Target Books/1994 and beyond

Target Books' Doctor Who output in 1994 was limited to the adaptation of a radio play featuring the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. Though it is considered "the last of the Target novelisations", it stands apart from all its predecessors in that it doesn't novelise a television script.

After 1994, stocks of Target novelisations were allowed to run out and the line ceased to exist as the catalogue eventually went entirely out of print. Interest in the novelisations would be rekindled by the onset of the BBC Wales version Doctor Who. Although only a few have been brought back into print by BBC Books, many of the novelisations have been turned into a series of audio readings by key actors from the 1963 version of the programme.

Novelisation Covers

Doctor Who – The Paradise of Death

Reprints and Other Title Covers

2RobotsDeath.jpg

Doctor Who and the Robots of Death
Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang

Publishing History (1994)

February

REISSUE: Doctor Who and the Robots of Death (Issued with a new cover by Alister Pearson)

March

REISSUE: Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang (Issued with a new cover by Alister Pearson)

April

The Paradise of Death Writer: Barry Letts Cover Artist: Alister Pearson

The Paradise of Death, based upon a 1993 radio play, was the final release under the Target Books banner, although the book is often mistaken for a release in the Virgin Missing Adventures line as it had a similar format to those books. After its release, Target was retired and future novelisations by Virgin Publishing would be issued either under the MA or New Adventures banners, although none of these would be based upon original-series episodes. Two more novelisations, based upon the 1996 TV movie and the webcast Scream of the Shalka, would be later published by BBC Books. Regular television-episode novelisations would not occur again until 2007 when Penguin Character Books began releasing novelisations based upon The Sarah Jane Adventures

Publishing History (Beyond 1994)

By the end of the 1990s, all Target Books releases were considered out of print.

In 2007, BBC Audio began a series of complete and unabridged releases of the Target novelisations giving new life to these old favourites. (see Target Books (BBC Audio releases)).

In the summer of 2008, an issue of Doctor Who Magazine came packaged with one of 27 Target Books releases; these were not reprinted copies, but left-over stock.