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Warriors of the Deep was a novelisation based on the 1984 television serial Warriors of the Deep.
Publisher's summary
1984 edition
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.
Deviations from televised story
- In the televised version it is implied the Sea Devils are hibernating in a bunker beneath the ocean floor. In the novelisation they are hibernating in the lower depths of the Silurian craft.
- Terrance Dicks in his novelisation makes no implication regarding the two sides in the human conflict, clearly referring to them as "East Block" and "West Block".
- Terrance Dicks explains that Tegan's foot is undamaged when trapped under the heavy door "by a kind of freak accident".
- Terrance Dicks paints Doctor Solow as a sympathetic character, persuaded by Nilson that the "East Block" had the solution to banish suffering and injustice from the world.
- Icthar's reference to twice having offered the hand of friendship does not fit with shown continuity (possibly explained in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell), and is rewritten by Terrance Dicks as the Doctor having twice tried in vain to make peace.
- Icthar is clearly identified as the unnamed Silurian previously encountered by the Third Doctor in the televised Doctor Who and the Silurians.
- Terrance Dicks retains in his novel an attempted rescue of the Doctor by Turlough and Preston, cut from the televised version to emphasise Turlough's cowardice and selfishness.
- On television the Sea Devils had been hibernating for hundreds of years. In the novelisation Terrance Dicks changes this to thousands, but it is likely to have been around forty million years!
Writing and publishing notes
- This was the first book to use the white outline version of the Target Books logo, which would be used for the remainder of the range's run. The previous colour logo appeared on one book published later before being retired.
Additional cover images
1992 edition; Cover by Alister Pearson
British publication history
To be added
First Publication:
- Hardback
- W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK
- Paperback
- Target
Re-issues:
Editions published outside Britain
To be added
Audio Book
In June 1995, BBC Audio released an abridged audio book version of the novel, read by Peter Davison.