YMMV / Doctor Who Novelisations

• Fridge Brilliance: The novelisation of "Black Orchid" has a scene where Tegan explains the rules of cricket to Adric and Nyssa. Not because she's from Earth, but because she's from Australia, a country that loves the sport almost as much as England.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The prologue of the "Battlefield" novelisation has an appearance by Merlin, who's a future incarnation of the Doctor. And he's ginger.
• Memetic Mutation: A few of Terrance Dicks' trademark descriptions - the "wheezing, groaning sound", Jon Pertwee being described as "an old-young man with a mane of white hair" and Peter Davison as "a fair fellow with a pleasant, open face", plus the "neither cruel nor cowardly creed".
• Nightmare Fuel: In the novelisation of "City of Death", Kerensky's death by rapid aging in the very machine he had built is far more horrific than in the televised version. From his point of view, he experiences the rapid aging in real time: "It took Nikolai Kerensky the rest of his life to die."
• Unintentional Period Piece: Played with in the novelisation of "Shada", as it was written in 2012, and exaggerated a bit to help us relate to the alien main characters who find the 1970s laughably primitive. For instance, there's a scene where Skagra finds it proof of human inferiority that they still consider digital watches and VCR to be the cutting edge of technology, which would have been played for a fairly straight laugh by Douglas Adams but is played in the book as being just as dated and contemptible as the aliens find it to be. Mocked also in the book's description of K-9, as seen through Chris's eyes. He remarks on the letters on its side being 'clearly intended to look futuristic' and seems to find its aesthetic very dated.

---