A 'Doctor Who Double Bill'...
I’m not one for coming up with long, sprawling, posts here at the best of times, not any more. Today’s post though is definitely going to be shorter than usual, sorry about that :o) To be fair, it’s my first day back at work, after annual leave, and we all know how that goes. And on top of that, I’ll be at the hospital for most of the afternoon with blood tests and so on. And if that wasn’t enough, I felt pretty sick for most of yesterday so didn’t really read that much anyway… Not the worst problems to have but yeah, today is a ‘short post day’.
I did get a little reading under my belt, yesterday, though and given the state I was in, a little ‘Doctor Who’ seemed like the best way forward. And I was pretty keen to crack open those old hardbacks that I found the other day; given the state some of the pages were in, I thought I should read them while they were still attached to the books… ;o)
There weren’t any big surprises to be had here; as a rule, Terrance Dicks sticks very closely to what happens on the screen. That was OK though as I wasn’t actually after big surprises or twists in the tale, just something familiar that would take my mind off things. And for me, it doesn’t get a lot more familiar than an old ‘Doctor Who’ novelization :o) I’m using the Target cover art here as lets be honest, the hardbacks are great to have but are very ‘plain blue’…
‘Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear’ – Terrance Dicks (W.H. Allen)
Page Count: 127 Pages
The TARDIS materialises in an English quarry. A freak accident traps the Doctor's young friend, Sarah Jane Smith, under tons of rock. When she is rescued, she is frantically clinging to a large stone hand. Taken to a local hospital, it soon becomes clear that Sarah has been possessed.
After she goes missing - still clutching the hand - the Doctor follows the trail of death and destruction to a nearby atomic power station.
What strange power does the hand have over Sarah? Why has she fought her way to the very core of the nuclear reactor? How can she possibly survive the normally lethal radiation? To answer these questions, the Doctor must travel across the galaxy to a long-dead world - after which, life will never be quite the same again...
One of the things that I love about ‘Doctor Who’, and Fourth Doctor stories in particular, is the sheer sense of scale that you get of the history of the universe. Seriously, things that happened hundreds of millions of years ago can still have a resounding impact, in the present, and you really get that sense of connection in ‘The Hand of Fear’. This tale is also a reminder, for me anyway, that back in the day, ‘Fourth Doctor’ tales were not afraid to start off with a heavy dose of planetary catastrophe, I like that :o) The plot itself is fairly straightforward but like I said, that was just what I was after. There was still a really jarring disconnect though between the main plot and the departure of Sarah Jane Smith at the end. I wasn’t too keen on that. Which funnily enough, was what I said when I posted about the TV Serial ;o)
‘Doctor Who and the Android Invasion’ – Terrance Dicks (W.H. Allen)
Page Count: 126 Pages
When the TARDIS materializes just outside a sleepy English village, it appears the Doctor and Sarah Jane are nearly "home" at last. But all is not as it seems in rural paradise. White-suited, gun-wielding guards stalk the countryside, while the village itself is eerily deserted. As the Doctor and Sarah look on, a UNIT member leaps over a cliff to his death and, as the clock strikes twelve, the local pub is suddenly filled with strange robotic villagers. The UNIT member is amongst them, very much alive. What exactly is happening here?
There is nothing like an old ‘Doctor Who’ novelization for making me feel old when I realise how long it has been since I last read it. Over forty years in the case of ‘The Android Invasion’, damn. Anyway…
‘The Android Invasion’ lost a little something in this format as you’re made well aware of who is an android and who isn’t. The book lost its ability to supply an effective tension and that made the ending a bit of a damp squib, at least from where I was sat. Having said that though, I turned up for a sense of routine, to the plot, that ‘The Android Invasion’ stayed true to. It’s the very definition of a ‘Graeme Comfort Read’ and I was very grateful for that. A nice little slice of adventure to sit with while I waited for my stomach to calm down a bit. If you fancy seeing what I had to say about the TV serial, have a look over Here.
I did get a little reading under my belt, yesterday, though and given the state I was in, a little ‘Doctor Who’ seemed like the best way forward. And I was pretty keen to crack open those old hardbacks that I found the other day; given the state some of the pages were in, I thought I should read them while they were still attached to the books… ;o)
There weren’t any big surprises to be had here; as a rule, Terrance Dicks sticks very closely to what happens on the screen. That was OK though as I wasn’t actually after big surprises or twists in the tale, just something familiar that would take my mind off things. And for me, it doesn’t get a lot more familiar than an old ‘Doctor Who’ novelization :o) I’m using the Target cover art here as lets be honest, the hardbacks are great to have but are very ‘plain blue’…
‘Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear’ – Terrance Dicks (W.H. Allen)
Page Count: 127 Pages
The TARDIS materialises in an English quarry. A freak accident traps the Doctor's young friend, Sarah Jane Smith, under tons of rock. When she is rescued, she is frantically clinging to a large stone hand. Taken to a local hospital, it soon becomes clear that Sarah has been possessed.
After she goes missing - still clutching the hand - the Doctor follows the trail of death and destruction to a nearby atomic power station.
What strange power does the hand have over Sarah? Why has she fought her way to the very core of the nuclear reactor? How can she possibly survive the normally lethal radiation? To answer these questions, the Doctor must travel across the galaxy to a long-dead world - after which, life will never be quite the same again...
One of the things that I love about ‘Doctor Who’, and Fourth Doctor stories in particular, is the sheer sense of scale that you get of the history of the universe. Seriously, things that happened hundreds of millions of years ago can still have a resounding impact, in the present, and you really get that sense of connection in ‘The Hand of Fear’. This tale is also a reminder, for me anyway, that back in the day, ‘Fourth Doctor’ tales were not afraid to start off with a heavy dose of planetary catastrophe, I like that :o) The plot itself is fairly straightforward but like I said, that was just what I was after. There was still a really jarring disconnect though between the main plot and the departure of Sarah Jane Smith at the end. I wasn’t too keen on that. Which funnily enough, was what I said when I posted about the TV Serial ;o)
‘Doctor Who and the Android Invasion’ – Terrance Dicks (W.H. Allen)
Page Count: 126 Pages
When the TARDIS materializes just outside a sleepy English village, it appears the Doctor and Sarah Jane are nearly "home" at last. But all is not as it seems in rural paradise. White-suited, gun-wielding guards stalk the countryside, while the village itself is eerily deserted. As the Doctor and Sarah look on, a UNIT member leaps over a cliff to his death and, as the clock strikes twelve, the local pub is suddenly filled with strange robotic villagers. The UNIT member is amongst them, very much alive. What exactly is happening here?
There is nothing like an old ‘Doctor Who’ novelization for making me feel old when I realise how long it has been since I last read it. Over forty years in the case of ‘The Android Invasion’, damn. Anyway…
‘The Android Invasion’ lost a little something in this format as you’re made well aware of who is an android and who isn’t. The book lost its ability to supply an effective tension and that made the ending a bit of a damp squib, at least from where I was sat. Having said that though, I turned up for a sense of routine, to the plot, that ‘The Android Invasion’ stayed true to. It’s the very definition of a ‘Graeme Comfort Read’ and I was very grateful for that. A nice little slice of adventure to sit with while I waited for my stomach to calm down a bit. If you fancy seeing what I had to say about the TV serial, have a look over Here.
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