Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Terry Nation’s scripts for the 1979 TV serial.

Terrance Dicks’ novelisation of Terry Nation’s final Doctor Who scripts was rush-released in November 1979, only two months after the episodes were broadcast on TV. It’s one of the briefer books but size isn’t everything, and Destiny of the Daleks has its own pleasures.

Dicks effectively creates a doomy atmosphere with action unfolding at night, and the traditional quarry location reimagined as the crumbling ruins of the Kaled dome first seen in Genesis of the Daleks. He does great work linking Destiny and Genesis. He recalls the earlier story’s bunker when he tells us that “an underground setting was the Daleks’ natural habitat” and details the Doctor’s growing suspicions about the Daleks’ true reason for returning to their home planet.

When these suspicions prove correct and we are reintroduced to Davros, Dicks leans into the horror. Swathed in thick cobwebs, Davros is “something that had once been a man” with a “harsh rusty voice” and a malignant personality that delights in the cruel punishments the Daleks inflict on their enslaved prisoners (who haunt the shattered landscape like “weary ghosts”).

In the face of Davros’ return, the Doctor is faced with a similar choice as in Genesis: to kill an evil dictator to save the lives of millions. This time, he doesn’t hesitate. It’s a scintillating moment in an underrated novel: I think I must have read it more than any other by virtue of it being the only Dalek book in my local library as a kid. Grade 3.

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Ribos Operation.