History Literature / DoctorWhoNovelisations

* OffModel: The cover art for "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]" is notoriously awful, featuring a hastily-drawn and oddly-proportioned space pirate, who is wearing a comically oversized helmet and medieval-looking body armour. Apparently this happened because it was a very hastily produced ''fourth'' attempt at a cover; the first one featured the Second Doctor and was rejected for being too generic, the second featured Jamie, which the editors didn't feel was suitable given that the story didn't have any particular focus on him, and the third cover featured the story's BigBad and was initially accepted... only to then have to be ditched when the widow of said Big Bad's actor refused Target permission to feature his likeness, resulting in the final cover being thrown together very hastily at the last minute.

** In "Planet of Evil," it is explained that the liquid that Sorenson is drinking is a special elixir of his own devising to stave off his transformations (which he suspects are happening due to his exposure to anti-matter), and that he can't make any more. We're never told onscreen exactly what it is, why it works, and why he is so upset when he runs out.

** In the novelisation of "Shada", the Doctor at one point uses an Old High Gallifreyan swear word which is left in the text as symbol form. It is described in the footnote as untranslatable and descriptive of something far more obscene than any of the readers can apparently imagine, although [[PrecisionFStrike it's first used in the form "___ you" and the first of the symbols looks quite a lot like a linked male-and-female symbol]].

!!!Postponed
* ''The Zygon Invasion'', adapting "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E7TheZygonInvasion The Zygon Invasion]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E8TheZygonInversion The Zygon Inversion]]", novelised by Peter Harness.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath
City of Death]]", novelised by James Goss, abridged and restructured from the 2015 novelisation.

* "City of Death", novelised by James Goss, abridged and restructured from the 2015 novelisation.

In 2011, the BBC reissued six of the novelisations in new editions with introductions by writers including Creator/NeilGaiman, Creator/StephenBaxter, and Creator/RussellTDavies. In 2012, they reissued six more. In 2013, when the BBC reissued a spin-off novel for each Doctor as part of the 50th anniversary, the first six were Past Doctor Adventures released in the late 1990s and 2000s, but the Seventh Doctor's was the 1990 novelisation of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]]". In 2016, they reissued ten more novelisations, three of which were hardback facsimiles of the original Frederick Muller novelisations. 2021 saw the release of ''The Essential Terrance Dicks'', a two-volume hardback collection of ten of Dicks' novelisations, marking the second anniversary of his death.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: In their original versions, the three Douglas Adams novelisations - "Shada", "City of Death", and "The Pirate Planet" - are 300 pages or more, and aimed at adult readers; "City of Death" and "The Pirate Planet" both have Target adaptations that bring them in line with the rest of the range.

In 2012, BBC Books published the first new novelisation in years: Gareth Roberts' novelisation of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]". Unlike previous novelisations, it was aimed at a general audience, and clocked in at approximately 400 pages. James Goss's novelisation of "City of Death" followed in 2015, with his novelisation of "The Pirate Planet" officially completing the set of Adams-related novelisations in 2017. Goss's novelisation of Adams' unmade film proposal "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen" (best known [[DolledUpInstallment as the basis for]] ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'') was released in 2018, followed in 2019 by ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoMeetsScratchman Scratchman]]'', a collaboration between Goss and Tom Baker, adapting "Doctor Who Meets Scratchman", an unproduced screenplay Baker had co-written with Creator/IanMarter. Creator/EricSaward adapted his two [=80s=] Dalek serials as Target-length books for BBC Books in 2019, meaning every classic serial at last had a novelisation.

* ''The Zygon Invasion'', adapting "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E7TheZygonInvasion The Zygon Invasion]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E8TheZygonInversion The Zygon Inversion]]", novelised by Peter Harness.

** In the novelisation of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E3TheAmbassadorsOfDeath The Ambassadors of Death]]", reporter John Wakefield is renamed Michael Wakefield, possibly in tribute to the actor who played him in the televised story, Michael Wisher.

** In the novelisation of "Survival", Paterson is a police sergeant as opposed to being a Territorial Army sergeant as originally intended.

