Eric Saward's Dalek Novelisations

I concur with Kaijuko. Wait for a cheaper paperback or second hand version, or see if you can hire it from your local library.

I don't get the appeal in reading these

I could be reading uhh dostoyevskий or some shit

Ordered. Hope it was worth it.

Great read so far. Some nice comedic touches throughout.

It all went a bit tits up when it was revealed that Colonel Archer was a reader of the Guardian. As we're all fully aware, there's only one step from reading the Guardian to being a communist spy.

The nonsense attempt at humoured levity with the station cat's antics trying to add 'cute' comic relief during the lead-up to a firefight really was Saward at almost his most ham-fisted.

Sorry, but my own "fan" novelization of Resurrection is so much more faithful to the source material and is made with actual loving care. Here's an excerpt:

The Doctor pointed a finger at Tegan. "Come here, you Aussie slag," he ordered in his best Jamaican accent. Tegan obeyed and ran to the eccentric traveler. Turlough, dressed somewhat like a male stripper, followed closely behind her in his wheelchair. As the two approached, the Time Lord directed their attention to some graffiti on a nearby wall. He looked at Turlough and asked, "What's that look like to you, ya giant pleb?" Turlough studied the graffiti with some interest and, upon realizing what it was depicting, licked his lips. "Looks like a giant cock and balls, guv'nor." A broad smile implanted itself onto the Doctor's face. Just then, The man from those tedious Gladstone Brookes ads burst out of one of the warehouse doors and starting banging on about mis-sold PPI.

And I thought the bit in my Day of the Doctor novelization where Clara gets slightly wet during riding her motorbike was a bit risque...

That awkward moment when you realize that Maxil's 'fan novelization' is much more enjoyable than the actual novelization AND the original TV story...

I really should give the old unofficial TSV version another read.

EDIT: here's the link

My other story is a Doctor-lite adventure. It features Mel and Ace as they arrive on the planet Bubble Butt Mania. The Bubble Butt queen accuses them of being spies from the planet Pink Pussy Squirt and sentences them to death by smothering. As the Bubble Butt executions oil themselves up, Mel and Ace plan a daring escape.

Listening to the Terry Molloy audio book!

Rawkuss wrote:Listening to the Terry Molloy audio book!

Has he nodded off yet?

Not yet.

Has anyone checked out Revelation yet?

Forgot it was out. Reviews have been positive and it couldn't be any worse than Resurrection.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Has anyone checked out Revelation yet?

I've just started it - read the first 50 pages or so.  Nothing startling so far - its a more or less a straightforward adaptation of the televised version, with a bit of added detail. However, I'm enjoying it more than Saward's rather lacklustre Resurrection of The Daleks, probably because I prefer Revelation as a story anyway and would rather read something featuring the 6th Doctor than the 5th. Saward has a straightforward, easy to read style and I don't think this will be a struggle to finish - Resurrection, on the other hand, was more endured than enjoyed.
Interesting to note that while reading, I realized how much I like and appreciate Revelation; I shall have to dig out the DVD for a rewatch.  I love the sardonic dark humour - black comedy works/belongs in Doctor Who (one of the reasons why Robert Holmes' writing is so funny, clever and fondly remembered).  Also, this story has always reminded me of an old Judge Dredd tale; 'The Forever Crimes'(1979) in which JD tackles a blackmail scheme that preys on the relatives of people in suspended animation.  Not just the similarities in subject matter - Dredd strips often used macabre themes and grim black humour to good effect, just like Revelation.

I just haven't bothered with the Revelation novelization. After how badly Resurrection read, my heart just wasn't set on it anymore.

Besides. I've been told about how the book is meant to reveal new details of the Knights of Oberon I didn't know before. Once I heard what they were, I realized I preferred the mystery intact.

He didn't care about the project. That's why the prison ship has the exact same name as the space liner in Slipback. He couldn't even be bothered to check whether or not he had used the name before. The second half of the book is just a basic retelling of the events we saw on television which is just lazy. His older books were much, much better.

Pepsi Maxil Oswald wrote:He didn't care about the project.

Not true. I'll have you know that I dedicated an entire afternoon to writing the Resurrection novel!

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:He didn't care about the project. That's why the prison ship has the exact same name as the space liner in Slipback. He couldn't even be bothered to check whether or not he had used the name before. The second half of the book is just a basic retelling of the events we saw on television which is just lazy. His older books were much, much better.

I think as ever, it's more that he never really had the aptitude for the mammoth task, than that he didn't care, necessarily.

From rewatching The Visitation recently, and how Saward began on the show, I do think the Saward of Season 19 was capable of writing a decent, unpretentious, well-crafted action thriller within the show's limitations.

But that was when he was working from a vague memory notion of the show.

I think after he got the job, he became quickly too immersed in the show, and the seeming responsibility of shaping its public and fan image. Or maybe he just got too exposed to Ian Levine.

But by Season 21 he seemed to have become too lost in the series' lore and in the show's supposed moral quandaries for the Doctor, that he was never really capable of addressing or handling. You need to be a maverick like Dicks, Holmes or Hulke, or indeed Aaronovitch, to do so, and Saward was not it (ergo, neither was the Doctor under his reigns). He was effectively lost without a clue there.

Perhaps he was promoted too fast.

It's perhaps no surprise that when called upon to revisit the story, he got lost again and wasn't able to make any more progress with it, and just grafted on a few woke elements (i.e. Tegan's epilogue) to try and seem like he'd moved with the zeitgeist.

Tanmann wrote: Or maybe he just got too exposed to Ian Levine.

You could say that. We often went to bed together and Ian would stuff his face with digestives while I drew devil beards on pictures of John. We started planning the story for Attack of the Cybermen while I was penetrating the fat buffoon's bottom one rainy morning in 1984. He kept screaming words like "Telos" and "Cyber Controller" and I made a mental note to include them in the script along with anything else he mentioned during sex. And that is how Attack of the Cybermen was born. The scenes you personally enjoy are the ones that I came up with. The stuff you hate is entirely Barbara Clegg's fault.

Eric Saywhaaat? wrote:And that is how Attack of the Cybermen was born. The scenes you personally enjoy are the ones that I came up with. The stuff you hate is entirely Barbara Clegg's fault.

That bitch....

Tanmann wrote:

Eric Saywhaaat? wrote:And that is how Attack of the Cybermen was born. The scenes you personally enjoy are the ones that I came up with. The stuff you hate is entirely Barbara Clegg's fault.

That bitch....

She completely ignored our "no good scripts" rule. I hired crap writers to make my own work look better in comparison. You honestly don't think I would have hired the likes of Terence Dudley and Glen McCoy for any other reason, do you?