for budgetary or pacing reasons the second half of the scene where Jo and the Doctor run into their duplicates from the other side of the TARDIS doors was left out. It's nice to see it, and a few other extra bobs and bits, show up in the novelization.
The Five Doctors might have been my gateway to Who fandom, but The Day of the Daleks ensured I stuck around and explored more of this intriguing world. In the end, it's hard to top Ellison's pull quote from the front cover: "Incomparable...extraordinary...my hero, Doctor Who!" The Day of the Daleks is all that and more, a story of a length and pace that demands it be finished in one sitting with your imagination given permission to put the pedal to the metal.
If there's one downside to this Pinnacle edition, it's that it's technically incomplete. The Target novelization includes a handful of illustrations throughout the text--simple black and white, pen and ink pieces that help establish setting. Losing them isn't awful, especially if you're familiar with what Jo, the Doctor, and the Daleks all look like, but there's a small, rough map at the top of the first chapter showing the grounds of Austerly House where Sir Reginald stays, with its surrounding wall, gates, access road, copse of trees, and the disused railway tunnel. This helps establish the 20th century action scenes better in the mind, but I read the later Pinnacle edition which lacks this with no problems whatsoever. Of course, the Target edition lacks the hilarious Ellison introduction which opens all ten of the books published under the Pinnacle brand here in the US, so you might as well get both. Either way, I think you'll be satisfied with the outcome. This book made me the fan I am today--perhaps it can do the same for you.
Five sonic screwdrivers out of five.
tinkamasala's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
gingerreader99's review
4.0
I'd have to bank on a 4.5 stars. I zoomed through this, as far as target novelizations go this is most definitely one of the best. I am still leaning towards 5 stars based on the exciting story and fast paced tempo of the book, but the quick finish hurt it a little in the end and I wanted just a little more.
That said, I loved the chaos of UNIT fighting it out with Daleks and Ogrons. Can't beat that.
That said, I loved the chaos of UNIT fighting it out with Daleks and Ogrons. Can't beat that.
roklobster's review against another edition
2.0
Reading as a bedtime story for the monkey pants. Yes, he picked it.
It was ok, kind of predictable.
It was ok, kind of predictable.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1037395.html#cutid1[return][return]This is the most owned Doctor Who novelisation on LibraryThing, and certainly one of the best ones. Ian has written of the sharp contrast between the tense novel, especially the excellent characterisation of the Controller, and the much less convincing TV original. Well worth it.
ianbanks's review
3.0
A fairly detailed and exciting retelling of the televised adventure. My only real complaint would be that the exposition is sometimes a little clunky and unnecessary. That said, it is a fun read.
frogetteno1's review
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
florenced9af8's review
3.0
I read this while watching the corresponding episodes and I have only 4 words for you. The book was better.