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: Battlefield
by Marc Platt
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- July 1991
- No. 152
Back Cover Blurb
Only a few years from now, a squad of UNIT troops is escorting a nuclear missile through the English countryside. At the nearby archaeological dig, knights in armour are fighting battles with broadswords — and guns and grenades.
The Doctor arrives on the scene and meets two old friends: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, called out of retirement to help in the emergency, and Bessie the souped-up roadster.
Ace escapes from death by drowning in a submerged spaceship, only to find herself at the mercy of a demon known as the Destroyer. The action is fast and furious, as expected in a script by Ben Aaronovitch, who wrote the classic Remembrance of the Daleks. And why do the knights address the Doctor as 'Merlin'? What is the power of the sword that Ace retrieves from the bottom of the lake? Will Morgaine carry out her threat to destroy the world?
Only a few years from now, a squad of UNIT troops is escorting a nuclear missile through the English countryside. At the nearby archaeological dig, knights in armour are fighting battles with broadswords — and guns and grenades.
The Doctor arrives on the scene and meets two old friends: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, called out of retirement to help in the emergency, and Bessie the souped-up roadster.
Ace escapes from death by drowning in a submerged spaceship, only to find herself at the mercy of a demon known as the Destroyer. The action is fast and furious, as expected in a script by Ben Aaronovitch, who wrote the classic Remembrance of the Daleks. And why do the knights address the Doctor as 'Merlin'? What is the power of the sword that Ace retrieves from the bottom of the lake? Will Morgaine carry out her threat to destroy the world?
Television Story
Battlefield
Script Writer: Ben Aaronovitch
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
06/09/89 Part One
13/09/89 Part Two
20/09/89 Part Three
27/09/89 Part Four
Battlefield
Script Writer: Ben Aaronovitch
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
06/09/89 Part One
13/09/89 Part Two
20/09/89 Part Three
27/09/89 Part Four
DVD 
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Notes
- Battlefield was the second and final television story for Doctor Who to be written by Ben Aaronovitch, after Remembrance of the Daleks the previous season.
He later went on to write three original novels for Virgin's series of New Adventures — Transit, The Also People and So Vile a Sin, as well as the Bernice Summerfield novel Genius Loci in 2006. - Battlefield was the final novelisation of a television story to be released as part of the regular range from Target Books, although there was still one further title to come in September 1991 in the form of The Pescatons, based on an audio story from 1976.
Virgin Publishing would later issue a number of other Doctor Who novelisations, although only The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks in 1993 would be based on television stories.
The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space were both based on radio stories featuring the Third Doctor (the latter released as part of the Missing Adventures range), with Shakedown and Downtime both being based on spin-off dramas from Doctor Who and released as part of the New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges respectively. - Battlefield was the first appearance of the Brigadier since the twenty-fifth anniversary story The Five Doctors in 1983, and was to be the final time the character would appear in the television series. Numerous novels and audio dramas would see the character return over the following twenty years.
Doctor Who: Ghost Light
by Marc Platt
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- September 1990
- No. 149
Back Cover Blurb
A column of smoke rises from the blazing ruins of a forgotten, decaying mansion.
Perivale, 1883.
In the sleepy, rural parish of Greenford Parva, Gabriel Chase is by far the most imposing edifice. The villagers shun the grim house, but the owner, the reclusive and controversial naturalist Josiah Samuel Smith, receives occasional visitors.
The Reverend Ernest Matthews, for instance, dean of Mortarhouse College, has travelled from Oxford to refute Smith's blasphemous theories of evolution.
And in a deserted upstairs room, the Doctor and Ace venture from the TARDIS to explore the Victorian mansion...
Who — or what — is Josiah Smith? What terrible secrets does his house conceal? And why does Ace find everything so frighteningly familiar?
A column of smoke rises from the blazing ruins of a forgotten, decaying mansion.
Perivale, 1883.
In the sleepy, rural parish of Greenford Parva, Gabriel Chase is by far the most imposing edifice. The villagers shun the grim house, but the owner, the reclusive and controversial naturalist Josiah Samuel Smith, receives occasional visitors.
The Reverend Ernest Matthews, for instance, dean of Mortarhouse College, has travelled from Oxford to refute Smith's blasphemous theories of evolution.
And in a deserted upstairs room, the Doctor and Ace venture from the TARDIS to explore the Victorian mansion...
Who — or what — is Josiah Smith? What terrible secrets does his house conceal? And why does Ace find everything so frighteningly familiar?
Television Story
Ghost Light
Script Writer: Marc Platt
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
04/10/89 Part One
11/10/89 Part Two
18/10/89 Part Three
Ghost Light
Script Writer: Marc Platt
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
04/10/89 Part One
11/10/89 Part Two
18/10/89 Part Three
DVD
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Ghost Light was the only television story to be scripted by Marc Platt, not least because the series was quietly dropped after the transmission of Season 26 and didn't return to the screen until the one-off TV movie in 1996. The story was actually the very last to be produced in-house by the BBC until 2004, when the new series starring Christopher Eccleston went into production.
- Marc Platt went on to write a number of original Doctor Who novels including Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Lungbarrow (the final Seventh Doctor novel from Virgin Publishing), as well as novelising his own script to the spin-off drama Downtime (released as part of the Missing Adventures range) and Ben Aaronovitch's Battlefield.
