Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors
was written by Brian Hayles, based on his story The Ice Warriors. It was the 21st story to be
novelized by Target Books.
Brian Hayles despite having written for the first three
Doctors, only novelized two of his stories before his passing. Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon
was a novelization that did an excellent job on expanding upon the television
story since it was translating a four part story into a longer
novelization. It did such a good job of
bringing the Ice Warriors to page it placed into the mind of the fans that the
Ice Warriors weren’t villains, so it is interesting that the other story Hayles
novelized was The Ice Warriors, their first appearance where they were
firmly in villain territory. Doctor
Who and the Ice Warriors is a book that has an interesting pace. As an adaptation of a six parter, it’s one of
those stories that focuses more on the first half of the story than the second
half. This is actually to the story’s
benefit in quite a few ways since the first half of the story is a stronger
buildup, with the base already under siege from the forces of nature before the
aliens show up. The sequences with the
computer and the Doctor attempting to fix things in his own Doctorish way. Hayles is a master at writing the Second
Doctor who is a very difficult Doctor to capture in prose, with many original
novels failing to adequately translate the character to screen.
It helps that through portions of Doctor Who and
the Ice Warriors the Doctor is in the background allowing Hayles’
supporting characters and even Victoria to shine at points. This is something which means that every
character gets their own plot and character arc while Hayles explores ideas
like conspiracy theorists around science arising when the world is in crisis,
to a race of aliens who are simply attempting to survive though that survival
is inevitably through the colonization of another planet. This is also an interesting idea that was there
on television that is allowed to shine in the prose. The last three episodes only take up about 40
pages of this book’s page count and because of that it means several lengthy
shot sequences are translated well as Derek Martinus’ directorial style (and
really any director’s style especially in a show like Doctor Who) can be
translated with the shortening of several longer sequences. The final few scenes do suffer from the
compression, with the ending of the book kind of just creeping up on you as the
resolution happens and almost immediately the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria are
off on another adventure. Client is also
a character toned down in the novelization which helps with the weird trend of
Season 5’s base under siege stories to fit the mold of leader on the edge of a
nervous breakdown.
Overall, Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors is
perhaps the superior way to experience the story as it’s a very quick read with
a lot of atmosphere and buildup in tension of the story that comes to a head and
quickly resolves without dragging out the back half of a six-episode television
serial. The characterization is some of
the best for the Second Doctor and company.
9/10.
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