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Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963. Hundreds of novelisations of the series have been published by various publishers, the majority based on the original 1963–1989 run of the series.
History
Frederick Muller Ltd.
Frederick Muller Ltd. commissioned David Whitaker to novelise the first Dalek serial under the title Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, which was published November 1964 in hardcover just in time for the second Dalek serial, The Dalek Invasion of Earth to be transmitted. The success of this book warranted two reprintings by 1965 and led Frederick Muller to commission two further novelisations, Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Doctor Who and the Crusaders, which were published in 1965 and 1966 respectively. Sales of these books did not live up to the first and so the short range was brought to an end.[1]
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks was reissued in paperback October 1965 by Armada Books, an imprint of May Fair Books, with new illustrations. [2] Doctor Who and the Crusaders was reissued in paperback in 1967 by Green Dragon, an imprint of Atlantic Books, again with new illustrations.[3] All three books with reissued in hardcover in 1975 by White Lion, all featuring Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor on the cover while retaining the First Doctor illustrations inside. [3]
Target Books
In 1972 Universal-Tandem Publishing was looking to create a children's book imprint, Target Books. In a visit to Frederick Muller's offices, the three 1960s Doctor Who books were optioned, and then the BBC was contacted with a view to publish new books. This call to the BBC met with enthusiastic support from the current script editor, Terrance Dicks.[4] The Doctor Who novelisations quickly became a backbone of the imprint, surviving corporate acquisitions and novelising almost every Doctor Who television story. New novelisations under the Target imprint came to an end in 1991 (although three more were published under their parent company's new Doctor Who Books imprint). Reprints under the Target imprint continued through 1994.
A short series entitled The Companions of Doctor Who comprised the novelisation of K-9 and Company along with the original works Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma and Harry Sullivan's War. In addition to the television serials, three scripts from the cancelled Season 23—The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus—were novelised. The former sold less well than the usual novelisations, while the latter sold as well.[5] Target also novelised two additional non-televised stories: the radio play Slipback and the audio story The Pescatons.
Doctor Who Books
Virgin Books created a new imprint, Doctor Who Books, for their Doctor Who novels and non-fiction books. This imprint published the last three books in the "Doctor Who Library" established by Target. (The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks, and the radio play The Paradise of Death)
Further novelisations were published as part of their monthly novel lines. Barry Letts's radio drama, The Ghosts of N-Space was published as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures range in 1995, as was the novelisation of the independent spin-off Downtime in 1996. The Virgin New Adventures range published a novelisation of Shakedown: The Return of the Sontarans in 1995.
BBC Books
In 1996 the BBC chose not to renew Virgin's license for publishing Doctor Who fiction, preferring to bring the novels back in house. BBC Books published a novelisation of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. They also published a novelisation of the webcast Scream of the Shalka as part of the Past Doctor Adventures range in 2004. From 2012 to 2019, BBC Books published novelisations of the 1970s and 1980s serials Target was unable to publish (The Pirate Planet, City of Death, Shada, Resurrection of the Daleks, and Revelation of the Daleks). Novelisations of the unproduced scripts Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen and Doctor Who Meets Scratchman were published in 2018 and 2019 respectively. A new adaptation of The Evil of the Daleks written by Frazer Hines was released in 2023.[6]
BBC Books began reprinting selected Target novelisations starting in July 2011.[7]
The Target Collection
Starting in 2018, BBC Books published novelisations of selected episodes of the revived series as part of a range dubbed The Target Collection featuring the Target logo.[8] Paperback editions of City of Death, The Pirate Planet, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and the 1996 television movie were also added to the revived Target range. (City of Death and The Pirate Planet were abridged from their previous BBC Books editions.) In 2022, print versions of the previously audiobook-only adaptations by David Fisher of The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara were also added to the range, as was a print edition of the expanded audiobook version ofWarriors Gate in 2023.
Audiobooks
In 2005, BBC Audio released unabridged audiobook versions of the first three Frederick Muller novelisations, read by actor William Russell (who played Ian Chesterton). Beginning in September 2007, they began releasing further unabridged audiobooks of the Target novelisations at a regular rate.
An Unearthly Child was set to receive a new novelisation exclusive to audio, read by William Russell, written by Nigel Robinson, and released by AudioGo.[9] The audiobook was originally scheduled to be released November 2013, but the release was cancelled due to AudioGo's bankruptcy.[10] Rights issues are currently preventing its release.[11]
Pearson Education
Pearson Education published adaptations of four Eleventh Doctor stories in 2011 (two of which were photonovelisations) and six Twelfth Doctor stories in 2018 for use in schools.
Publication details
Writing
Although Target endeavoured to commission the original scriptwriters to novelise their own stories, this was not always possible. As a result, many books in the Target line were written by Terrance Dicks.[12] During the late 1970s to early 1980s, Target, which classified the novelisations as children's fiction, imposed a page limit of 128 pages. Some books (particularly several by Dicks) even fell short of this limit. By the late 1980s, however, the page cap had been lifted, although John Peel was still required to split his novelisation of the epic 12-episode The Daleks' Master Plan into two volumes because the manuscript was too long.