He has also written a number of audio dramas for the Doctor Who range produced by Big Finish Productions. His script to Loups-Garoux was published in The Audio Scripts, while Spare Parts appeared in The Audio Scripts — Volume Three. The latter story also resulted in Platt receiving an on-screen credit on the television episode Rise of the Cybermen in 2006 as it re-used ideas from the story. - The original scripts to Ghost Light were released as Doctor Who The Scripts: Ghost Light in June 1993 by Titan Books.
Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric
by Ian Briggs
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- November 1990
- No. 151
Back Cover Blurb
'If this is a top secret naval camp, I'm Lord Nelson!'
Ace has a poor opinion of the security arrangements at Commander Millington's North Yorkshire base — and she's less than comfortable in 1940s fashions. But the Doctor has graver matters on his mind.
Dr Judson, inventor of the Navy's ULTIMA code-breaker, is using the machine to decipher the runic inscriptions in the crypt of the nearby church.
Commander Millington is obsessed with his research into toxic bombs that he insists will hasten the end of World War Two.
A squad of the Red Army's crack Special Missions brigade lands on the Yorkshire coast with instructions to steal the ULTIMA device — unaware that Millington has turned it into a devastating secret weapon.
And beneath the waters at Maidens Point an ancient evil stirs...
The Doctor uncovers mysteries concealed within villainous plots — but what connects them all to a thousand-year-old curse?
'If this is a top secret naval camp, I'm Lord Nelson!'
Ace has a poor opinion of the security arrangements at Commander Millington's North Yorkshire base — and she's less than comfortable in 1940s fashions. But the Doctor has graver matters on his mind.
Dr Judson, inventor of the Navy's ULTIMA code-breaker, is using the machine to decipher the runic inscriptions in the crypt of the nearby church.
Commander Millington is obsessed with his research into toxic bombs that he insists will hasten the end of World War Two.
A squad of the Red Army's crack Special Missions brigade lands on the Yorkshire coast with instructions to steal the ULTIMA device — unaware that Millington has turned it into a devastating secret weapon.
And beneath the waters at Maidens Point an ancient evil stirs...
The Doctor uncovers mysteries concealed within villainous plots — but what connects them all to a thousand-year-old curse?
Television Story
The Curse of Fenric
Script Writer: Ian Briggs
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
25/10/89 Part One
01/11/89 Part Two
08/11/89 Part Three
15/11/89 Part Four
The Curse of Fenric
Script Writer: Ian Briggs
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
25/10/89 Part One
01/11/89 Part Two
08/11/89 Part Three
15/11/89 Part Four
DVD
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- The Curse of Fenric was Ian Briggs' second and final story for the television series after Season Twenty-Four's Dragonfire.
- The story is notable for tying up several plot points from the previous couple of seasons, including how Ace ended up on Iceworld in Dragonfire, and the significance of the chess board in Lady Peinforte's house in Silver Nemesis.
Doctor Who: Survival
by Rona Munro
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- September 1990
- No. 150
Back Cover Blurb
'So what's so terrible about Perivale?' the Doctor asked as he caught up with her. Ace sighed again. 'Nothing ever happens here.'
Ace had wanted her homecoming to be spectacular. She had imagined the amazed greetings of her old friends, the gasps of surprise as she recounted her time-travelling adventures.
But Perivale on a summer Sunday seems the least lively place in the universe. The members of Ace's old gang have gone away — disappeared.
The Doctor has other things on his mind. What is killing the domestic pets of Perivale? Who are the horsemen whose hoofprints scar the recreation ground? Where have the missing persons been taken? Is the Doctor stepping into a well-prepared trap? And if so, can it be the work of the Doctor's old adversary the Master?
As Harvey the grocer said to his partner Len: 'I'm telling you, you put a catflap in and you get just anything coming into your house.'
'So what's so terrible about Perivale?' the Doctor asked as he caught up with her. Ace sighed again. 'Nothing ever happens here.'
Ace had wanted her homecoming to be spectacular. She had imagined the amazed greetings of her old friends, the gasps of surprise as she recounted her time-travelling adventures.
But Perivale on a summer Sunday seems the least lively place in the universe. The members of Ace's old gang have gone away — disappeared.
The Doctor has other things on his mind. What is killing the domestic pets of Perivale? Who are the horsemen whose hoofprints scar the recreation ground? Where have the missing persons been taken? Is the Doctor stepping into a well-prepared trap? And if so, can it be the work of the Doctor's old adversary the Master?
As Harvey the grocer said to his partner Len: 'I'm telling you, you put a catflap in and you get just anything coming into your house.'
Television Story
Survival
Script Writer: Rona Munro
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
22/11/89 Part One
29/11/89 Part Two
06/12/89 Part Three
Survival
Script Writer: Rona Munro
3 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
22/11/89 Part One
29/11/89 Part Two
06/12/89 Part Three
DVD
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Master
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Master
Notes
- Survival was Rona Munro's only contribution to the Doctor Who universe
- Survival was the final new Doctor Who story to be broadcast until 1996, when the Seventh Doctor (now minus Ace) would be seen landing in San Francisco, promptly getting shot and later regenerating into the Eighth Doctor.
The Doctor Who TV movie wasn't to prove successful enough for a full series and it was to be a further nine years before Rose became the first BBC-produced episode to air since 1989. - At the back of the book Peter Darvill-Evans writes a page explaining that Target are running out of stories to novelise, and that sometime in the latter half of 1991 there will be a new series of original novels continuing on from the end of Survival. The New Adventures, as they would eventually be known, were launched in June 1991 with Timewyrm: Genesys.
- Survival saw the return of the Master, who had had last been seen in the television series in 1986's The Trial of a Time Lord.
