Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Terry Nation’s scripts for the 1964 TV serial (called The World’s End on the title page).

The opening lines are probably the most memorable of the whole range: “Through the ruin of a city stalked the ruin of a man”, and the scene setting is Dicks’ best yet – creating an even grimmer atmosphere than in Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks, where every day is a struggle for survival and human beings turn on each other for a piece of fruit. The horror of an occupied Earth representing a Nazi-occupied Britain pervades the book: the Daleks describe a waxwork in the Transport Museum as a “sub-cultural effigy”, which brings all kinds of supremacist implications.

The Three Doctors aside, this is Terrance Dicks’ first Doctor Bill book. He writes the Doctor as crotchety, but spry and keenly intelligent, with more sense of humour than he had chance to demonstrate during his limited appearance in The Three Doctors. Given how much of my generation’s view of the first Doctor was shaped by Dicks and Hurndall’s imperious but doddery take in The Five Doctors (itself seemingly most influenced by The Five Faces of Doctor Who‘s repeats of An Unearthly Child and The Three Doctors) it’s nice to see Dicks capturing the Hartnell Doctor’s impish, active side here.

As usual, Dicks takes a script editor’s approach, and demonstrates his awareness of the show’s continuity through a couple of judicious amendments. The Daleks aren’t from their “middle history” as the Doctor posited on TV, but the evolved descendants of the originals he encountered on Skaro, no longer reliant on the static electricity in their city: “The devastation may not have been as complete as we imagined. The Daleks have incredible tenacity, tremendous powers of survival. There may have been other colonies, on other parts of Skaro.” Elsewhere, their audacious plan to replace the Earth’s core is given a bit more rationale (and suggests the title of an RTD script): “No doubt something about the structure of the Earth had made it exactly the kind of planet the Daleks needed. They weren’t taking anything from Earth-they were stealing Earth itself!”

The book is a bit longer than the norm, which means Dicks can include all the relevant action sequences from the TV version including the iconic image of the Daleks crossing Westminster Bridge (which Barbara reflects “made an unforgettably symbolic picture”). The attack on the Dalek saucer is prolonged and chaotic, turning the confusion of the TV version into something desperate and urgent. Later, the final attack on the Dalek mine is condensed into a few pages of unrelenting action. The result is suitably epic and apocalyptic, a great rendition of perhaps the most impactful Doctor Who story, wrapped inside a dust jacket by Chris Achilleos that pulls on the movie version for inspiration. Grade 1.

An interesting error on the ‘Other Titles Available’ page in the first edition reassigns the authorship of Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom from Philip Hinchcliffe to Terrance Dicks:

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Claws of Axos.