The Macra Terror was
written by Ian Stuart Black, based on his story of the same name. It was the 126th story to be
novelized by Target Books.
The Macra Terror
is a bit weird. It’s one of the later Target
novelizations, being published in late 1987 so right on the border between
novelizations as simple adaptation and novelization as early pitches for
original Doctor Who fiction. It’s
also a novelization of a completely missing serial, the soundtrack being one of
the early releases in 1992, however like Marco Polo and The Massacre,
it has its original author coming back to novelize it based on his
scripts. Ian Stuart Black would actually
novelize all three of the stories he wrote for the series, The Macra Terror
being the second of the three to be novelized.
Despite this, the novelization remains quite close to the soundtrack of
the television story, the dialogue is especially similar throughout with a lot
of the lines that would be best remembered in the animated version remaining intact. Black actually works quite well as a
novelist, making it surprising that he never actually pitched anything for
Virgin Books because he’d have made something good out of it. The Macra Terror is a novelization
that while keeping everything intact outside of making the structurally weak
decision to let Medok live thus making the Macra less deadly a threat, feels
quite a bit deeper in the way it characterizes the regulars.
The character dynamics of
Ben, Polly, and Jamie as a TARDIS team were always a bit rough, since Jamie was
quite literally a last minute addition causing last minute rewrites to The
Underwater Menace and The Moonbase.
The Macra Terror was the serial where they actually clicked the
most as a team, Ben being the working class everyman who succumbs to the
influence of the Macra. The novelization
takes it one further, Black really wanting to delve into how Polly and Jamie
react differently to Ben’s betrayal.
Jamie in particular holds a grudge which while not explored too much, this
is a shorter novelization after all, what is explored is fascinating. The trust is broken and Polly is the one
worrying that Ben will be hurt by Jamie because of it, it adds this tiny little
layer of drama that elevates this from simple novelization. There’s some slight reordering of the events
of Episode 1 in particular that add to this, the business with Jamie carrying a
big stick actually feels more comedic in the novelization which works pretty
well. The Doctor in general is also
emphasized as the total mythic trickster figure that was what Patrick Troughton
excelled at especially.
Overall, The Macra
Terror despite being a later novelization is mostly a match in terms of
quality and engaging storytelling when compared to what remains of the
television counterpart. Black’s prose is
quite slick and emphasizes the size and cunning of the Macra which was
difficult to really portray on television and to get some actual deeper
characterization in a way only prose really can do. 8/10.
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