History Literature / DoctorWhoNovelisations

** The novelisation of ''The Dominators'' faithfully retains the serial's cliffhanger ending, in which the TARDIS is threatened by an erupting volcano on the planet Dulkis. The novelisation of ''The Mind Robber'', which immediately follows, relocates the volcano to Earth. In turn, ''The Mind Robber'' novelisation ends with four people on board the TARDIS; by the start of ''The Invasion'' novelisation, which again should follow without a break, there are only three.

** The novelisation of ''The Dominators'' faithfully retains the serial's cliffhanger ending, in which the TARDIS is threatened by an erupting volcano on the planet Dulkis. The novelisation of ''The Mind Robber'', which immediately follows, relocates the volcano to Earth.

** The novelisation of ''The Dominators'' faithfully retains the serial's cliffhanger ending, in which the TARDIS is threatened by an erupting volcano on the planet Dulkis. The novelisation of ''The Mind Robber'', which immediately follows, relocates the volcano to Earth. In turn, ''The Mind Robber'' novelisation ends with four people on board the TARDIS; by the start of ''The Invasion'' novelisation, which again should follow without a break, there are only three.

In the early 1990s, Virgin Publishing (which had acquired Target Books in the 1980s) began a series of original (not adapted) ''Doctor Who'' novels, the VirginNewAdventures.

* [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdelerisation]]: ''Doctor Who and the Sunmakers'' depicts the revolting citizens as immediately feeling guilty and regretful after Hade is thrown off the roof (as opposed to joyous cheering in the original "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers}} The Sun Makers]]") because Terrance Dicks felt that an all-ages show shouldn't condone the casual murder of helpless prisoners, no matter how villainous. %%Note that the difference in title is deliberate: the TV story has "Sun Makers" as two words, the novelisation as one.

The first three ''Doctor Who'' novelisations (based on "The Daleks", "The Web Planet" and "The Crusade") were originally published by Frederick Muller in the 1960s, before becoming the start of the Target line. The last novelisation, for the Eighth Doctor TV Movie, was published by BBC Books.

In later years, Target also novelised non-series stories, including the spin-off ''K-9 and Company'', three audio dramas (''The Pescatons'', ''Slipback'' and ''The Paradise of Death''), and three stories written for the original never-made Season 23 (''The Nightmare Fair'', ''The Ultimate Evil'' and ''Mission to Magnus''). The half-filmed and never-aired ''Shada'' was, at the time, kept from being novelised by the same issues as DouglasAdams' other stories. ''K-9 and Company'' was in fact the third in a series of "Companions of Doctor Who" novels featuring companions as solo protagonists after their travels with the Doctor, preceded by two original novels: ''Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma'', by Tony Attwood, and ''Harry Sullivan's War'' by the character's actor Ian Marter.

* AllThereInTheManual: Some stories, particularly "Warriors' Gate" and about half of the Seventh Doctor's later adventures, are much easier to follow in the novelisations than they were on screen. One particularly notorious example is the novelisation to ''Dragonfire'', in which a scene wherein the Doctor hangs off a cliff by his umbrella for what in the TV serial appears to be absolutely no reason whatsoever is given an explanation (the Doctor is using it to try and reach a ledge lower down, but slips and loses his footing).

* AllThereInTheManual: Some stories, particularly "Warriors' Gate" and about half of the Seventh Doctor's later adventures, are much easier to follow in the novelisations than they were on screen. One particularly notorious example is the novelisation to ''Dragonfire'', in which a scene wherein the Doctor hangs off a cliff by his umbrella for, what in the TV serial appears to be absolutely no reason whatsoever, is given an explanation (the Doctor is using it to try and reach a ledge lower down, but slips and loses his footing).

* AllThereInTheManual: Some stories, particularly "Warriors' Gate" and about half of the Seventh Doctor's later adventures, are much easier to follow in the novelisations than they were on screen.

