Doctor Who and the Space War by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Space War was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on his story Frontier in Space.  It was the 25^th 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.