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Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks

A 3rd Doctor Novelisation

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Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks

By: Terrance Dicks
Narrated by: Jon Culshaw, Nicholas Briggs
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Summary

An unabridged reading of this classic novelisation, based on a BBC TV adventure featuring the Third Doctor. A mysterious power loss strands the TARDIS on Exxilon, a sinister fog-shrouded alien planet. The Doctor meets the survivors of a beleaguered expedition from Earth, while Sarah finds a mysterious super-city and becomes a captive of the savage Exxilons. Worst of all, the Doctor's greatest enemies, the Daleks, arrive on a secret mission of their own. The Doctor and Sarah must risk their lives time and again in a desperate attempt to foil the Daleks and save millions of humans from a horrific plague. Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes approx.

©2016 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2016 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd Fantasy Science Fiction Time Travel Fiction
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CLASSIC WHO CAN'T BEAT IT. need I say more took me back to my place behind the sofa

classic Doctor Who

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I didn't think I liked audio books normally preferring full cast dramas ,however this book changed my mind. will certainly be listening to more doctor who read by Jon Culshaw

converted!

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Loved the Doctor who story and it's like the tv version of it I've seen

Audio cd

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fantastic story and Jon culshaw brings his impressionist talents to the story, only issue is the stock music to start and end it, why not use the Dr Who theme? the Pertwee era theme music would have been good

great story

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On a barren, rocky world, a lone Space Marine flees for his life from wraith like hooded figures, before succumbing to a hail of arrows..
So begins this Third Doctor adventure, with Pertwee's Doctor and journalist Sarah arriving on what they thought might be a holiday planet, but finding it to be anything but (this is something of a recurring theme in Who). They are on the above desolate Hell planet, where a mysterious power drain causes ships to crash and drains the mojo from everything, be they guns and machines.
With the Doctor and Sarah uncovering the mystery of an intelligent, sentient city, guarded by the humanoid Exilons (the belligerent archers from the prologue), and befriending the stranded group of Space Marines, the Daleks arrive to really get this party started. Only to find their weapons won't work (it happens once you push 50).
An uneasy (but clearly) short lived truce arises. Will the Doctor and Sarah save the Marines and solve the riddle of the city? Will the Marines get what they came for (a mineral called Pyrinium that can cure a current lethal space plague) or will the Daleks seize it first for their own nefarious purposes? Will the Scottish marine Galloway kill everybody because he's in a bad mood?
This is pacy and engaging Terrence Dicks novelisation. Like much of his work it has trimmed any fat so the bare muscle of the story can power along. Good job because some of it does not really bear much reflection. Why does a Dalek sentry for example trundle around in a slow circle allowing prisoners to escape? Can't this all powerful city find a quicker way to deal with intruders rather than taking away all the batteries and implementing lethal games of hopscotch? The story is full of classic sci-fi tropes...the intelligent city, the once scientific civilisation now descended into primitive superstition (that one is another Who favourite, and you don't have to go far, see Colony in Space). But for all this it succeeds because of the above mentioned cracking pace, the faithful representation of characters we love, the dramatic impact of the Daleks, and more. As a child there are images that still haunt me from the tv version and I can remember their impact; the Gollum like Bellal, albeit a cuter more harmless version, the snake like probe rearing up to menace the Doctor (oo-er missus), Daleks being pushed off cliffs and exploding, and more.
The audio book is brilliant read by Jon Culshaw, who does the best Pertwee impression yet in this Target range, and shows great character range with the others. Nicholas Briggs, Dalek voice supreme, does his usual fantastic Dalek characterisation (a labour of love for him), and like other in this series, there is a great use of a sparing dramatic musical motif, and sound effects. Here the thundering of the Dalek's machine gun weapons and the metallic whirring of their movements is put to brilliant effect.

Doctor Who and the Mojo-less planet

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