April Books 20) Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks
20) Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks, by John Peel
John Peel continues his run of excellent Who books with this, the first story of Patrick Troughton's incarnation of Doctor Who. It is a favourite of mine anyway - I cannot understand why fannish opinion generally prefers the later Evil of the Daleks - but Peel, equipped with David Whitaker's original scripts (retrieved, apparently, from his ex-wife's attic) and benefiting from some editorial decision to give him 250 rather than 125 pages to tell the story, has done an excellent job.
On reflection, it's also because this is a relatively unusual Dalek story, presenting them not as a rival galactic empire to us humans but as in some way a dark reflection of our own desires about ourselves. The only other televised story that comes close to doing that is Robert Shearman's Ninth Doctor story.
Anyway, Peel turns a good TV story (as far as we can judge, since it is one of the lost ones) into a good novel. An encouraging start to my reading up on the Second Doctor.
John Peel continues his run of excellent Who books with this, the first story of Patrick Troughton's incarnation of Doctor Who. It is a favourite of mine anyway - I cannot understand why fannish opinion generally prefers the later Evil of the Daleks - but Peel, equipped with David Whitaker's original scripts (retrieved, apparently, from his ex-wife's attic) and benefiting from some editorial decision to give him 250 rather than 125 pages to tell the story, has done an excellent job.
On reflection, it's also because this is a relatively unusual Dalek story, presenting them not as a rival galactic empire to us humans but as in some way a dark reflection of our own desires about ourselves. The only other televised story that comes close to doing that is Robert Shearman's Ninth Doctor story.
Anyway, Peel turns a good TV story (as far as we can judge, since it is one of the lost ones) into a good novel. An encouraging start to my reading up on the Second Doctor.