It’s often said that the
televised Spearhead from Space is a
jumping on point for Doctor Who fans trying to get into the Classic Series, and
this is not without reason. It was a
formula shake-up, but that cannot be the only reason. Some credit must go to Terrance Dicks who
wrote the novelization Doctor Who and the
Auton Invasion, which became the first story to be published outside of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the
Daleks, Doctor Who and the Zarbi, and Doctor
Who and the Crusaders. Oddly enough
if you were someone reading the book without any knowledge of Doctor Who you
would be frightened off by the first chapter, which recounts the final scenes
of The War Games where the Doctor
regenerates, before actually going on into the adaptation. This would confuse readers and in my humble
opinion Dicks could have easily just started with the Third Doctor falling out
of the TARDIS in the next scene. It
would have gotten rid of a lot of the tedious continuity that bogs down the
early pages, yet the book flies by as Dicks stays true to the scripts, with occasional
dialogue and action changes only really there because the imagination can run
away with you when reading these events.
Dicks keeps the characters intact, and because of his position as a
script editor he has down the mannerisms of the original cast which makes you
feel like you’re just experiencing Spearhead
from Space, in written form. He does
one up the story in one effect as he makes it a bit clearer that the meteorites
falling on Earth are causing heat and the story is meant to be taking place in
October, when it is cold. The Doctor
also is specified to arrive in the dead of night which just makes more sense.
To summarize, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion is a
step down in quality compared to the original television story as it takes a
story that can be taken as an introduction for some into Doctor Who and puts in
some needless continuity. Dicks still
writes a good novelization but sticking with the televised story will be a much
safer bet if looking objectively. 85/100
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