Planet of Fire (novelisation)

Planet of Fire
Based on:	Planet of Fire
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Turlough, Peri, Kamelion
Main enemy:	The Tremas Master
Main setting:	Lanzarote and Sarn, 1984
Key crew
Publisher:	Target Books, W.H. Allen
Writer:	Peter Grimwade
Cover by:	Andrew Skilleter
Release details
Release number:	93
Release date:	14 February 1985
Format:	Hardcover and paperback editions; 11 Chapters, 143 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-19940-5
Publication Order
← Previous	Frontios
Next →	The Caves of Androzani
TV series order
← Previous	Resurrection of the Daleks
Next →	The Caves of Androzani

Planet of Fire was a novelisation based on the 1984 television serial Planet of Fire.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor is enjoying the sun on a holiday island – but things are soon hotter than he bargained for.

The young American Perpugilliam Brown brings to the TARDIS a mysterious object that her archaeologist step-father has found in a sunken wreck. Kamelion, the Doctor's robot friend of a thousand disguises, reacts to the object totally unexpectedly, with bewildering consequences for the TARDIS crew.

For Kamelion sends the Doctor and his friends to Sarn, a terrifyingly beautiful planet of fire. This strange world provides the key to Turlough's secret past – and once again the Doctor is pitted against the wily Master.

Chapter titles

1. Mayday
2. Message Received
3. Destination Unknown
4. Crisis on Sarn
5. A Very Uncivil Servant
6. Outsiders
7. The Misos Triangle
8. An Enemy in Disguise
9. In the Heart of the Volcano
10. The Blow Flame
11. The Time of Fire

Deviations from televised story

• In the televised version, the Doctor and Peri leave Sarn in the TARDIS and the ship takes off violently, with the Doctor welcoming Peri aboard. In the novel, the story simply ends with Turlough taking one last look, before boarding the Transporter.
• Turlough wants to leave the Sarns to die.
• Turlough finds the graves of his parents.
• Timanov survives the story thinking Logar has returned.
• There is an opening chapter contrasting the sinking of the Greek ship with the crash of the Trion ship.
• The novel places all the material on Sarn after the TARDIS has left Earth.
• Curt is renamed Carl.
• There is extra threatening dialogue between Turlough and Kamelion before the former first leaves the TARDIS.
• The Sarns are unaware that the Elders' staffs are laser weapons until Kamelion shows them how to work them.
• Sorasta is described as young, rather than middle-aged as on screen, and there is extra material of her arranging to have food gathered and hidden in defiance of the Elders' instructions.
• Amyand attempts to kill the miniaturised Master.
• Instead of being native to the planet as on screen, the Sarns are said to be Trion dissidents abandoned on the planet with their memories erased.
• In what appears to be a mistake, Malkon is said to be present in one of the scenes in the Unbelievers' hideout.
• Zuko is effectively omitted with his role given to various unnamed Unbelievers.
• Timanov takes all the Elders with him when he first meets Kamelion, rather than just the lookout.

Writing and publishing notes

• This novelisation restructured the televised version.
• Although number #93 in the Doctor Who library, the book was actually the 92nd to be released; it was swapped in the publication order with the novelisation of The Caves of Androzani late in the day without the numbers being reassigned.
• The paperback edition features a unique version of the "neon tube" Doctor Who logo, which features no line detailing on the surface of the lettering.

Additional cover images

• 

  1984 Hardback edition

British publication history

First publication:

• Hardback

W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK

• Paperback

Target

External links

• On Target a comprehensive guide to the Target novelisations by Tim Neal