Doctor Who: Novelisations: Fourth Doctor: Season 14

Novelisations: Fourth Doctor

Season 14
Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora
Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear
Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin
Doctor Who and the Face of Evil
Doctor Who and the Robots of Death
Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang

Archive Status / DVD Releases

All six stories from Season 14 have been released on DVD in the UK and the United States. The Robots of Death and The Talons of Weng-Chiang have been released twice in the UK, most recently in the third and first volumes in the Revisitations series of box sets. Both stories were subsequently re-released individually in the United States. All releases are subtitled.

The Masque of Mandragora
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The Hand of Fear
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The Deadly Assassin
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The Face of Evil
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Revisitations: Volume 3 / The Robots of Death: Special Edition
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Revisitations: Volume 1 / The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Special Edition
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Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora

by
Philip Hinchcliffe

Buy a Copy... NOTE: Target Books would routinely re-use the old ISBN when the Doctor Who novelisations were re-released with new cover art, so anyone using the Amazon links below should bear this in mind when ordering a second-hand copy.

HARDBACK
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PAPERBACK
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UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK
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Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date December 1977
Original Price 60p
ISBN 0426118936
Cover Artist Mike Little
Book Number (No.42)

A novelisation of the 1976 television story The Masque of Mandragora, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.

Mike Little's front cover art was reproduced in Terrance Dicks' non-fiction book The Second Doctor Who Monster Book (Target Books, 1977), in the section devoted to The Masque of Mandaragora.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.42 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
Forced off course by the Mandragora Helix, the Tardis lands in the province of San Martino in fifteenth-century Italy. Here, the court astrologer, Hieronymous, has been taken over by the Mandragora energy-form — Hieronymous and the other members of his star-worshipping black magic cult will be used as a bridgehead, enabling the Mandragora Helix to conquer the Earth and rule it through their chosen servants.

The Doctor has to defeat not only the Mandragora energy, but the evil schemes of the murderous Count Frederico who plans to usurp the place of his nephew, the rightful ruler of the province.

Other Editions

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora
United States | Paperback | Pinnacle Books | November 1979 | $1.75 | 0523406401 | #8
One of ten novelisations to be reprinted in the United States by Pinnacle Books between 1979 and 1980. All ten books featured new cover artwork by David Mann and were accompanied by an introduction from US science fiction writer Harlan Ellison.

IN 1492, DOCTOR WHO CAME OUT OF THE BLUE

It is the Italian Renaissance during the corrupt reign of the powerful Medicis. Doctor Who, angry because he was forced to land on Earth by the incredible Mandragora Helix, walks right into a Machiavellian plot. The unscrupulous Count Frederico plans to usurp the rightful rule of his naive nephew. This, with the help of Hieronymous, influential court astrologer and secret cult member.

Intent on righting all wrongs, Doctor Who studies their political maneuvers. He uncovers a larger, even more malevolent plot — a plot to rule not only San Martino Province, but the entire world! Hieronymous has been taken over — both in mind and body — by the Mandragora energy ball, an alien, but all-powerful intelligence. Using Hieronymous and his cult members as a bridgehead, the Mandragora Helix intends to conquer Earth and dominate its people!

The question is, will Doctor Who prove a true Renaissance man? Will he be able to drain the Mandragora of its power and foil the Count as well?

Docteur Who: Le Masque de Mandragore
France | Paperback | Editions Garancière | August 1987 | 2734002183 | 6
Docteur Who: Le Masque de Mandragore was one of eight Doctor Who novelisations to be released in France by Editions Garancière. The book was translated by Corine Derblum, although the identity of the cover artist is unknown.

Television Story
The Masque of Mandragora
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

04/09/76 Part One Louis Marks
11/09/76 Part Two Louis Marks
18/09/76 Part Three Louis Marks
25/09/76 Part Four Louis Marks

Notes

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora was the second of Philip Hinchcliffe's three Doctor Who novelisations for Target Books, and like Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom, it was also a story which he had produced for the television series. His final work for Target would be novelising the Season 1 story The Keys of Marinus in 1980.
The Masque of Mandragora was the last of Louis Marks' four stories for the television series, after Planet of Giants in 1964, Day of the Daleks in 1972 and Planet of Evil in 1975.
Despite The Masque of Mandragora leaving the door open for a possible sequel set in the late twentieth century, the idea was never returned to in the television series, and it was left to Doctor Who Magazine to pick up the threads in 1991, when they published The Mark of Mandragora between issues 169 and 172. The previous two issues had featured prequels to the main story under the titles Darkness Falling and Distractions. All five parts were written by Dan Abnett (more recently seen writing the original Torchwood novel Border Princes) and were collected in April 1994, along with a number of other Seventh Doctor comic strips from the era, as The Mark of Mandragora (Virgin Publishing, ISBN: 0-426-203960-8).

