Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Terry Nation’s scripts for the 1975 TV serial.

One of the great Doctor Who stories fittingly gets one of Dicks’ greatest novelisations. It’s evident from the opening description of Battlefield: Skaro, conveyed through some of his most vivid prose, and in the longer-than-average page count. Throughout, there’s an authentically grim atmosphere, within the boundaries of a Target Book. At one point, “Sarah had one of the most horrifying awakenings of her life. Buried beneath a pile of rapidly stiffening corpses, she could feel her face wet with blood.” Later, the Doctor sombrely reflects on the Thals’ victory celebration: “Thousands of their fellow-creatures dead, and these people were cheering.”

Just as David Maloney directed on TV, Dicks largely holds back the Daleks, focusing instead on the general horror of the scenario and only occasionally letting the monsters intrude, in slowly mounting numbers. The Kaled elite, particularly Nyder and Davros, are the principal antagonists. Dicks goes to town with a full-page description of Davros: “No more than the shattered, ruined remnant of what had once been a man”, and charts his subtle manipulations and ranting megalomania with obvious relish. He’s particularly good with Davros turning the tables on the Doctor’s mission to change the past by taking the opportunity to rewrite the future.

The famous “Do I have the right?” speech is well handled, although you sense Dicks is very much on the same page as Sarah Jane as she makes “a last attempt to talk sense into him. ‘We’re not talking about some imaginary child, Doctor. We’re talking about the Daleks.'” And there’s a hint that Dicks is also familiar with Terry Nation’s alternative Dalek Genesis story, We Are the Daleks! from the 10th Anniversary Special magazine when Harry is said to be almost identical to the Kaleds, biologically.

This is a great adaptation, with strong roles for the regulars, including Sarah Jane’s determination as she battles to escape the Thal dome (no fake-out cliffhanger fall here) and Harry’s slightly facetious resourcefulness (especially when faced with some slightly more menacing mutant clams). I still occasionally get the sense that Dicks is writing for the Pertwee Doctor (he adds scenes of the Doctor knocking out a whole Thal assault team with Venusian aikido), but largely it’s a good account of Doctor Tom. I suppose you might criticise the awkward implications that physical perfection reflects moral purity (Sarah is described as having “no deformities or imperfections”) but all of this is straight from Nation’s scripts (and goes right back to the original Dalek serial in 1963), plus Sevrin the muto is probably the most morally blameless person in the piece. In the end, it’s a smashing novel with one of Chris Achilleos’s finest covers. An easy Grade 1.

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Web of Fear.