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: In ''Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon'', Malcolm Hulke's novelisation of "Colony in Space", it's mentioned in passing that a young woman had dyed her hair "dull blue, as was the fashion that month".

The first three ''Doctor Who'' novelisations, ''Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure With the Daleks'' (based on "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks The Daleks]]" and reprinted as ''Doctor Who and the Daleks''), ''Doctor Who and the Crusaders'' (based on "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E6TheCrusade The Crusade]]"), and ''Doctor Who and the Zarbi'' (based on "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E5TheWebPlanet The Web Planet]]") were originally published by Frederick Muller in the 1960s, before Target Books reprinted them and bought the rights to new novelisations. The Target series began with ''Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion'', written by Terrance Dicks and based on "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace Spearhead from Space]]".

* LongTitle: The first-ever ''Doctor Who'' novelisation was titled ''Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks'' (with ''Doctor Who'' in big letters). This was shortened to ''Doctor Who and the Daleks'' on subsequent editions.

** The Castellan in "Arc of Infinity" is name Jerricho, after his actor, Paul Jerricho.

** In the novelisation of "Rose", Mickey's parents are named Jackson and Odessa, while the security guard that hands Rose the lottery money is given a name, Lee Lin.

** In the novelisation of "Rose", the security guard that hands Rose the lottery money is given a name, Lee Lin.

* DisabledInTheAdaptation: In "Vengeance on Varos", Quillam is described as walking with a limp, which is not the case on screen.

** In the novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks", the vicar is named Reverend Parkinson.

BBC Books released the first novelisations of stories from the revival series in 2018, resurrecting the Target logo for the covers: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose Rose]]", novelised by Creator/RussellTDavies, "[[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion The Christmas Invasion]]", novelised by Jenny Colgan, "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]", novelised by Creator/StevenMoffat, and "[[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime Twice Upon a Time]]", novelised by Creator/PaulCornell. "City of Death" was released in an abridged and restructured version alongside them, with the same cover design. They were followed in 2021 by "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek Dalek]]", novelised by Creator/RobertShearman, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E11TheCrimsonHorror The Crimson Horror]]", novelised by Creator/MarkGatiss, and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E8TheWitchfinders The Witchfinders]]", novelised by Joy Wilkinson, along with paperback editions of the Saward Dalek stories, a new version of "The Pirate Planet",[[note]]The original 2017 novelisation adapted Adams' original treatment; the 2021 version adapted the story as-broadcast[[/note]] and a slightly revised reissue of the TV Movie novelisation.

** In the novelisation of "Mindwarp", the rebel Verne is divided into two characters, Ger and Sorn.

* DecompositeCharacter: In "Dalek", despite being referred to by name in the TV story, [=De Maggio=] is replaced by a new character called Klein.

** The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver in the novelisation of 1967's "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E8TheFacelessOnes The Faceless Ones]]"; on TV, the sonic wasn't introduced until "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E6FuryFromTheDeep Fury from the Deep]]", a year later. The novelisation of the following story, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E9TheEvilOfTheDaleks The Evil of the Daleks]]", also mentions the sonic screwdriver, this time with an excuse as to why the Doctor doesn't use it.

** On the art side, the BBC Target novelisations have covers that take after Chris Achilleos's covers for the original range's earliest novelisations, FloatingHeadSyndrome and all.

** The nature of the original novelisations in general required some level of PragmaticAdaptation; they were, almost uniformly, about 100 pages long -- which, considering the length of the stories they were adapting ranged from two-to-six (or in some cases ten or twelve) episodes long, meant that they would often either have to compress or add things in order to meet the page requirements. The BBC revival series novelisations up the page count to 150-220 pages.

There were just four TV stories that did not receive a Target novelisation (not including the unfinished "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]"): the two Dalek stories by Eric Saward, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E4ResurrectionOfTheDaleks Resurrection of the Daleks]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks Revelation of the Daleks]]", due to conflict between Saward and Terry Nation's agent about the division of royalties; and Creator/DouglasAdams' other two stories, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E2ThePiratePlanet The Pirate Planet]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City of Death]]", because Adams wanted the novelisations to be done by someone who could do justice to the material (namely, himself) but having hit the big time with ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' he was too busy, or too expensive, or both.