More recently, an original novel featuring the Mandragora Helix, Gary Russell's Beautiful Chaos, was published as part of the New Series Adventures range in December 2008.

Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear

by
Terrance Dicks

Buy a Copy... HARDBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk WH Allen

PAPERBACK
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Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date January 1979
Original Price 60p
ISBN 0426200330
Cover Artist Roy Knipe
Book Number (No.30)

A novelisation of the 1976 television story The Hand of Fear, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.

Roy Knipe's cover art was one of two pieces reproduced in David J Howe's large-format book Timeframe: An Illustrated History (Doctor Who Books, 1993) to represent Season 14 of the television series.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.30 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
The Tardis lands in England, and Sarah, the Doctor's companion, looks forward to going home.

A freak accident in a quarry leaves the unconscious Sarah clutching an enormous stone Hand.

The Hand is the only surviving remnant of Eldrad, an alien super-being expelled from his planet, Kastria — and it has the power to control the human mind. Using Sarah as its instrument, the Hand goes in search of the atomic energy it needs to regenerate Eldrad's body.

Eldrad is determined to return to Kastria and punish his enemies. The Doctor and Sarah are caught up in the terrifying conclusion of a drama of betrayal and revenge that began millions of years ago.

Other Editions

Television Story
The Hand of Fear
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

02/10/76 Part One Bob Baker and Dave Martin
09/10/76 Part Two Bob Baker and Dave Martin
16/10/76 Part Three Bob Baker and Dave Martin
23/10/76 Part Four Bob Baker and Dave Martin

Regular Characters
Fourth Doctor / Sarah Jane Smith

Notes

Cover image: Doctor Who, The Companions of Doctor Who, K9 and Company, Target Books (1987)

Cover image: Doctor Who, The Paradise of Death, Doctor Who Books (1994)

Cover image: Doctor Who, System Shock, Doctor Who Books (1995)

Cover image: Doctor Who, Managra, Doctor Who Books (1994)

Cover image: Doctor Who, Amorality Tale, BBC Books (2002)

Cover image: The Sarah Jane Adventures, Invasion of the Bane, Penguin Character Books (2007)

The Hand of Fear was the final regular story to feature popular companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), who was left behind at the conclusion of the story when the Doctor announced that he had to return to Gallifrey (see The Deadly Assassin).

Unusually, Sarah was to be one of the few regular characters who was to reappear further down the line as, in 1981, plans were drawn up for a live-action spin-off from Doctor Who in the form of K9 and Company. Sadly only the disappointing pilot A Girl's Best Friend was recorded, and this saw Sarah returning home to Hazlebury Abbas where she discovered that the Doctor had left K-9 Mark III in her care, before they both took on the local witches' coven.

The celebratory twentieth-anniversary Doctor Who story The Five Doctors, in 1983, saw Sarah returning to the main programme, although K-9 Mark III did also appear briefly before Sarah was transported off to the Death Zone on Gallifrey.

With the apparent demise of the television series in 1989, the chances of the character ever appearing again on screen seeemed remote, but in 1995 Mark Platt's independently produced spin-off drama Downtime saw Elisabeth Sladen making a brief appearance as Sarah alongside the likes of the Yeti and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

Prior to Downtime Elisabeth Sladen had taken the character into a new medium (ignoring the one-off The Pescatons) when the BBC had produced two new radio serials set during the latter days of the Third Doctor's era, and which had reunited Sladen with both Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney, better known as the Brigadier. Later audio appearances occurred in two seperate Sarah Jane Smith series for Big Finish productions, comprising nine plays in total, which were released in 2002 and 2006 respectively.

In print, the character featured in four of the eight Missing Adventure novels from Virgin Publishing which had starred the Fourth Doctor, as well as in the novelisations of the Paradise of Death and Ghosts of N-Space radio serials.

