‘Doctor Who and the Time Warrior’ – Terrance Dicks (Target)

This is going to be another one of those short posts but bear with me 😉 I’ve actually found my groove with work today (it’s only a little groove but even so…) and I don’t want to waste it, I’ve got a fair bit that I want to get done… Not only that but ‘The Time Warrior’ is only a hundred and forty-four pages long so doesn’t lend itself to a longer post anyway 😊 I actually finished this book a few months ago but it got packed away for the move and I only found it, again, yesterday. While it’s on my mind then, let me tell you a bit about it…

His spaceship crippled in an interstellar battle, the Sontaran warrior, Linx, is forced to crash-land on Earth. He arrives in the Middle Ages, a time too primitive to provide the technology to he needs to repair his ship. Allying himself with the local robber chief, Linx uses his powers to ‘borrow’ scientists and equipment from twentieth-century Earth.

The Doctor tracks down the missing scientists and journeys into the past to save them. But can he defeat the ruthless Linx and his savage human allies before the course of human history is changed forever…?

I’ve never actually seen ‘The Time Warrior’ so this will be a rare occasion where I don’t have a little moan about Terrance Dicks just recounting the story. Funnily enough, that’s just what I was after 😉 Things still come across as a little abrupt, and to the point, but I still got a good feel for the plot and that was the main thing here. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d come across this plot before, in another Doctor Who tale (and it’s bugging me that I can’t remember which one now) but there’s still plenty to get stuck into here, I’m thinking of the introduction of Sarah Jane Smith in particular. I didn’t realise that ‘The Time Warrior’ was her debut story and I ended up having a lot of fun watching her travel with the Doctor, especially when she didn’t realise that was what was happening. Watching Sarah Jane try and apply modern logic to time-travelling certainly made for some very readable moments and I got a lot out of seeing how her journey with the Doctor began.

The rest of the book was also a lot of fun to read. The ending was perhaps a little too obvious (the Doctor never loses and that’s the whole point really but even so…) but the journey made up for it, full of all the little bits that make ‘Doctor Who’ what it is. I’m in no huge rush for a re-read but I’m glad that I got the chance to give it a go.