War of the Daleks

This Doctor Who novel delighted me, even though the writing is poor enough that the descriptions of it as "fanfic" are mostly fair.

I didn't enjoy the poor writing--it made me feel that most of the book was "going through the motions." The story's revelation, the contribution author John Peel offers to the Doctor Who mythos, is what pleased me--and apparently enraged many Whovian fangeeks. It responds to one of the classic episodes in a way that effectively changes its conclusion.



Beginning around the middle of the book, this consists of the Dalek leader (here called the Dalek Prime, not the Supreme Dalek) explaining to the Doctor what reallyhappened at the climax of Remembrance of the Daleks: an astonishing multilayered deception that show more stretches all the way back to Destiny of the Daleks.

Basically, in Remembrance of the Daleks, the Imperial Daleks tricked the Doctor into tricking Davros into incinerating the wrong planet with the Hand of Omega. Since the Doctor has programmed the Hand to destroy Skaro's sun but Davros would actually use the Hand, the Dalek Prime's plan hinged on fooling Davros, not the Doctor, into mis-identifying Skaro. This began in Destiny of the Daleks, which was entirely a Dalek ruse: the Movellans were Dalek operatives all along; their war never existed; and the killer virus Davros developed a cure for was also an invention.

This is all but some author's reinterpretation of several Doctor Who television episodes, and is no more or less "authoritative" than the episodes. But childish fans think the episodes they love are immutable: it's the same phenomenon as angry Star Wars fangeeks complaining that George Lucas "raped [their] childhoods" by...creating new sequels the fangeeks didn't like. (A complaint reprehensible on its face for grossly misusing the word "rape"; but I digress.) Nevertheless, the reversal of the truth of "Remembrance of the Daleks", and even reversal of the entire Dalek civil war, is marvelous in its complexity, as per the author's reinterpretation: all the principals (the Imperial Daleks, Davros, and the Doctor) deceived each other for years in ways more complex than the television episodes indicated. Again, this apparently upset many fans for overturning their apple cart. But not me, now that I've read it. I think I'll reread the scene of the Dalek Prime's explanation, and smirk.
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http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1401314.html

I very much enjoyed Peel's novelisations of black-and-white era Dalek stories, where he managed to inject a bit more sense and continuity than was to be found in the originals; here he writes a fun Eighth Doctor story which is very much in the tradition of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors' televised encounters with the spawn of Skaro, including lots of thrilling elements such as Thal commandos, Davros on trial and yet leading a faction in a Dalek civil war, and the twisted and complex plans of the anti-Davros leader (here dubbed the Dalek Prime). There is even a pleasing nod to The Power of the Daleks towards the end. Sam is now going all gooey-eyed at the Doctor, a foreshadowing of things show more to come (and I wonder how they will keep that up in future books). show less

Retcon: A deliberate changing of previously established events in a serialised fiction.

This novel is one massive retcon, basically if you’re looking at the ‘Dalek’ TV stories and go back to the fourth Doctor story ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ and say that and every story after it is negated, that’s what this novel does.

This novel has been retconned itself by Big Finish’s audio drama ‘Terra Firma’. Which incidentally makes the TV stories stand as they did (and ignores this novel).

War of the Daleks treads back not so faithfully over every Dalek story in the ‘classic series’, in fact you can actually go through and find a reference to every Dalek story.

This could have been called ‘The Trial of Davros’, except that show more would have made it sound like a vaguely interesting Dalek political drama-thriller, but it’s not.

Nothing happens for three quarters of the book, and then at the end there’s a bit of action, which on the whole isn’t very interesting.

This novel is a bit like a big American action movie, lots of explosions, lots of scenes that would have been served well by a big CGI budget and a clichéd dialogue and some big expositions scenes when the action runs out of ‘big scenes’ and need to insert some story to keep everything moving.

The interludes are quite alright and rather interesting, but they don’t make up for the rest of the novel.
This novel doesn’t even need the Doctor in it, the head Dalek the ‘Dalek Prime’ even says as much. This novel feels like it wanted to be a stand alone movie, without the Doctor and lots and lots of Daleks.

There are better novels from around this same era of Doctor Who publishing that utilise the Daleks in a better way, usually when constrained by licensing or other elements that means they must be used in a more intelligent way than they’re used here. show less

A novel of the seventh doctor. This one brings the doctor back to the alternate Earth where he left his grand-daughter, Susan. It is 30 years after the great Dalek war and England is divided between warring Lords who control the only remaining power generation. Of course, there is alien interference with local events- not just by the Doctor, and the Doctor is forced to intervene.
It has a nice premise and occasionally sparks some interest but the story-line wanders and gets lost. On the whole it does not live up to its initial promise.

re-read 7/9/2023