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D O C T O R W H O
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In the 70s, "Doctor Who" bravely ventured forth into a new medium - The TARGET Novelization. TARGET Novelizations faithfully adapted 2 part stories into roughly 130 pages of slightly gripping prose and 12 part epics into roughly 130 pages of slightly gripping prose as well. They were often obviously just the television scrips with hastily added footnotes. The TARGET books were also written on the level of a reader who could not yet come to terms with the complex demands of following a Teletubby picture book. Vast changes and adaptions were made to fit the stories to prose. First, unimportant characters, such as the the villains, the companions, and, occassionally, even the Doctor, were written out and replaced by extremely similar characters who technically weren't ptoperty of the BBC. In some stories, characters were kept, but radically changed. For instance - - The 1st Doctor was often described as "a young-old man with a light-dark cloak who coughed dramatically for no particular reason whenever he met someone of importance." - The popular 2nd Doctor companion, Jamie, enjoyed being a Japanese school girl in the original novelization of "The Spice Pirates." - Dodo was sadly included in the novelizations of the stories in which she originally appeared. Even with these setbacks, fans still embraced the novelizations as, for many of them, this was their only chance to enjoy classic and missing "Doctor Who" stories. A report done by the Doctor Who Fanzine "Sad Gits in Time" showed that, in addition to being convenient and easily affordable reading material, the novelizations were also excellent kindling for campfires! According to fan myth, "Doctor Who & The Tubbies of Cuteness" burns particularly well. Whether or not this is because it is efficient fuel or it's just fun to see the thing burn we may never know. "Doctor Who" TARGET Novels have taken on the nickname "Penny Dreadfuls." The novelizations are not totally unlike the original Penny Dreadfuls of the 19th century. At used book stores and flea markets, TARGET Novels can be picked up for pennies and they are usually dreadful. Luckily, divorced from both literary importance and quality, the TARGET novels are sure to be displayed with dubious pride on the bookselves of sad collectors around the world. As a fine purveyor of the written word once said to me in his place of business, "Doctor Who books? Oh yeah, I have those. They're in that box in the corner I've been using as a doorstop! Fifty cents a piece or 5 for Two Bucks!" |