John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2023-07 SFX p74-75.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-07-01 | display date = July 2024 | author = Ian Berriman | pages..."

2025-02-02T20:55:00Z

Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2023-07 SFX p74-75.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-07-01 | display date = July 2024 | author = Ian Berriman | pages..."

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| publication = SFX
| file = 2023-07 SFX p74-75.jpg
| px = 550
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| date = 2023-07-01
| display date = July 2024
| author = Ian Berriman
| pages = 74
| language = English
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| categories = books
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FOUR DOCTOR WHO WRITERS TELL US HOW THEY WENT ABOUT TURNING THEIR TV EPISODES INTO TARGET NOVELISATIONS

NEXT MONTH SEES THE RELEASE OF another batch of titles in the Target range, the classic Doctor Who novelisations revived in recent years by BBC Books. They hold a special place in the hearts of generations of fans - some of whom also happen to be writers of 21st century Who.

"The Target books defined my childhood really," says Pete McTighe ("Kerblam!"). "My memories of them actually predate my memories of watching the show, weirdly. I think I was four when I got my first, bought for me by my grandmother - [[broadwcast:The Abominable Snowmen|The Abominable Snowmen]]."

"I loved it when the writer added a little extra that wasn't in the TV show," says Keith Temple ("Planet Of The Ood"). "One of my favourites is The Cave Monsters by Malcolm Hulke. There's a passage in the book where a Silurian that Dr Quinn has imprisoned in his cottage breaks free and kills him. As I was six or seven when that was on, I only remembered bits and pieces. So when it first came out on video, I thought that they must have cut that scene out! In my mind's eye, that was part of the TV show."

A Third Doctor adventure also springs to mind for Phil Ford ("The Waters Of Mars"). "The biggest memory I have is of [[broadwcast:The Daemons|The Daemons]], because of the massive revelation about the incantation the Master makes at one point, when masquerading as this evil magician. I remember sitting there reading it and suddenly thinking, 'Hang on... that's 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' backwards!'"

As Ford says, one of the joys of physical books is that they can trigger memories. "You look at your shelf and it's like slices of your life queued up. I can remember what I was reading when I bought my first house - The Magic Cottage by James Herbert."

This is very much the case for Peter Harness ("The Zygon Invasion") when it comes to the Targets. "I've got a lot of memories of making my grandparents read them to me - and them being really bored by The Enemy Of The World!

"All the ones that I have mean something, and I can more or less remember how I got them. Image Of the Fendahl was a present for surviving chickenpox without scratching. I remember because Tom Baker looks kind of ill on the cover - it's a nauseous-looking cover, with a yellow logo, and it just reminds me of sickness."

Both Ford and Temple once owned books signed by Baker himself - sadly since mislaid. Ford's sister queued up for his, while Temple did so himself in 1976, at WH Smith in Newcastle. "He autographed my copy of The Ice Warriors. I was so amazed that he was standing in front of me looking exactly like he did on screen that when he said, 'What's your name?' I kind of froze. Then I managed to spit it out" Who fans of a sensitive disposition, look away now, as little Keith's treatment dills Targets may shake you to the core. "I don't know why I did it - obviously deep psychological problems - but I used to cut up all my Doctor Who memorabilia. I cut the covers off and put them in a scrapbook."

Such behaviour would have been sacrilege to McTighe, for whom the novelisations "flicked the collector switch in my brain", and who is now the proud owner of three sets - which may well have set him back the price of a car in eBay purchases... "I've got them all in paperback, and all the blue spine reprints [published by Virgin in the '90s], and I've got them all in hardback, which was no small task. It took me about 15 years of trying, because I'm very fussy about the condition!"

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Novel Approaches - Revision history

John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2023-07 SFX p74-75.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-07-01 | display date = July 2024 | author = Ian Berriman | pages..."