The first three Doctor Who novelisations were published in the 1960s by Frederick Muller Ltd, but it wasn't until 1973, when Target Books picked up the reprint rights, that the range of Doctor Who books began to expand.
Beginning with Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, Target Books would go on to print books based on all but five of the television stories produced between 1963 and 1989, with numerous re-jacketed editions in between.
With the majority of stories novelised, the company, now owned by Virgin Publishing, went on to establish the enormously successful range of New Adventures novels.
The production of the 1996 TV movie, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, saw BBC Books taking the decision to publish both a script book and novelisation of the story. Shortly afterwards, the decision was also taken that the time had come for Doctor Who fiction to be brought in-house, with Target/Virgin's twenty-four year association with the programme finally coming to an end in April 1997.
Beginning with Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, Target Books would go on to print books based on all but five of the television stories produced between 1963 and 1989, with numerous re-jacketed editions in between.
With the majority of stories novelised, the company, now owned by Virgin Publishing, went on to establish the enormously successful range of New Adventures novels.
The production of the 1996 TV movie, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, saw BBC Books taking the decision to publish both a script book and novelisation of the story. Shortly afterwards, the decision was also taken that the time had come for Doctor Who fiction to be brought in-house, with Target/Virgin's twenty-four year association with the programme finally coming to an end in April 1997.
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
by Ben Aaronovitch
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- June 1990
- No. 148
Back Cover Blurb
Shoreditch, London, 1963. Two teachers follow an unnervingly knowledgeable schoolgirl to her home — a blue police telephone box in the middle of a scrapyard. The old man whom the girl calls 'grandfather' is annoyed at the intrusion: there is something he has to do, and he has a premonition that he will be delayed for some time...
Six regenerations later the Doctor returns; and Ace, his travelling companion, sees London as it was before the Sixties started swinging — and long before she was born.
But a Grey Dalek is lurking in Foreman's Yard; Imperial Daleks are appearing in the basement of Coal Hill School; and both factions want the Hand of Omega, the Remote Stellar Manipulator that the Doctor has left behind. Has the Doctor arrived in time to deprive the Daleks of the secret of time travel?
Shoreditch, London, 1963. Two teachers follow an unnervingly knowledgeable schoolgirl to her home — a blue police telephone box in the middle of a scrapyard. The old man whom the girl calls 'grandfather' is annoyed at the intrusion: there is something he has to do, and he has a premonition that he will be delayed for some time...
Six regenerations later the Doctor returns; and Ace, his travelling companion, sees London as it was before the Sixties started swinging — and long before she was born.
But a Grey Dalek is lurking in Foreman's Yard; Imperial Daleks are appearing in the basement of Coal Hill School; and both factions want the Hand of Omega, the Remote Stellar Manipulator that the Doctor has left behind. Has the Doctor arrived in time to deprive the Daleks of the secret of time travel?
Television Story
Remembrance of the Daleks
Script Writer: Ben Aaronovitch
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
05/10/88 Part One
12/10/88 Part Two
19/10/88 Part Three
26/10/88 Part Four
Remembrance of the Daleks
Script Writer: Ben Aaronovitch
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
05/10/88 Part One
12/10/88 Part Two
19/10/88 Part Three
26/10/88 Part Four
DVD (2001) 
DVD (2009)
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States. A two-disc special edition of the story was released on Region 2 DVD in the UK in July 2009.
DVD (2009)
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Daleks / Davros
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Daleks / Davros
Notes
- Remembrance of the Daleks was the first television story for Doctor Who to be written by Ben Aaronovitch. He went on to script Battlefield the following season, as well as writing three original novels for Virgin's series of New Adventures — Transit, The Also People and So Vile a Sin.
- Of Aaronovitch's two television stories, this was the only one which he adapted for Target Books. Ghost Light's Marc Platt stepped in to write the novelisation of Battlefield.
