Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Robert Holmes’ scripts for the 1973 TV serial.

This opens with some lovely scene-setting about Inter Minor that provides local colour and political context that’s crucial to the story: “By decree of President Zarb, the planet’s new ruler, Inter Minor had emerged from its long self-imposed seclusion, and was busily trading with the other planets in its galaxy.” What follows is a very faithful adaptation with few embellishments, which, I think, is always a sign that Dicks admires the script and feels no need to perform further editorial duties. A wry comment late on in the book suggests he is enjoying Holmes’ brisk and imaginative story: “There was simply no time for all the nonsense of imprisonment and interrogation that usually followed unexplained arrival on some alien planet.”

There are a few Dicks asides that provide some added tensions (“As the terrifying adventure which followed was to prove, Jo had never been more wrong in her life”), and some neat descriptions of clothing that reveal much about their wearers and make the characters pop on the page. Vorg’s “boot’s, tunic, tights and cloak had all once been magnificent, but like their wearer had seen better days” while Shirna’s “many neat darns and patches showed a desperate attempt to keep up appearances.” Even the Mini-Scope, “like its owners… had an air of seedy magnificence about it.”

But mostly this is a straightforward adaptation of great scripts, with the emphasis in all the right places (the vicious and unrelenting Drashigs wreaking havoc inside the Scope) and a smidgin of Malcolm Hulke’s social commentary, such as when Kalik wishes to test an agitating Functionary’s nervous system for signs of disease or mutation, and Dicks adds, “It did not occur to Kalik that it was not the rebellious Functionaries who were abnormal, but the conditions under which they had to live and work.” In Chris Achilleos’ striking yellow cover with looming plesiosaur, this is as solid a novelisation as you can get. Grade 3.

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Seeds of Doom.