Doctor Who
Original Novels: Telos Novellas: 2004
Telos Novellas

In March 2001 it was announced that Telos Publishing had agreed a licence with BBC Worldwide to publish a series of original novellas based on Doctor Who.

Each book was available in two seperate editions. The standard hardbacks featured the novella and the foreword, whereas the deluxe editions had a better covering and binding, full-colour frontispiece, integral bookmark, and were signed in each case by the author, the writer of the foreword and the frontispiece artist.

After a promisng start, it was a major surprise when, after just three titles had been released, Telos revealed that the BBC had declined to extend their licence beyond March 2004.

With the range coming to an end, Daniel O'Mahony's The Cabinet of Light, released in August 2003, was used as the springboard for the Time Hunter novellas, a new spin-off series which featured the characters Honoré Lechasseur and Emily Blandish.

The fifteenth and final volume, in February 2004, was Simon Clark's The Dalek Factor.

Despite the untimely cancellation of the range, the Telos novellas are now widely regarded as being a successful attempt to try something slightly different with a familiar concept.
Doctor Who: Blood and Hope

Doctor Who: Blood and Hope cover image
by Iain McLaughlin
  • UK
  • Hardback
  • Telos Publishing
  • January 2004
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Other Editions
Doctor Who: Blood and Hope
Click for frontispiece art UK / Deluxe Hardback / Telos Publishing / January 2004
Back Cover Blurb
The American Civil War...a time of great unrest, when fathers found themselves in conflict with their own sons and when lawlessness and slavery was rife. The Doctor, together with his companions Peri and Erimem, arrive in the middle of the conflict. The Doctor manages to cope in his own inimitable manner, but Peri — an American — and Erimem — a dark-skinned Egyptian — find themselves faced with all the bigotry and hatred that typified the war for some.
Regular Characters
Fifth Doctor / Peri Brown / Erimem
Notes
  • The foreword to Blood and Hope is by John Ostrander.
  • Blood and Hope marks the first appearance in print of Erimem, the character created by Iain McLaughlin for the Doctor Who audio play The Eye of the Scorpion. The script to that story was included in The Audio Scripts — Volume Two.
  • Blood and Hope is Iain McLaughlin's only Doctor Who book, although he has scripted stories for the Big Finish range of audio dramas, as well as several short stories. In March 2005 he co-wrote the Time Hunter spin-off novella Echoes with Claire Bartlett, and the same writing team produced The Coming of the Queen in October 2005, a spin-off novel from Big Finish which featured Erimem.
  • Blood and Hope was the only novella from Telos to feature the Fifth Doctor.
  • Only one other Doctor Who book has used the American Civil War for the basis of a story, and that was the 1986 Solo-Play Adventure Game, Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble which featured the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Harry Sullivan.
Doctor Who: The Dalek Factor

Doctor Who: The dalek factor cover image
by Simon Clark
  • UK
  • Hardback
  • Telos Publishing
  • February 2004
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Other Editions
Doctor Who: The Dalek Factor
Click for frontispiece art UK / Deluxe Hardback / Telos Publishing / February 2004
Back Cover Blurb
When a Thal platoon arrive on a hostile planet investigating reports that Dalek artifacts have been detected, they are unprepared for what they find. In an underground room is a stranger, a Professor, or so he claims, with no memory of who he is or why he is there. With death and horror their only companions, the Thals make their way with the Professor into the heart of a crumbling Dalek citadel in search of answers...only to find that the Daleks are the least of the horrors they must face.
Regular Characters
The Doctor
Notes
  • The foreword to The Dalek Factor is written by author Christopher Fowler.
  • The Dalek Factor is Simon Clark's only contribution to the Doctor Who universe, although he had worked for Telos before by writing the award-winning Goblin City Lights for the Urban Gothic: Lacuna and Other Trips anthology in 2001. He is probably best known, however, for writing The Night of the Triffids, the authorised sequel to the John Wyndham classic The Day of the Triffids.
  • The Dalek Factor was the fifteenth and final Doctor Who novella to be released by Telos. It's therefore rather appropriate that their final release was only the third original Doctor Who novel to feature the Daleks. The two earlier titles were the appalling Eighth Doctor novels War of the Daleks and Legacy of the Daleks, both written by John Peel.
  • The Dalek Factor features a Doctor that didn't appear on screen in the television series. The only other Telos novella to follows this path is The Cabinet of Light, although it is not possible to say if they both feature the same version of the character.