Doctor Who and the Space War
was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on his story Frontier in Space. It was the 25th story to be
novelized by Target Books.
Frontier in Space is
a Malcolm Hulke story that people either love to bits or absolutely despise as
a boring Pertwee six-parter. I am firmly
in the former camp, though I acknowledge that the serial has quite a few issues,
it is a brilliant exploration of colonialism through the lens of the
future. In novelizing it the title change
to Doctor Who and the Space War emphasizes the conflict between the
humans and the Draconians which it is even clearer here to have been all a plot
by the Master, the Daleks only appear in the final chapter with even less of a
presence. Instead, there is a lot of worldbuilding
on the planet of the Ogrons along with the lizard gods that they worship which
eat them. The lizards on television was
a really bad costume that was scaled down to the bare minimum, with the Daleks
replacing them and beefing up that role in the plot which is no longer present
in the novel. This helps the Ogrons work
more than just dumb ape like servants which despite best intentions is a bad
piece of coding, but here they are given a culture and religion, even if it is
a little primitive. Cutting the Daleks
back also means that there are actual character pieces that wouldn’t have been
in the television serial. Much of the President
of Earth is expanded on with lengthy scenes from her perspective and the
political turmoil of warmongers. It is
fascinating to read this in a post-9/11 world where warmongering is much worse
than it was in the 1970s and the President here is trying to stop any conflict
despite the Master’s machinations causing tensions to rise. There is a look into the opposition who want
to go to war and that is essentially becoming the popular position on the
Earth. The President is told she has to
find a solution or become deposed and replaced with the opposition who will
cause a genocide.
Overall, Doctor Who and the Space War takes a
television story that is underrated and does an excellent job of tightening
things and adding so much more character development and worldbuilding. Hulke’s writing style is politically charged and
it somehow has aged to be more relevant of a story with time and comes highly recommended
for Doctor Who fans. 9/10.
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