- As will be obvious from the back cover blurb, this story uses a number of elements from the series' past, not least because it was the opening story in Doctor Who's twenty-fifth season.
The very first story in 1963, 100,00 BC, had begun in Coal Hill school and had seen teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright discovering the First Doctor and his TARDIS in the junkyard at Totter's Lane. The first story in Season Twenty-Two also saw a modern-day visit to the junkyard for the Sixth Doctor adventure Attack of the Cybermen. Events in the two-part Eighth Doctor novel Interference, written by Lawrence Miles and released by BBC Books in 1999, would cast an entirely new light on the location and its significance.
The character of Omega, the Time Lord whose actions gave the Gallifreyans access to time travel, was introduced in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors and was permanently despatched in the Season Twenty story Arc of Infinity.
The character of Davros made his fifth consecutive appearance in a Dalek story, this time under the guise of the Emperor Dalek. Neither of his two previous appearances (Resurrection of the Daleks / Revelation of the Daleks) were ever novelised by Target Books. The end of the story sees Davros' spaceship being blown up, but the abysmal Eighth Doctor novel War of the Daleks makes it clear that he had escaped unscathed. Rather insultingly, the book also tries to ret-con Remembrance by suggesting that Skaro wasn't in fact destroyed by the Hand of Omega — it was instead a decoy planet, designed to protect the Daleks' genuine homeworld. Yeah, it stinks, doesn't it?
Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol
by Graeme Curry
Audio Book
Unabridged reading of the novelisation, narrated by Rula Lenska.
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- February 1990
- No. 146
Back Cover Blurb
I would also like to take this opportunity to squash the persistent rumours about mysterious "disappearances" and emphasize that rural and urban areas are now enjoying a life of harmony and peace. I'm sure you're glad to hear this. And I'm happy you're glad.
Helen A, ruler of colony Terra Alpha, is determined that happiness will prevail. And if any killjoys insist on being miserable, the fun guns of the Happiness Patrol will remove them; or they will vanish into the Kandy Kitchen, where the Kandy Man will deal with them.
When the Doctor and Ace spend a night in the dark streets of Terra Alpha they have to keep a smile on their faces — or else! — while making contact with the native Pipe People and trying to convince the colonists that they can have too much of a good thing — even sweets and happiness.
I would also like to take this opportunity to squash the persistent rumours about mysterious "disappearances" and emphasize that rural and urban areas are now enjoying a life of harmony and peace. I'm sure you're glad to hear this. And I'm happy you're glad.
Helen A, ruler of colony Terra Alpha, is determined that happiness will prevail. And if any killjoys insist on being miserable, the fun guns of the Happiness Patrol will remove them; or they will vanish into the Kandy Kitchen, where the Kandy Man will deal with them.
When the Doctor and Ace spend a night in the dark streets of Terra Alpha they have to keep a smile on their faces — or else! — while making contact with the native Pipe People and trying to convince the colonists that they can have too much of a good thing — even sweets and happiness.
Television Story
The Happiness Patrol
Script Writer: Graeme Curry
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
02/11/88 Part One
09/11/88 Part Two
16/11/88 Part Three
The Happiness Patrol
Script Writer: Graeme Curry
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
02/11/88 Part One
09/11/88 Part Two
16/11/88 Part Three
VHS
All episodes exist and have been released on video in the UK and United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Audio Book- UK
- BBC Audiobooks
- 4 × CD / Download
- 4 hours 49 minutes
- July 2009
Notes
- The Happiness Patrol was the only Doctor Who story to be written by Graeme Curry.
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
by Kevin Clarke
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- November 1989
- No. 143
Other Editions
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
UK / Paperback / Target Books / September 1993 / No. 143
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
UK / Paperback / Target Books / September 1993 / No. 143
Back Cover Blurb — Target Books (1989)
Launched into space 350 years ago, a meteor is returning to Earth — and inside it waits Nemesis, a silver statue made of the living metal validium, the most dangerous substance in the Universe.