With BBC Books picking up the rights to publish new novels based on Doctor Who in 1997, the line-up of character pairings changed noticeably. Whereas the Missing Adventures had tended to feature either Sarah, or Romana II and K-9 Mark II, the BBC Books' offerings concentrated on the gaps between those eras, generally using Leela or the original incarnation of Romana.

Amazingly, of the twelve Fourth Doctor books published in the series, Sarah featured in just one, the penultimate Fourth Doctor tale in the series, Wolfsbane. The character did fare slightly better in the Third Doctor books, appearing in both Amorality Tale and The Island of Death.

In retrospect, given the enduring popularity of the character, it seems slightly perverse that in eight-and-a-half years Sarah would appear in just three out of the twenty-two books that she could have been used in. Rather ironically, the character did turn up in the two-book Interference for the Eighth Doctor Adventures range, as well as in David A McIntee's Seventh Doctor story Bullet Time in August 2001, which ended in a rather inclonclusive manner that suggested that Sarah was dead.

Back on television, the runaway success of the revived Doctor Who series in spring 2005 soon saw plans being laid to bring back various elements from the series' past, and in August 2005 it was announced that Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 would be appearing alongside the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler in an episode of the second season. School Reunion was finally broadcast in April 2006 and proved that there was still life in both characters. To the surprise of precisely no one, August 2006 saw the announcement of The Sarah Jane Adventures, a spin-off children's drama intended for transmission the following year.

Beginning with the hour-length Invasion of the Bane on New Years' Day 2007, The Sarah Jane Adventures showed, just like the parent drama, that there was a gaping hole in the BBC One schedules crying out for a well-made, sci-fi shaped programme. A full ten-part series, comprising five two-part stories, was broadcast from late September 2007 and managed to set new viewing records for the CBBC channel.

A twelve-part second season was shown in autumn 2008, with a third commissioned shortly thereafter for broadcast in 2009.
The Hand of Fear ends with the Doctor apparently leaving Sarah in South Croydon. In School Reunion, in 2006, it was revealed that the TARDIS had strayed off course once again and had actually landed in Aberdeen!

Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin

by
Terrance Dicks

Buy a Copy... HARDBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk Allan Wingate

PAPERBACK
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Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date October 1977
Original Price 60p
ISBN 0426119657
Cover Artist Mike Little
Book Number (No.20)

A novelisation of the 1976 television story The Deadly Assassin, featuring the Fourth Doctor.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.20 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
The Doctor is suddenly summoned to Gallifrey, the home of the Time Lords, where his ghastly hallucination of the President's assassination seems to turn into reality. When the Doctor is arrested for the murder, there is a hideous, dark, cowled figure gleefully watching in the shadows.

Faced with his old enemy, the Master, Doctor Who approaches defeat in a battle of minds in a nightmare world created by the Master's imagination. But the Master's evil intentions go much further — he has a Doomsday Plan. It is up to the Doctor to prevent him from destroying Gallifrey and taking over the Universe!

Other Editions

Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin
UK | Hardback | Allan Wingate Ltd | October 1977 | £2.95 | 0855231203
Released simultaneously with the paperback edition from Target Books.
Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin was also included as part of the Further Adventures of Doctor Who omnibus from Nelson Doubleday in the United States in 1986, and in May 1989 was also included in the Doctor Who Classics: The Seeds of Doom and The Deadly Assassin omnibus from Star Books.

Television Story
The Deadly Assassin
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

30/10/76 Part One Robert Holmes
06/11/76 Part Two Robert Holmes
13/11/76 Part Three Robert Holmes
20/11/76 Part Four Robert Holmes

Regular Characters
Fourth Doctor

Familiar Faces
The Master / Cardinal Borusa

Notes

Eleven years after the series made its debut, viewers finally had a chance to get a proper look at the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey which had only previously been seen in brief glimpses in The War Games (1968/9), Colony in Space (1971) and The Three Doctors (1972/3).
The Deadly Assassin saw the first appearance of Cardinal Borusa, who would later re-appear in The Invasion of Time, Arc of Infinity and The Five Doctors, each time played by a different actor. The character's final two appearances would see him elevated to the position of President of the High Council of Tme Lords.
Re-appearing for the first time since 1973's Frontier in Space was the Doctor's Time Lord nemesis the Master.

