‘Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon’ – Terrance Dicks (Target)

 


Page Count: 124 Pages

So yesterday was sick leave (nothing serious, don’t worry) and I spent the day in my trusty comfy chair, working my way through ‘Todd and the Book of Pure Evil’ (funnier than I thought it would be). Luckily for this post, I also spent a chunk of my time reading ‘Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon’; a book that I haven’t read since, erm… a long time ago. Yep, this is one of those posts where I end up feeling really quite old… Anyway, a re-read then but it had been so long that it felt like I was coming to the book for the first time.

Let me tell you about it…

Fifty years after his first visit to Peladon, the Doctor returns to find that Queen Thalira has inherited a troubled kingdom from her father.

Membership of the Galactic Federation was expected to bring peace and prosperity to the planet, but the spirit of the sacred monster Aggedor is once more spreading terror and death.

The Doctor uncovers a treacherous plot to steal the mineral wealth of Peladon, and is again confronted by his old enemies – the Ice Warriors.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have too much to say about ‘The Monster of Peladon’, the page count didn’t leave me with much choice :o) This is another adventure where the Doctor is thrust into an ongoing crisis and forced to think on his feet to stand any chance of resolving things. Things happen quickly but luckily for us, they never feel rushed; there is a feeling of events happening at the pace they’re meant to and the plot flows very smoothly for it.

Talking of which, it really helped that not only had it been years since I last read the book, I’ve also never actually seen the TV serial. I knew how it had to end (I mean, it’s an old ‘Doctor Who’ story…) but there was still a lot room for surprises and twists, in the meantime, and there were plenty. It really didn’t matter if Dicks was ‘telling it as he saw it’ or not; I thought one particular character was behind it all (was sure, in fact) but learned a quick lesson in not making assumptions. I don’t often find that, in classic ‘Doctor Who’ novelisations, so it was a bit of a treat to come across it here and it felt like it was Dicks’ treatment of the plot, rather than just the TV serial, that made it so.

‘Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon’ ended up being the ideal read for a spot of sick leave then :o) Plenty to get stuck into but none of it outstayed its welcome, just what I was after.

Comments

  1. Bookstooge15 July 2026 at 09:48

    Hope the weather wasn't as abominably hot as before. Being sick AND hot is a bad combo for sure!

    ReplyDelete

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