Evil powers await the statue's return: the neo-Nazi de Flores and his stormtroopers; Lady Peinforte, who saw Nemesis exiled in 1638 and has propelled herself forward in time; and the advance party of a Cyberman invasion force.
And in the garden of a Windsor pub, the Doctor and Ace are enjoying the timeless sounds of a jazz quartet...
Launched into space 350 years ago, a meteor is returning to Earth — and inside it waits Nemesis, a silver statue made of the living metal validium, the most dangerous substance in the Universe.
Evil powers await the statue's return: the neo-Nazi de Flores and his stormtroopers; Lady Peinforte, who saw Nemesis exiled in 1638 and has propelled herself forward in time; and the advance party of a Cyberman invasion force.
And in the garden of a Windsor pub, the Doctor and Ace are enjoying the timeless sounds of a jazz quartet...
Television Story
Silver Nemesis
Script Writer: Kevin Clarke
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
23/11/88 Part One
30/11/88 Part Two
07/12/88 Part Three
Silver Nemesis
Script Writer: Kevin Clarke
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
23/11/88 Part One
30/11/88 Part Two
07/12/88 Part Three
VHS
All episodes exist and have been released on video in the UK and United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Cybermen
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Cybermen
Notes
- Silver Nemesis was the official story to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of Doctor Who. And the reason for its title? Because it was Doctor Who's silver anniversary, and the Cybermen are, like, silver...
Unsurprisingly, this was the only television Doctor Who story to be written by Kevin Clarke, and it genuinely is every bit as bad as reviews and its title would suggest. - One scene edited from the finished version of Episode One sees Ace discovering an eighteenth-century portrait of herself, as she and the Doctor are on their way back to the TARDIS inside Windsor Castle. The Doctor explains that it is an adventure which obviously hasn't happened yet.
The scene was included in Clarke's novelisation of the story (page 42) and was also reinstated for the extended video release of the story in April 1993.
Ace's adventure in the eighteenth-century was finally detailed in Set Piece, the final regular novel to feature the character in Virgin's New Adventures series.
Doctor Who: Greatest Show in the Galaxy
by Stephen Wyatt
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- December 1989
- No. 144
Back Cover Blurb
CREEPY. That's what Ace thinks of clowns. But the Doctor insists on entering the talent contest at the Psychic Circus, the self-proclaimed Greatest Show in the Galaxy, on the planet Segonax.
What has reduced Segonax to an arid wasteland? Why have the happy-go-lucky circus folk stayed here so long? And why are they no longer happy? Above all, what is the dreadful truth about the "talent contests" run by the sinister Ringmaster and his robot clowns?
The Doctor and Ace need all their death-defying skills in the big top to uncover a brooding, ancient evil that has broken the spirit of the Circus and demanded the sacrifice of so many lives.
CREEPY. That's what Ace thinks of clowns. But the Doctor insists on entering the talent contest at the Psychic Circus, the self-proclaimed Greatest Show in the Galaxy, on the planet Segonax.
What has reduced Segonax to an arid wasteland? Why have the happy-go-lucky circus folk stayed here so long? And why are they no longer happy? Above all, what is the dreadful truth about the "talent contests" run by the sinister Ringmaster and his robot clowns?
The Doctor and Ace need all their death-defying skills in the big top to uncover a brooding, ancient evil that has broken the spirit of the Circus and demanded the sacrifice of so many lives.
Television Story
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Script Writer: Stephen Wyatt
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
14/12/88 Part One
21/12/88 Part Two
28/12/88 Part Three
04/01/88 Part Four
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Script Writer: Stephen Wyatt
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
14/12/88 Part One
21/12/88 Part Two
28/12/88 Part Three
04/01/88 Part Four
VHS
All episodes exist and have been released on video in the UK and United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was Stephen Wyatt's second and final story for Doctor Who after Paradise Towers the previous season.