In 2012, BBC Books published the first new novelisation in years: Gareth Roberts' novelisation of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]". Unlike previous novelisations, it was aimed at a general audience, and clocked in at approximately 400 pages. James Goss's novelisation of "City of Death" followed in 2015, with his novelisation of "The Pirate Planet" officially completing the set of Adams-related novelisations in 2017. Goss's novelisation of Adams' unmade film proposal "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen" (best known [[DolledUpInstallment as the basis for]] ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'') was released in 2018, followed in 2019 by ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoMeetsScratchman Scratchman]]'', a collaboration between Goss and Tom Baker, adapting "Doctor Who Meets Scratchman", an unproduced screenplay Baker had co-written with Creator/IanMarter. Eric Saward adapted his two [=80s=] Dalek serials as Target-length books for BBC Books in 2019, meaning every classic serial at last had a novelisation.

** In an attempt to salvage the novelisation of the notoriously bad TV story "The Twin Dilemma", Eric Saward wrote the book as a pastiche of Creator/DouglasAdams, complete with irrelevant comic digressions. It still wasn't very popular.

** In "The Curse of Fenric", the marines that Jean and Phyllis tease and who are later killed by the Russians are replaced with a group of Home Guard, who Miss Hardaker asked to look for the pair.

** In the TV movie, Grace is just engaged instead of married. Similarly, Shelly Curtis only has a construction worker as a fiancé instead of husband.

** In the TV movie, Dr. Salinger is depicted as at least somewhat romantically attracted to Grace, offering to take Brian's place in her life.

** In "Arc of Infinity", the Ergon is described as a "giant walking lizard". On telvision, it infamously resembled a large chicken.

* FloatingHeadSyndrome: The novelisations often had the Doctor's floating head, especially on covers by Chris Achilleos, who traditionally did the heads in monochrome and the rest of the picture in colour. See some examples [[http://chrisachilleos.co.uk/book-covers/dr-who-original-target.html here]].

* PerspectiveFlip:
** In "The Twin Dilemma", the kidnap of the twins is partly told from the point of view of a cat, said to be the most intelligent creature on Earth.
** The novelisation of "Rose" is told from Rose's perspective. During the Auton attack, we get the perspective of her scummy ex-boyfriend Jimmy Stone.
** "The Day of the Doctor" novelisation features scenes from the point of view of the Curator.
** "The Crimson Horror" novelisation is predominantly told from Jenny Flint's perspective, with some sections told through the eyes of other characters such as Jonas Thursday, Strax, and the Doctor.

** The nature of the novelisations in general required some level of PragmaticAdaptation; they were, almost uniformly, about 100 pages long -- which, considering the length of the stories they were adapting ranged from two-to-six (or in some cases ten or twelve) episodes long, meant that they would often either have to compress or add things in order to meet the page requirements.

* SelfPlagiarism: Creator/TerranceDicks tended to recycle stories he wrote for the TV series. In one case (the novel ''World Game'') he literally cuts and pastes large sections from a previous novel.

** In the novelisation of "Resurrection of the Daleks", the Crewmember that accompanies Osborn is given the name Senior Ensign 'Baz' Seaton. The Prison Station is a ship called the ''Vipod Mor''. The gas Lytton uses is called [=ZP=] gas. Many Daleks are given specific titles, such as "Alpha Dalek," which the Doctor notes is one he's never heard of.

** In "The Daemons", Elgin is reinstated into the events where he was replaced in the televised version by James.
** In the novelisation of "Planet of the Spiders", the characters of Hopkins and his customer are split, renamed and redistributed. It is the customer, Mr Pemberthy, who tries out the hovercraft, whereas the owner of the boat yard, Bob Armitage, is watching from the shore. However, it is still the hovercraft tester, Hopkins in the television story or Pemberthy in the novelisation, who gets blasted by Lupton. And it is the man mooring the boat, unnamed in the TV version or Armitage in the novelisation, who gets pushed into the water.