A further two covers from this year’s batch of Target novelisations have been unveiled: The Fires of Pompeii and The Eaters of Light! The art, by the sensational Anthony Dry, is inspired by Chris Achilleos’ old Target novel covers. These join two Fourth Doctor novelisations, the late David Fisher’s The Stones of Blood, and The Androids of Tara, and will be released in July 2022. Sadly, The…

The BBC has unveiled the stunning cover art for two upcoming Target novelisations featuring the Fourth Doctor and the First Romana, The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara. This Chris Achilleos-inspired illustrations are by the ever-talented Anthony Dry, a friend of the DWC. Both Key to Time stories were originally novelised by Terrance Dicks; when they were recorded for audio release a…

Though unconfirmed by the BBC, it appears that five new Target novelisations will be released in July 2022, including stories from the Fourth, Tenth, and Twelfth Doctors — all written by the stories original screenwriters! The stories being adapted into novels are: The Stones of BloodThe Androids of TaraThe Fires of PompeiiThe Zygon Invasion/ The Zygon InversionThe Eaters of Light The Zygon…

It’s with great sadness that we confirm the passing of Doctor Who legend, Chris Achilléos. The painter and illustrator died of a stroke, aged 74, earlier this week. Of course, Doctor Who fans will know him best for his artwork on the covers of the much-loved Target novels. Throughout a career spanning five decades, he remained one of the most respected and in demand artists in his field. His…

I can distinctly remember buying The Five Doctors paperback; it was the Saturday before The Five Doctors was to be screened during Children in Need 1983 and I was astonished to see the book available before it was broadcast. The bookshop, now long gone, was in the Harvey Nichols end of Sloane Street, Knightsbridge, and I recall being a little bemused that the Sloane Ranger (remember them?), in…

The Time Lords send the Doctor and his companions back in time to Skaro just before the birth of the Daleks with the aim of preventing their creation, altering their development, or at least learning a weakness that could be exploited: anything to stop them becoming the dominant creature in the universe. A plot we’re all familiar with; Genesis of the Daleks needs no introduction. Before the…

The Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the Wheel in Space, more than nearly any other, is semi-legendary. It’s the almost lost book, most of the copies destroyed in a fire. Copies circulate on eBay for crazy amounts of money for a short TV tie-in novel (between £50 and £100, last time I looked). The big question is though – is it actually worth the money? Is it a good book, for all its…

More often than not, when you’re a child, you don’t understand or even consider the significance of things. Take, for example, my Reception age daughter who is currently discovering the wacky madness of Sooty, Sweep, and Soo. She is aware that there was another friend of the trio before Richard Cadell, but that’s not important to her. Nor is it of any interest to her that Sooty is nearly 70 years…

Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks is one of the best of the Target novels. You will be amazed to hear that it is based on the television story entitled Day of the Daleks. I can remember its first broadcast, even though I was still at primary school; I found it absolutely entrancing and didn’t then notice that the Daleks themselves were oddly static or that their voices weren’t great, though I…

“And when all the programs on all the channels actually were made by actors with cleft-palettes, speaking lines by dyslexic writers, filmed by blind cameramen, instead of merely seeming like that.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Fit the Eleventh) Doctor Who writer Douglas Adams has rightly been lauded for his comedic brilliance, visionary ideas, and technological…

Two very special books are out now, marking the anniversary of Terrance Dicks’ death, and collecting together 10 of the Doctor Who legend’s best-loved Target novelisations. These are seriously impressive volumes, and even at their respective £25 RRPs are absolute bargains. The spines line up to form the Target logo, while inside, we get to enjoy numerous adventures featuring the Daleks, a…

Prisons feature heavily in the opening pages of this novelisation of The Witchfinders. An unnamed character writes a despairing letter from their cell whilst awaiting a grim fate. An alien queen leads her army through a dungeon which shifts and reforms to confound their efforts to escape. Only the TARDIS crew are free to roam and explore. The theme of being imprisoned, whether physically or in…

There’s an exchange in the middle of The Crimson Horror which occurred, I’m convinced, as the result of a bet. It happens when Dan Starkey gets lost somewhere in or near Bradford, his horse coming to a halt so near and yet so far from the sinister gated community to which he’s headed. In the end, he’s given improbably precise directions by a young boy who introduces himself as Thomas Thomas. And…

Dalek is not so much a novelisation as a very good novel in its own right. Robert Shearman doesn’t adopt the strategy of the jaded old hack who, cigarette dangling from lip, sits with the TV script on his desk and copies out the lines, adding “he said” or sometimes – after another drag – even, “she said” after each of them. Dalek is much more like the best Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke…

As Joni Mitchell once famously noted, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.” But, much as I admire the Canadian chanteuse, there is a much more niggling problem for we rampant completists: “You don’t know what you haven’t got until you don’t have it.” In 1993, the final (well not ultimately, as will be revealed) Doctor Who novelisation, The Evil of the Daleks, was published. It was…

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine includes a free exclusive Target book, collecting together extracts of the upcoming novelisations, with a collage of cover art by Anthony Dry. It also comes with a double-sided poster featuring all the Target novels! And inside, you’ll read more about the books, which are released early next month. Here are a few highlights: Exclusive interviews with…