‘Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep’ – Terrance Dicks (Target)

 


Page Count: 126 Pages

I really shouldn’t have gone to Greenwich Market at the weekend, it’s not like I don’t have enough books to read at home…;o) I was going a little stir crazy though so off I went and of course I ended up coming home with a couple of ‘Doctor Who’ books, ‘Warriors of the Deep’ and ‘The Monster of Peladon’ (amongst other things). Oh well…

Anyway, after ‘one of those days’ at work, I was more or less in the mood for some comfort reading and (finally) settled on ‘Warriors of the Deep’; a TV serial that nobody else seems to like, apart from me. I’m awkward like that ;o)

I’d never read the book though, and it has been a while since I watched the TV serial, so last night I settled down for the kind of read that doesn’t come round all that often. ‘The book that you haven’t read but kind of half-know the story’…

When the TARDIS materialises on Earth in the year 2084, the Doctor meets an old enemy – the Sea Devils. Once the masters of this planet, they are now forced to live in the murky depths of the sea. But their intention is to reclaim their position of domination…

This will entail the infiltration of Earth’s defence systems and the provocation of another World War, more terrible than any yet experienced, to bring about the complete annihilation of the human race.

Not only is the first stage of the Sea Devil’s attack successful, their associates in this dastardly plan are the sinister Silurians, also known to the Doctor of old… Can the Doctor avoid the mistakes of his previous encounters and make peace between the old rulers of the Earth, and the new…?

Much like the serial (funny, that…), this novelisation is very much a case of ‘TARDIS materialises, a mystery is solved, ‘monsters’ are defeated and the Doctor and friends head off into space again’. This book doesn’t hang about and if you’re someone who likes to see a mystery slowly unfold then I totally get why a more streamlined approach may not agree with you here. As far as I’m concerned though? I like it.

‘Warriors of the Deep’ is a nice reminder that not all of the Doctor’s adventures play out over the course of, what… a day or two? That’s a really good question actually but maybe not for this post. Anyway… What I was going to say is that there must be adventures where the Doctor literally jumps out of the TARDIS, saves the day and heads off again. From where I’m sat, ‘Warriors of the Deep’ ended up being a very good example of this with Terrance Dicks keeping things moving along at a decent speed, all laced with the kind of paranoia you get when the world is on the edge of another World War and you’re stuck at the bottom of the sea (with no idea what’s outside). Simmering tension, with sporadic outbursts of violence, are the order of the day and for all the issues that I can have with Dicks’ writing, I’ve got to be fair and say that he does bloody well, bringing it all out here. And I enjoyed how the urgency of the situation trips the Doctor up here, he is able to bring everything back from the brink but he’s not in control and the Doctor pays the price… It’s a sobering moment and a reminder that the Doctor isn’t perfect.

I know that I’m very much in the minority with ‘Warriors of the Deep’ as a whole (at least from what I’ve seen online) but this was a very effective novelisation, really capturing everything that made the show so watchable for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Greenwich Market but, I’m glad I did ;o)

Comments

  1. Bookstooge7 July 2026 at 10:19

    I've never heard of these guys (not a big surprise to me at all). Which Dr did they get introduced to viewers, do you know?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Alien Harvest’ – Robert Sheckley (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 326 Pages It feels like a while since I last had an ‘Aliens’ post here (‘Aliens: Genocide’, back in May , just in case you were wondering…) but I have been pecking away at ‘Alien Harvest’, a page here and then a few pages here. And that should be a little bit of a red flag right there. The four preceding ‘Aliens’ novels (or, one and a half omnibuses) were all very readable and, ultimately, a lot of fun despite a few misgivings here and there. ‘Alien Harvest’ though…? Honestly, it has taken me weeks to get through and if it wasn’t for my generally enjoying the franchise (and being an awkward middle-aged chap who sometimes, just won’t let a book beat him…), I’d have DNF’d this book and moved on without a second thought. I didn’t though (because I’m awkward and needed the win) and here I am, trying to make a little sense of how I feel about ‘Alien Harvest’. Lets see how I do… Royal jelly, the most illicit of Alien by-products, is keeping Dr, Stan Myakovsky alive. A once ...
Read more

‘Wolverine : Old Man Logan’ – Millar, McNiven (Marvel)

Image
  Page Count: 256 Pages Long ago, there lived a Graeme who was having a pretty rough time and bought loads of comic books to cheer himself up. Some tough lessons, about the transient nature of money, followed but the comic books stuck around for a little longer so, things (kind of) balanced out ;o) One of those comic books was the collected ‘Old Man Logan’ and it was an awesome read (yes, I was that Graeme, in case you hadn’t worked it out). Thanks to the aforementioned transient nature of money, and the need for more, I had to get rid of my old copy but a couple of weeks ago, I saw another copy for sale and figured that it was time to pay ‘Old Man Logan’ another visit. When eBay is full of overpriced second hand copies, it’s nice to see Marvel do the decent thing and publish a new edition. Or, more likely, see an opportunity to make more money. Either way, I have a new book so I’m happy :o) A future world savaged and sundered by super villains, the United States ain’t what it used...
Read more

‘Dig Me No Grave’ – Robert E. Howard

Image
  Page Count: Fourteen Pages, eight lines and two words (sorry, it has been one of those weeks) I was looking for something short and sweet, to end the week on, and came across ‘Dig Me No Grave’ courtesy of Paperback Warrior’s write-up . Having read it, I can attest to it being short (all of fourteen and a bit pages in ‘The Dead Remember’ collection) but sweet? Not at all and that is meant in the best possible way :o) ‘Dig Me No Grave’ was originally published in the February 1937 of ‘Weird Tales’ and while it has appeared in other collections since then, I read it in ‘The Dead Remember (The Dark Man Omnibus: Volume 2) and also found it in my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. If you’re an e-reading type, you can grab yourself ‘Dig Me No Grave’ over at Project Gutenberg. John Kirowan is woken, in the middle of the night, by his friend John Conrad, bearer of bad news and come to beg a favour. The occultist John Grimlan has just died and Conrad asks that Kirowan att...
Read more