* SeriesContinuityError: The novelisations weren't really intended to be read end-to-end as a series, and attempting to do so will turn up some interesting continuity glitches. The earliest, and one of the most famous, is that Ian and Barbara meet the Doctor for the first time two novels in a row: ''Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child'' is the novelisation of the first TV story, and includes the scene of their first meeting; ''Doctor Who and the Daleks'', the novelisation of the second TV story, was the first novelisation actually published, and was consequently rewritten to as Ian and Barbara's first adventure, with a new first-meeting scene at the beginning.
** The second most famous example was that ''Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon'', based on the TV story "Colony In Space", has the Doctor and Jo meeting each other for the first time at the beginning, reusing not their actual first meeting from "Terror of the Autons" but the scene later in that story in which the Master hypnotises her and sends her into [=UNIT=] HQ with a bomb.

In later years, Target also novelised non-series stories, including the spin-off ''K-9 and Company'', three audio dramas (''The Pescatons'', ''Slipback'' and ''The Paradise of Death''), and three stories written for the original never-made Season 23 (''The Nightmare Fair'', ''The Ultimate Evil'' and ''Mission to Magnus''). The half-filmed and never-aired ''Shada'' was, at the time, kept from being novelised by the same issues as DouglasAdams' other stories. ''K-9 and Company" was in fact the third in a series of "Companions of Doctor Who" novels featuring companions as solo protagonists after their travels with the Doctor, preceded by two original novels: "Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma", by Tony Attwood, and "Harry Sullivan's War" by the character's actor Ian Marter.

In later years, Target also novelised non-series stories, including the spin-off ''K-9 and Company'', three audio dramas (''The Pescatons'', ''Slipback'' and ''The Paradise of Death''), and three stories written for the original never-made Season 23 (''The Nightmare Fair'', ''The Ultimate Evil'' and ''Mission to Magnus''). The half-filmed and never-aired ''Shada'' was, at the time, kept from being novelised by the same issues as DouglasAdams' other stories.

Notable authors included TerranceDicks (who wrote more ''Doctor Who'' novelisations than anyone else), Malcolm Hulke, Philip Hinchcliffe, Ian Marter, and David Whitaker, all of whom had worked on the TV series in various capacities.

The first three ''Doctor Who'' novelisations (based on "The Daleks", "The Web Planet", and "The Crusade") were originally published by Frederick Muller in the 1960s, before becoming the start of the Target line.

In later years, facing a shortage of material, Target also novelised non-series stories, including the spin-off ''K-9 and Company'', two audio dramas (''The Pescatons'' and ''Slipback''), and three stories written for the original never-made Season 23 (''The Nightmare Fair'', ''The Ultimate Evil'' and ''Mission to Magnus''). The half-filmed and never-aired ''Shada'' was kept from being novelised by the same issues as DouglasAdams' other stories.

In 2011, the BBC reissued six of the novelisations in new editions with introductions by writers including NeilGaiman, StephenBaxter, and RussellTDavies.

* AllThereInTheManual: Some stories, particularly "Warrior's Gate" and about half of the Seventh Doctor's later adventures, are much easier to follow in the novelisations than they were on screen.

* WritingAroundTrademarks: In "The Green Death", the evil chemical company is Global Chemicals in the TV version but was changed to Panorama Chemicals in the novelisation because there was an actual company called Global Chemicals, which complained.

* AuthorCatchPhrase: Terrance Dicks had many stock phrases that were repeatedly deployed in his novelisations; for instance, the fifth Doctor was always "a young man with a pleasant open face", and that noise the TARDIS makes was invariably "a wheezing, groaning sound".

* BureaucraticallyArrangedMarriage: ''Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon'', the novelisation of "Colony in Space", adds extra details about life on Overindustrialised Future Earth; one of the mining ship's officers recalls how the faceless megacorporation he works for "takes care" of its employees, arranging their accommodation, education, and, if the Company considers it necessary, marriages. They do try to arrange compatible matches, but probably only because unhappy employess are bad for productivity, and the matching process involves a stack of employee profiles and a computer in the personnel department, as opposed to, say, people getting to meet people. In his case, he agreed to be married as a condition of his next promotion, and then heard no more about it until he returned from a voyage to find his new wife waiting for him in the kitchen.

Notable authors included TerranceDicks (who wrote more ''Doctor Who'' novelisations than anyone else), Malcolm Hulke, Philip Hinchcliffe, Ian Marter, and David Whittaker, all of whom had worked on the TV series in various capacities.