This is a very short pamphlet on the career of Malcolm Hulke, who wrote several Doctor Who TV stories and novelisations in the late 1960s and 1970s before his death in 1979 at the age of 54. I named him at an Eastercon panel last year as one of the first political science fiction writers who I can remember reading; certainly Doctor Who and the Cave ( Read more... )

This is a hugely important book for me. When I first read it in 1976 (aged 9), it hadn't previously occurred to me that you could write about stories as well as writing stories, and I also had no idea that Doctor Who had started years before I was born. The bits about how a TV programme is made rather bounced off me at the time (which is ironic ( Read more... )

It hadn't really struck me before, but what with New Who bringing back the Silurians, my son's bedtime reading being Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion, and also having just got onto the story after Spearhead from Space in my rewatch of Old Who, something became obvious:

The Faceless Ones (1967), by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke. Features aliens ( Read more... )

Who fans who are interested in the Target novelisations might like to note that there is an excellent 20-minute documentary about Malcolm Hulke and his role in starting off the range, plus a look at each of his contributions to it, on the new DVD set of The War Games - if, that is, you need another reason to go and get it ( Read more... )

My apologies to those of you who are not all that interested in Who; I have three posts brewing on different aspects of the canon (of which this is the first) which I plan to write this weekend. There are a couple of non-Who posts brewing as well, and I'll try to leaven the mixture.

( 29) Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, by Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes )

A run of novels from what will probably turn out to be the peak period in terms of consistency of quality in this entire project. None of these is awful; all are decent efforts, though none of them is outstanding. Both the best and the worst (in my humble opinion) are by Malcolm Hulke.

( 19) Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks, by Terrance Dicks )

Five more Who books, of which three are decidedly skippable and two rather good.

( Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons )

So, on to the Third Doctor books, starting with three Dicks efforts of varying quality, and a good one by Malcolm Hulke; all covering stories first broadcast in 1970.

( 6) Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, by Terrance Dicks )

I'd already read probably the best Jamie / Zoe novel, Doctor Who - The Invasion, by Ian Marter, and also the worst, Doctor Who and the Dominators, also oddly enough by Ian Marter. Four of the other six are fairly standard efforts by Terrance Dicks, but the other two present points of interest.

( 35) Doctor Who - The Wheel in Space, by Terrance Dicks )