Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks (novelisation)
Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks was a novelisation based on the 1973 television serial Planet of the Daleks.
Publisher's summary
1976 Target Books edition
Jo peered through the panel and saw nothing. Yet someone had entered the cabin. She could hear hoarse breathing and stealthy padding footsteps. A beaker rose in the air of its own accord, then dropped to the floor ... THE INVISIBLE ENEMY
After pursuing the DALEKS through Space, DOCTOR WHO lands on the Planet of Spiridon, in the midst of a tropical jungle ... and finds more than Daleks. Vicious plants spitting deadly poison, invisible Spiridons attacking from all sides and, in hiding, a vast army waits ... for the moment to mobilise and CONQUER.
1992 Target Books edition
'THE DOCTOR'S BREATHING SEEMS TO HAVE STOPPED. THERE IS NO PULSE OR HEARTBEAT, AND HIS SKIN IS ICY COLD.'
Alone with the injured and unconscious Doctor, Jo Grant ventures on to the planet Spiridon to find help.
But in the lush undergrowth of Spiridon there lurks disease, poisonous plants, invisible enemy and, most sinister of all, an army of Daleks, waiting in secret for the signal to mobilize - and conquer.
This novelization by Terrance Dicks of an original script by Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks as well as of such classic series as Blake's 7 and Survivors.
Chapter titles
- Jo Alone
- The Invisible Menace
- The Deadly Trap
- In the Power of the Daleks
- The Escape
- Danger on Level Zero
- Ascent to Peril
- The Enemy Within
- Vaber's Sacrifice
- Return to the City
- An Army Awakes
- The Last Gamble
Deviations from televised story
- The cliffhanger ending, left out of Doctor Who and the Space War is instated here, although some details are somewhat different. If the novelisations were intended to follow the same continuity, there is some small scope for some off-"screen" activity to have taken place.
- Jo states in the TARDIS log that the Doctor was injured in a Dalek ambush, whereas in the televised version of Frontier in Space, he was injured in a confrontation with the Master and the Ogrons after the Daleks left.
- The cliffhanger ending sees Jo help the injured Doctor into the TARDIS. The Frontier novelisation omits the Doctor being injured; in the Planet novelisation, the Doctor is injured, but the first scene begins with him and Jo already inside the TARDIS.
- The Spiridons are said to have formed a civilisation which later collapsed. (In this, they are not dissimilar to the Exxilons.)
- The Daleks have saturated the forests with deadly rays which crushed Spiridon resistance to the occupation.
- The Dalek Supreme is the second in command of the Dalek Emperor, not just an envoy of Dalek Supreme Command. Marat describes the Dalek Supreme's rank in awe instead of just describing him to be a member of the Supreme council.
- A single reference to the colour of the standard Dalek casings describes them as silver, not grey.
- At the end, the Thals give the Doctor and Jo anti-fungus suits so they can recover the TARDIS.
- Vaber questions Taron's decision to go and help the Doctor.
- Codal states that he volunteered for the mission because he was the only scientist young and fit enough, rather than because his entire section volunteered.
- Vaber is present when Rebec tells Taron about the Dalek army, rather than having gone to look for other survivors.
- Vaber and Latep's bomb doesn't detonate because it is buried by an icecano, rather than because it was faulty.
- It is Vaber, rather than Taron, who joins the Doctor in spray-painting the invisible Dalek.
- Wester removes his robes before releasing the virus, meaning he is invisible at the time. There is no mention of him becoming visible when he dies. The Doctor and Taron hear about his death and spare him some last thoughts.
- The Dalek Section Leader is instead identified as the Dalek Commander or Expedition Commander. He is not explicitly stated to be inside the lab when Wester releases the virus. This avoids an apparently contradictory instance in the televised serial, where the Leader either reappears outside the lab with no explanation, or the Supreme Dalek instantly executes the Leader's replacement for the Leader's own failures.
Writing and publishing notes
- An unused and unfinished piece of cover artwork for this title by Roy Knipe was later finished and sold privately in the early 2000s.
- Title page includes: THE CHANGING FACE OF DOCTOR WHO. The cover illustration of this book portrays the third DOCTOR WHO whose physical appearance was altered by the Time Lords when they banished him to planet Earth in the Twentieth Century.
to be added
Additional cover images
1976 Hardback edition
1992 edition.
Cover by Alister Pearson
British publication history
First publication:
- Hardback
- W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK
- Paperback
- Target
Re-issues:
- 60p (UK)
- 1992 Virgin Publishing with a new cover by Alister Pearson priced £2.99 (UK)
Editions published outside Britain
- Published in Germany by Schneider-Buch in 1980 as a paperback edition, translated by Ulla Neckenauer and published as Dr. Who Der Planet der Daleks, it was one of two German novelisations published in the early 1980’s.
- Published again in Germany by Goldmann Verlag in 1989 as a paperback edition, translator unknown and published as Dr. Who und der Planet der Daleks, it was one of six German novelisations published in the late 1980’s
1980 edition.
Cover by David Hardy
1989 edition
Audiobook
In June 1995, BBC Audio released an abridged audiobook version of the novel, read by Jon Pertwee. It was later reissued on Tales from the TARDIS: Volume Two.
This story was also released on 1 June 2013 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Mark Gatiss, with Dalek voices by Nicholas Briggs.
The cover blurb and thumbnail illustrations were retained in the accompanying booklet with sleevenotes by David J. Howe. Music and sound effects by Simon Power.
The 2013 audiobook version was reissued as part of the audio anthology The Second Alien World Collection on 6 December 2018.
2013 audiobook cover
The Second Alien Worlds Collection
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