The character had been intended to make a final appearance after that story, but the untimely death of original actor Roger Delgado in a car accident in Turkey had prevented it from happening.

The Deadly Assassin portrayed the Master as a decaying, corpse-like being nearing the end of his final regeneration. The character would eventually re-appear in 1981's The Keeper of Traken, before taking over the body of Tremas, Nyssa's father. Anthony Ainley would remain in the role until Survival, the very final story from the original 1963-89 television series.

American actor Eric Roberts picked up the mantle for the one-off 1996 Doctor Who television movie, while the 2007 season on BBC One saw the aged Professor Yana (Sir Derek Jacobi) exposed at the end of Utopia as the Master, before he swiftly regenerated once more, with Life on Mars actor John Simm playing the part in The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. The character was last seen on screen in the epic two-part story The End of Time, with John Simm reprising the role.

Doctor Who and the Face of Evil

by
Terrance Dicks

Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date January 1978
Original Price 60p
ISBN 0426200063
Cover Artist Jeff Cummins
Book Number (No.25)

A novelisation of the 1977 television story The Face of Evil, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

Jeff Cummins' cover art was one of two pieces reproduced in David J Howe's large-format book Timeframe: An Illustrated History (Doctor Who Books, 1993) to represent Season 14 of the television series.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.25 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
Setting the controls for Earth, the Doctor is surprised when the Tardis lands in a primeval forest. Has the Tracer gone wrong or has some impulse deep in his unconscious mind directed him to this alien planet? In investigating the forest, the Doctor meets and assists Leela, a warrior banished from her tribe, the Sevateem. Through Leela, it gradually becomes apparent that the constant war between the Sevateem and the Tesh has been instigated by the god they both worship, Xoanon.

Xoanon, an all-powerful computer, is possessed by a desperate madness — a madness that is directly related to Doctor Who, that causes Xoanon to assume the voice and form of the Doctor, a madness that is partly caused by the Doctor and that only the Doctor himself can rectify!

The Doctor must not only do battle with Xoanon, but also must escape from the savage practices of the Sevateem, and the technically mind-controlling destructive impulses of the Tesh.

Other Editions

Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
UK | Paperback | Target Books | April 1993 | £3.50 | 0426200063 | No.25
A new edition of the novelisation, with new cover art from Alister Pearson.
Doctor Who and the Face of Evil was also included as part of the Further Adventures of Doctor Who omnibus from Nelson Doubleday in the United States in 1986, and in May 1989 was also included in the Doctor Who Classics: The Face of Evil and The Sunmakers omnibus from Star Books.

Television Story
The Face of Evil
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

01/01/77 Part One Chris Boucher
08/01/77 Part Two Chris Boucher
15/01/77 Part Three Chris Boucher
22/01/77 Part Four Chris Boucher

Notes

The Face of Evil was the first story to feature the character of Leela, played on television by Louise Jameson, who would continue to travel the Doctor until the end of The Invasion of Time the following season, when she elected to remain behind on Gallifrey to marry Andred.
An unabridged reading of Doctor Who and the Face of Evil, narrated by Louise Jameson, was made available by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) in January 2011. It is not available to buy commercially.

Doctor Who and the Robots of Death

by
Terrance Dicks

Buy a Copy... NOTE: Target Books would routinely re-use the old ISBN when the Doctor Who novelisations were re-released with new cover art, so anyone using the Amazon links below should bear this in mind when ordering a second-hand copy.

HARDBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk WH Allen

PAPERBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk Target Books

Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date May 1979
Original Price 70p
ISBN 0426200616
Cover Artist John Geary
Book Number (No.53)

A novelisation of the 1977 television story The Robots of Death, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.53 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
On a desert planet the giant sandminer crawls through the howling sandstorms, harvesting the valuable minerals in the sand.

Inside, the humans relax in luxury, while most of the work is done by the robots who serve them.

Then the Doctor and Leela arrive — and the mysterious deaths begin. First suspects, then hunted victims, Leela and the Doctor must find the hidden killer — or join the other victims of the Robots of Death.

Other Editions

Doctor Who: The Robots of Death
UK | Paperback | Target Books | February 1994 | £3.99 | 0426200616 | No.53
A new edition of the novelisation, with new cover art from Alister Pearson.
Doctor Who and the Robots of Death was also included as part of Further Adventures of Doctor Who omnibus from Nelson Doubleday in the United States in 1986.

