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

 


Page Count: 142 Pages

Apologies for the lack of blog post yesterday… I’m not quite sure why my laptop decided to act up but it got to a point where I had to choose between blog and job-hunting and unfortunately, there was no contest.

Anyway, we’re here now, lets see how it goes… :o)

After a day spent wrestling with (quite frankly) a ‘sulky laptop’, I wasn’t really up for too much reading but wanted to keep a little momentum going. Luckily for me, I have a small pile of ‘Doctor Who’ novelisations on hand for just this kind of situation ;o) This time round, I thought I’d go for ‘The Invasion of Time’; a book that I’d read, way back in the day, but never actually seen on TV. And I’d pretty much forgotten the plot anyway so it was like picking it up for the first time ;o)

A traitor to the Time Lords?

Can the Doctor really be in league with the evil Vardans, spearheading a treacherous invasion of his home planet, Gallifrey? Or is he playing a deadly double game, saving the Time Lords by appearing to betray them?

But the Vardans themselves are only pawns in the game, and the Doctor faces an old and deadly enemy as he battles to foil the invasion of time…

It’s no big spoiler to say that we all know which of those opening sentences applies to the Doctor. And thanks to the cover art, we all know who the ‘old and deadly’ enemy is. You have to ask yourself then… Do you just stick with the blurb, and cover art, or do you carry on and read the actual book?

Well, ‘The Invasion of Time’ is probably a book that’s just for the fans (although, aren’t they all?) but for this fan, was a lot of fun and well worth the read.

Like I said, we all know what the Doctor is up to (he even tells Chancellor Borusa at one point) but Terrance Dicks turns things around, for his readers, by really concentrating on the fact that a whole load of Time Lords, and Leela, have absolutely no idea what’s going on. What we get, as a result, is a plot that feels really tense and uncertain. If Leela, of all people, isn’t sure what the Doctor is up to, can we be that sure ourselves? I mean, we ‘can’ but Dicks does a great job of making us question ourselves, just a little bit.

Add a side-plot featuring ‘Gallifreys Most Inept Castellan’ and we have a story that somehow gives us intrigue and a little humour at the same time. Seriously, Kelner is dreadful at everything he turns his hand to, up to and including trying to betray the Doctor and repeatedly failing. It never failed to make me chuckle though :o)

It did feel a little bittersweet though, watching Borusa do his thing and knowing what he would become by the time of ‘The Five Doctors’. Borusa isn’t a bad person per se, just someone who got too into the Presidency after being, more or less, left to get on with it by… The Doctor? I’m not a hundred precent sure about that by the way, I’ll have to look into it. It feels right though.

A little bit of everything then and all delivered superbly by Terrance Dicks. I’m glad I finally got round to giving ‘The Invasion of Time’ another read :o)

Comments

  1. Bookstooge16 September 2026 at 10:27

    Hope your laptop behaves itself. It's amazing how much we rely on tech like that now, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Graeme16 September 2026 at 23:29

      Right now, I need my laptop more than ever ;o)

      Delete

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