Titles
For the first few years of the Target line, it was common practice for the novels to have titles that differed from the adapted serials: for example, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, which was based upon the serial Spearhead from Space. This practice was dropped in the mid-1970s. Another tradition established by the books was to prepend the words "Doctor Who and ..." to the titles, except in a few cases where impractical. This practice continued until the early 1980s. From 1990 onwards reprints of the books generally dropped "Doctor Who and..." from the title and changed titles back to the original television story, although some of the reprints merely rejacketed earlier stock.
Illustrators
The first of the Target reissues featured new cover artwork by Chris Achilleos, who went on to illustrate over 30 of the novelisations throughout the 1970s.[13] British artist Andrew Skilleter created much of the cover art from 1979 to 1994, along with video covers and other merchandise.[14][15] His work on Doctor Who was showcased in his 1995 volume Blacklight: The Art of Andrew Skilleter.[15][16]
Numbering
Target began numbering its novelisations from 1983, with almost all of the first seventy-three books being numbered as reprints came out. The first new book to be numbered was Time-Flight. Target's numbering did not initially reflect original publication order (which would have placed David Whitaker's Doctor Who and the Daleks book first) or the production or broadcast order of the original stories, but rather was conducted in alphabetical order, so that the novelisation of The Abominable Snowmen was numbered "1". Due to print delays and last-minute reordering of publication schedules, some of the later books were released out of numeric order. The revived "Target Collection" from BBC Books is not numbered.
Novelisations of television stories
First Doctor
Featuring William Hartnell's First Doctor
| Season | Story no. | Library no.[a] | Novelisation title | Author | Hardcover release date[b] |
Paperback release date[c] |
Audiobook release date[d] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 001 | 68 | Doctor Who and An Unearthly Child | Terrance Dicks | 15 October 1981[17] | — | |
| 002 | — | Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks | David Whitaker | 12 November 1964[e][18] | 4 October 1965[f][18] | — | |
| 16 | Doctor Who and the Daleks | — | 2 May 1973[18] | 7 March 2005[18] | |||
| 003 | 132 | The Edge of Destruction | Nigel Robinson | 19 May 1988[19] | 20 October 1988[19] | 31 August 2010[20] | |
| 004 | 94 | Marco Polo | John Lucarotti | 13 December 1984[21] | 11 April 1985[21] | 6 December 2018[21] | |
| 005 | 38 | Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus | Philip Hinchcliffe | 21 August 1980[22] | 1 September 2022[23] | ||
| 006 | 88 | The Aztecs | John Lucarotti | 21 June 1984[24] | 20 September 1984[24] | 2 August 2012[24] | |
| 007 | 118 | The Sensorites | Nigel Robinson | 19 February 1987[25] | 16 July 1987[25] | 3 May 2012[25] | |
| 008 | 119 | The Reign of Terror | Ian Marter | 19 March 1987[26] | 20 August 1987[26] | 2 June 2022[26] | |
| 2 | 009 | 145 | Planet of Giants | Terrance Dicks | — | 18 January 1990[27] | 4 May 2017[27] |
| 010 | 17 | Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth | 24 March 1977[28] | 5 November 2009[28] | |||
| 011 | 124 | The Rescue | Ian Marter | 20 August 1987[29] | 21 January 1988[29] | 4 April 2013[29] | |
| 012 | 120 | The Romans | Donald Cotton | 16 April 1987[30] | 17 September 1987[30] | 5 January 2023[31] | |
| 013 | 73 | Doctor Who and the Zarbi | Bill Strutton | 16 September 1965[e][32] | 2 May 1973[32] | 7 November 2005[32] | |
| 014 | — | Doctor Who and the Crusaders | David Whitaker | 24 February 1966[e][33] | 1967[g][33] | 7 November 2005[33] | |
| 12 | 17 January 1985[33] | 2 May 1973[33] | |||||
| 015 | 117 | The Space Museum | Glyn Jones | 15 January 1987[34] | 18 June 1987[34] | 4 February 2016[34] | |
| 016 | 140 | The Chase | John Peel | — | 20 July 1989[35] | 4 August 2011[35] | |
| 017 | 126 | The Time Meddler | Nigel Robinson | 15 October 1987[36] | 17 March 1988[36] | 6 October 2016[36] | |
| 3 | 018 | 104 | Galaxy Four | William Emms | 14 November 1985[37] | 10 April 1986[37] | 6 July 2017[37] |
| 019, 021 | 141 | The Daleks' Master Plan Part I: Mission to the Unknown | John Peel | — | 21 September 1989[38] | 6 May 2010[38] | |
| 020 | 97 | The Myth Makers | Donald Cotton | 11 April 1985[39] | 12 September 1985[39] | 7 April 2008[39] | |
| 021 | 142 | The Daleks' Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time | John Peel | — | 19 October 1989[40] | 3 June 2010[40] | |
| 022 | 122 | The Massacre | John Lucarotti | 18 June 1987[41] | 19 November 1987[41] | 11 June 2015[41] | |
| 023 | 114 | The Ark | Paul Erickson | 16 October 1986[42] | 19 March 1987[42] | 1 March 2018[42] | |
| 024 | 111 | The Celestial Toymaker | Gerry Davis and Alison Bingeman | 19 June 1986[43] | 20 November 1986[43] | — | |
| 025 | 101 | The Gunfighters | Donald Cotton | 11 July 1985[44] | 9 January 1986[44] | 7 February 2013[44] | |
| 026 | 109 | The Savages | Ian Stuart Black | 20 March 1986[45] | 11 September 1986[45] | 4 February 2021[45] | |