Television Story
The Robots of Death
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

29/01/77 Part One Chris Boucher
05/02/77 Part Two Chris Boucher
12/02/77 Part Three Chris Boucher
19/02/77 Part Four Chris Boucher

Notes

Corpse Marker, a sequel to The Robots of Death, was published by BBC Books in November 1999. A seperate series of spin-off audios featuring the concepts and characters from the two stories was also launched and went under the title Kaldor City.

Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang

by
Terrance Dicks

Buy a Copy... NOTE: Target Books would routinely re-use the old ISBN when the Doctor Who novelisations were re-released with new cover art, so anyone using the Amazon links below should bear this in mind when ordering a second-hand copy.

HARDBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk Allan Wingate

PAPERBACK
amazon.com amazon.co.uk Target Books
amazon.com amazon.co.uk Pinacle Books

UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK
itunes uk amazon.com amazon.co.uk AudioGO

Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date November 1977
Original Price 60p
ISBN 0426119738
Cover Artist Jeff Cummins
Book Number (No.61)

A novelisation of the 1977 television story The Talons of Weng-Chiang, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

Later Target reprints would be numbered No.61 in the Doctor Who Library.

Back Cover Blurb
Stepping out of the Tardis into Victorian London, Leela and the Doctor are confronted by menacing, diabolical horrors shrouded within the swirling London fog — a man's death cry, an attack by Chinese Tong hatchet men, giant rats roaming the sewers, young women mysteriously disappearing...

The hideously deformed Magnus Greel, conducting a desperate search for the lost Time Cabinet, is the instigator of all this evil. Posing as the Chinese god, Weng-Chiang, Greel uses the crafty Chang, and the midget manikin, Mr Sin, to achieve his terrifying objectives.

The Doctor must use all his skill, energy and intelligence to escape the talons of Weng-Chiang.

Other Editions

Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang
United States | Paperback | Pinnacle Books | September 1979 | $1.75 | 052340638X | #7
One of ten novelisations to be reprinted in the United States by Pinnacle Books between 1979 and 1980. All ten books featured new cover artwork by David Mann and were accompanied by an introduction from US science fiction writer Harlan Ellison.

It's the Victorian London of Sherlock Holmes. Shrouded in the swirling mists, Doctor Who confronts diabolical horrors as he unravels the mystery surrounding the disappearance of several young women.

Doctor Who learns a Chinese magician, the crafty Chang, and his weird midget manikin, Mr. Sin, are mere puppets in the hands of the hideously deformed Greel, posing as the Chinese god, Weng-Chiang. It is Greel who steals the young women; it is Greel who grooms sewer rats to do his bidding — but there is even more, much more...

Will Doctor Who solve the Chinese puzzle in time to escape the terrifying talons of Weng-Chiang?

Television Story
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
6 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour

26/02/77 Episode One Robert Holmes
05/03/77 Episode Two Robert Holmes
12/03/77 Episode Three Robert Holmes
19/03/77 Episode Four Robert Holmes
26/03/77 Episode Five Robert Holmes
02/04/77 Episode Six Robert Holmes

Notes

Cover image: Doctor Who, Doctor Who: The Scripts 0 The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Titan Books (1989)

Cover image: Doctor Who, The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Doctor Who Books (1996)

A script book based on The Talons of Weng-Chiang was published by Titan Books in November 1989, although it was one of a number which featured a transcript of the dialogue which was spoken on screen, rather than Robert Holmes' original script.
The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, a sequel to The Talons of Weng-Chiang written by David A McIntee, was published in 1996 and saw the return of Mr Sin and the introduction of Hsien-Ko, the daughter of Li H'sen Chang.
The character of Professor Litefoot re-appeared in Mark Morris's 1997 Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Bodysnatchers, and was teamed up once more with Henry Gordon Jago in the 2009 Companion Chronicles audiobook The Mahogany Murders, written by Andy Lane and published by Big Finish Productions. The latter proved so popular that a spin-off series of audio adventures began just over a year later under the title Jago & Litefoot, with both Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter reprising their 1977 roles.
Simon A Forward's Emotional Chemistry, a book in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series published in October 2003, filled in some of the background details of the conflict from which the war criminal Magnus Greel had fled.