Talk:Terrance Dicks

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[edit] Quality of Dicks' novelisations

I think it should be noted that Dicks was criticised for his "drive by novelisations" which in many cases were little more than embellished transcriptions of the scripts and often didn't even meet Target's 128-page quota. I remember criticism being quite high in the early 80s when it seemed every novelisation was by him. However, for me to outright say this in the article would come off as POV. Does anyone know of a review site or other source that can be cited? To be fair, of course, Dicks was not the only writer who was so criticised (thinking Philip Hinchcliffe). 23skidoo 16:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Try the Doctor Who Ratings Guide - there are a good number of reviews of the novelisations, including a few by myself.

However a few things should be noted:

Dicks was of the view that the books should be quite faithful to the television stories, give or take going decent special effects. This may also have been the Target editor's thinking at one point or another.

Timewise some of the books were written very quickly - Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks for instance was written from the script in order to be onsale very soon after broadcast. Dicks probably didn't have the luxury of time.

Going into speculation a little, were there paper shortages and/or a demand for larger print at any stage?

I agree that criticising his later 1970s/early 1980s output as mass produced (and soon a bit obsolete once VCRs took off and copies started circulating through fandom) is common but would be wary of specific criticism when company policies and/or available time may be equally responsible. Timrollpickering 18:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography list

I've pared down the Doctor Who list a little bit because it had unnecessary duplication by including things like the 2-in-1 reissues and the "Adventures of ..." and "Further Adventures of...". That said I'll add a line indicating that his works were republished. I am curious where publishing dates for the "Adventures" reprints came from -- how could they have been published in 1968-69 when the books cointained therein weren't written for another decade and Tom Baker was shown on the cover? 23skidoo 16:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)