Product Description

The TARDIS lands in a London of future times - a city of fear, devastation and holocaust...a city now ruled by Daleks. The Doctor and his companions meet a team of underground resistance workers, among the few survivors, but after an unsuccessful attack on the Dalek spaceship, they are all forced to flee the capital. A perilous journey through England finally brings them to the secret center of Dalek operations...and the mysterious reason for the Dalek invasion of Earth! William Russell, who played the Doctor's companion Ian in the original TV serial, reads Terrance Dicks' complete and unabridged novelization, with specially composed music and sound and Dalek voices by Nicholas Briggs. 'BBC Audiobooks has chosen well with its books and has taken the right approach with its readers...they benefit from new music and sound effects' - "Doctor Who Magazine".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69741 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-05
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

Superb
Another good choice by the BBC, a great original story, very well realised on TV, but the novelisation brings more depth to the story and allows the imagination to cover for some of the 1960s BBC special effect's shortcomings. And William Russell reads this brilliantly - I love the fact that they've added little sound effects and touches such as when the characters are in a warehouse or metallic cell their voices have a slight echo. Nichols Briggs doing the daleks is also very good and gives it another dimension again.

With 4 more confirmed already for next year, the BBC is doing great work issuing these titles - keep 'em coming please.

The Dalek invasion of audio
Originally published in 1977, Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the 1964 serial Doctor Who - The Dalek Invasion Of Earth [1964] [DVD] [1963] was the first Target Book since the company's initial batch of three reprints in 1973 to return to the era of the First Doctor (William Hartnell).

Dicks, writing for Hartnell's Doctor for the first time (barring a few scenes in Doctor Who - The Three Doctors [1972] [DVD] [1963], which he script-edited), perfectly captures the character's mixture of irritability and kindliness, strong will and frailty. Depicting the TARDIS crew members' thought processes, he also plays upon the antagonism between Ian and the Doctor, which had all but disappeared by this point in the television series. The Doctor gets a few additional lines of dialogue during chapters adapted from the fourth episode (in which Hartnell did not appear due to ill health). Susan frequently refers to the Time Lord as "Doctor" rather than "grandfather", playing down this familial aspect of the show's mythology. Dicks also removes the Doctor's assertion that the events of this story take place "a million years" before The Daleks (Doctor Who - The Beginning (An Unearthly Child [1963] / The Daleks [1963] / The Edge of Destruction [1964]) [DVD]), in light of continuity references made in Planet of the Daleks (Doctor Who - Dalek War [DVD] [1973]).

The cover art is notable as Chris Achilleos's final contribution to the range. Due to a lack of suitably dramatic reference material from the original 1964 serial made available to the artist, the illustration features a Dalek, Dalek spaceships and a Roboman from the 1966 movie Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (Dr Who: The Dalek Collection (Dr Who And The Daleks & Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD + Dalekmania documentary) [DVD] [1965]). This clashes somewhat with descriptions of the Robomen and the Dalek "saucers" within the narrative - the Dalek vessels in the movie look more like teapots than saucers!

William Russell, who played Ian in the television serial, reads this unabridged novelisation, stepping back into the world of Doctor Who with apparent ease. As ever, his delivery of the Doctor's lines gives an impression rather than an impersonation of Hartnell, though when Russell speaks as Ian, it's remarkable how the years sometimes seem to drop away from his vocal qualities.

His reading is supplemented by Dalek voices provided by Nicholas Briggs. These lend great drama to the Dalek scenes, though the voices aren't quite authentic, sounding as they do in the new television series and in the Big Finish audio plays, rather than the lower-pitched modulation heard in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

The Daleks are the masters of audio! Surrender now and you will listen to this enjoyable talking book!