‘Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks’ – Terrance Dicks (Target)


Page Count: 125 Pages

Another Monday has crept up on us so while we’re all wondering where the weekend went, lets kick things off here with a quick look at the only book I managed to finish over the last couple of days. No regrets by the way, I spent Father’s Day with my girls and it was brilliant, wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Way back in early 2020, when I reviewed the ‘Planet of the Daleks’ TV serial, I mentioned that I used to own a copy of ‘The Dalek Omnibus’, which was where I first came across the novelization of ‘Planet of the Daleks’. That book left my possession a long time ago now, long enough that back then, I was sure that I’d never see another copy. And I was right, I’m not counting the copies on eBay that have a different cover (I’m fussy). Not so long ago though, I did come across a copy of ‘Planet of the Daleks’, on Greenwich Market, and made sure that it came home with me. This weekend felt like the time to finally read it so… That’s exactly what I did ;o)

Jo peered through the panel and saw nothing. Yet someone had entered the cabin. She could hear hoarse breathing and stealthy padding footsteps. A beaker rose in the air of its own accord, then dropped to the floor…

After pursuing the Daleks through space, the Doctor lands on the planet of Spiridon, in the midst of a tropical jungle… and finds more than just Daleks. Vicious plants spitting deadly poison, invisible Spiridons attacking from all sides and, in hiding, a vast army waits… for the moment to mobilise and conquer…

I’ll be honest, I read the hell out of ‘Planet of the Daleks’ as a kid and going back to it, on Saturday, really was like catching up with an old friend and feeling like no time had passed at all. The nostalgia buzz inevitably played a large part in this feeling but even without that, ‘Planet of the Daleks’ is still a story that is really easy to get invested it and stick with to the end. I may just have to revisit my overall opinion of Terrance Dicks’ writing. I mean, there’s plenty to work with here anyway but I think Dicks does particularly well delivering a high stakes plot that is driven along by its sense of sheer urgency.

A large part of that is down to the hidden presence of ten thousand Daleks but where Dicks really hit the target, for me, was in his depiction of the dangers of Spiridon itself and what this does to the Thal mission (who must be constantly on guard against, well… everything really). The level of tension doesn’t quite make it across the whole book but did more than enough, in the meantime, to keep me fully engaged, even though there is always that nagging sense that the Doctor will win through anyway. And I know that’s really the whole point but sometimes, I wish that something would come along and really test him. That’s me though, not this book ;o)

I’m finding that ‘old school Target novelization’ Doctor Who sets me nicely for the week ahead and ‘Planet of the Daleks’ was no exception. I’m glad I grabbed the book before someone else did :o)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Way Out’ & ‘Perdition’s Flame’ (Warhammer Horror, Black Library)

Image
It’s Friday so you’d normally be looking at a post on whatever I read, on the bus to/from work, yesterday. Not today though… I had a touch of insomnia followed by a day in the office so while I had a book in my bag (I always have a book in my bag…), I was in no state to actually read it. Luckily, I had a couple of Black Library audiobooks on my phone so I listened to them instead. As a rule, I don’t tend to do too well with audiobooks that are hours long and just a narrator narrating. Black Library though, have a nice line in audiobooks that have a full cast, run for just over an hour and are full of immersive sound effects I thought I’d see how that worked with a couple of ‘Warhammer Horror’ tales… ‘The Way Out’ – Rachel Harrison In the midst of a vast gas nebula lies a remote watch-station, hanging silently against a tapestry of dying stars. It sits alone, patiently awaiting lost travellers adrift in the freezing vastness of the void. To such souls it appears as a blessing, a safe h...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

'Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone’ – Zub, Scharf, Canola (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
It’s starting to look like this could be the week where I make a half decent dent in my ‘Comics TBR Pile’, lets see how we do... I’ve really been struggling with the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection just recently (more than one reason but I want to finish the collection first before I talk about it) and I thought that I’d have to take a little step back from ‘Conan’ comics and come back when I was in a better mood for it. Until I realized that there was another ‘Conan’ comic lurking in the TBR pile and maybe I could give that a go instead. So that’s what I did. I’ve caught little glimpses of the ‘Black Stone’ storyline, in other ‘Conan’ comics, but I can’t help but feel that the event has kind of passed me by a little. That’s on me though to be fair, I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish right now and there are so many books that I just haven’t been able to focus on; I suspect a couple of them talk about a Black Stone… Oh well, I’m here now. Where better a place to catch up on ‘B...
Read more