List of Doctor Who novelisations

Dr. Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, published in 1964, was the very first Doctor Who novelisation. Illustrated is the first paperback edition published in 1965.

This is a list of Doctor Who novelisations, in order of publication.

The first three Doctor Who serials to be novelised were the William Hartnell stories The Daleks (as Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker), The Web Planet (Doctor Who and the Zarbi by Bill Strutton) and The Crusade (Doctor Who and the Crusaders by Whitaker). They were published in hardback by Frederick Muller Ltd; the first was also published in paperback, by Armada.

Between 1973 and 1991, Target Books published almost every Doctor Who television serial as a novelisation, starting with new editions of the Frederick Muller books. When Target was taken over by Virgin Books in 1991, three further serials - The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks by John Peel and the radio serial The Paradise of Death by Barry Letts - were added to the range.

The only serials from the original 1963-1989 run of the show never to have been officially novelised by Target and its related companies are The Pirate Planet, City of Death (to be published 21 May 2015 by BBC Books^[1]), Shada (published in March 2012 by BBC Books^[2]), Resurrection of the Daleks, and Revelation of the Daleks, due to licensing issues with the original scriptwriters. (Unofficial fan novelisations were published by the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club between 1989 and 2000.) The Children in Need special Dimensions in Time and the Comic Relief spoof Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death have also not been novelised.

BBC Books published a novelisation of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie by Gary Russell. There are currently no plans to novelise episodes of the revived series with Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor or Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. However, in late 2007 unofficial fan-produced novelisations of the first two 2005 episodes were published as ebooks. They were quickly removed from the website following threat of legal action by the BBC's Brand Protection Team.

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. 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.

Besides The Paradise of Death, Target also novelised two additional non-televised stories: the radio play Slipback and the audio story The Pescatons.

A novelisation by Barry Letts of a further 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 the same year, the Virgin New Adventures range published a novelisation of Shakedown: The Return of the Sontarans. The most recent novelisation to be published was an adaptation by Gareth Roberts of the unfinished TV story Shada, published by BBC Books in 2012. In 2013, Roberts announced that he was working on a novelisation of City of Death, due for publication in 2015.^[3][4][1] Roberts later announced he was no longer working on the book, rather James Goss was working on it.^[5][6]

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 rate of approximately two every two months; the books themselves remain officially out of print. BBC Books began reprinting selected titles starting in July 2011.^[7]

Publication details

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. 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.

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), but rather was conducted in alphabetical order, so that the novelisation of The Abominable Snowmen was numbered "1". The numbering likewise had no connection with production or broadcast order. Due to print delays and last-minute reordering of publication schedules, some of the later books were released out of numeric order.

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 append 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.

List of novelisations published by Frederick Muller Ltd

These three books based on First Doctor serials were first published in hardcover by Frederick Muller Ltd.

List of novelisations published by Target

This list of novelisations published by Target, or its successors, is sortable by its number in the "Doctor Who Library", title, Doctor, author or date. The Audiobook column indicates whether an abridged or unabridged audiobook has been released. See List of Doctor Who audiobooks.

Omnibus and two in one releases

A number of novelisations were released in omnibus editions, mostly by book clubs.

In 1988–1989, W. H. Allen's Star label published a number of the Target novelisations in a format of two novelisations in one book in a range titled Doctor Who Classics. These were produced by fixing together two Target books with a new front page and outer cover. The pairings were:

• The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Crusade released August 1988
• The Gunfighters and The Myth Makers released August 1988
• The Dominators and The Krotons released September 1988
• The Mind of Evil and The Claws of Axos released March 1989
• The Dæmons and The Time Monster released March 1989
• The Seeds of Doom and The Deadly Assassin released May 1989
• The Face of Evil and The Sun Makers released May 1989

List of other novelisations

Other Doctor Who or Doctor Who-related productions have been novelised outside of the Target Books line. This includes a series of novelisations by the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club which were privately published and not licensed by the BBC (all based upon serials Target were unable to obtain the rights to), several novelisations of radio and independent film stories published by Virgin after it had retired Target, novelisations published by BBC Books, and novelisations written exclusively for audiobooks.

List of Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations

Beginning in 2007, Penguin Books under its Penguin Character Books imprint began publishing novelisations based upon the spinoff series The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Illustrators

British artist Andrew Skilleter created much of the cover art for the Doctor Who books from 1979 to 1994, along with video covers and other merchandise.^[18][19] His work on Doctor Who was showcased in his 1995 volume Blacklight: The Art of Andrew Skilleter.^[19][20]

Adaptations

Generally, Doctor Who stories that have been broadcast will be adapted into print, rather than vice versa. There have been some occasions where written media has been adapted for the screen or formed inspiration for television episodes.

• The 1995 New Adventures novel Human Nature, written by Paul Cornell and featuring the Seventh Doctor, was adapted by the same author for the 2007 series of Doctor Who as a two part story with the episode titles "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood", with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.
• Steven Moffat based his 2007 episode "Blink" upon a 2006 short story, "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow", originally published in Doctor Who Annual 2006.
• Gareth Roberts reused his concept from a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story as the basis for an episode of the same name "The Lodger", which was transmitted as part of Series 5 (2010), featuring Matt Smith.

See also

• List of Torchwood novels and audio books
• List of Doctor Who novelists
• List of television series made into books

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Doctor Who: City of Death: Amazon.co.uk: Douglas Adams, James Goss: Books". Retrieved 21 October 2014. 
2. ↑ Doctor Who News: Novelisation of Shada to be published in 2012
3. ↑ Roberts, Gareth (2 October 2013). "Twitter: OldRoberts953". Twitter. Retrieved 3 October 2013. 
4. ↑ Rowe, Josiah (3 October 2013). "Gareth Roberts writing City of Death novelisation". Doctor Who News Page. Retrieved 3 October 2013. 
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Gareth Roberts on Twitter: "Bit of news: the amazingly talented @gossjam is now doing the book of City Of Death. It'll be fantastic!"". Retrieved 21 October 2014. 
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Doctor Who News: Gareth Roberts no longer writing City of Death book". The Doctor Who News Page. Retrieved 21 October 2014. 
7. ↑ "Doctor Who News: BBC Books: Classic Novelisation reprints". The Doctor Who News Page. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
8. ↑ "Pickwick International". Millennium Effect. Retrieved 2012-03-18. 
9. ↑ "BC Red (KS2) A/5C Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
10. ↑ "BC Red (KS2) B/5B Doctor Who: The Time of Angels". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
11. ↑ "BC Blue (KS2)/4A-B Comic: Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
12. ↑ "BC Red (KS2)/5C-5B Comic: Doctor Who: The Lodger". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
13. ↑ "AudioGO suspends business operations". The Bookseller. Retrieved 2013-12-09. 
14. ↑ "BC Gold A/2B Sarah Jane Adventures: Judoon Afternoon". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
15. ↑ "BC White B/2A Sarah Jane Adventures: Haunted House". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
16. ↑ "BC White A/2A Sarah Jane Adventures: Painting Peril". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
17. ↑ "BC Gold B/2B Sarah Jane Adventures: Blathereen Dream". pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2015. 
18. ↑ Andrew Skilleter at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Andrew Skilleter". A Galaxy of Stars. Retrieved 2014-08-27. 
20. ↑ Andrew Skilleter, Blacklight: The Art of Andrew Skilleter, Doctor Who Books, 1995. ISBN 1-85227-415-8.

External links

• On Target, a guide to Target novelisations
• The TARDIS Library: Books A comprehensive guide to all official & unofficial Doctor Who novelisations and other books ever published