Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion

In honour of the death this week of Terrance Dicks, one of the greatest behind the scenes figures in Doctor Who history, I have re-read this novelisation from 1974, the first he wrote of very many such, of the very first Jon Pertwee TV story broadcast in 1970, Spearhead from Space, featuring the Autons, plastic mannequins that come to life and form the army of the invading Nestenes. This is a brilliant novelisation, full of characterisation and depth that it has to be said was lacking in many later novelisations by Dicks and others. Great stuff.

Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion is a reading of Terrance Dicks' novelization of Jon Pertwee's Doctor's first adventure, Spearhead From Space. I watched that first adventure a few months ago as part of BBC America's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary retrospective. The novelization is a good one, matching my memory of the episodes quite well, and I enjoyed Ms. John's narration. I'll be old enough for Social Security in just six years, which means I'm glad there's an audio version. The print size of your average paperback isn't easy on my aging eyes. My first doctor was Tom Baker, but my local library's collection of Doctor Who audio books is giving me an appreciation for the first three doctors.

With what we were later told about the number of show more regenerations a Time Lord was supposed to get, I am aghast that the Time Lords forced one on the second Doctor. show less

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This was the first original Target novelisation (published after the three 1960s First Doctor novels had been reissued) and the first of over sixty novelisations by Dicks (plus a dozen spinoffs). It's not actually one of his better ones (and it's interesting that I often find myself writing that about Dicks' novelisations of Robert Holmes' stories). In particular, the joke of Sam Seeley being a funny little man from the country grates even worse on the printed page than it did on screen, and there is not enough clarity about who the viewpoint character is meant to be. I had fond memories of this from when I first read it as a child, but it didn't really live up to them.