Publication Information
Author: David Whitaker
Original Target cover artist: Chris Achilleos
Publishing date: 2nd May 1973 Episode Information
TV serial: The Daleks (a.k.a. The Mutants)
Writer: Terry Nation
Transmission dates: 21st December 1963 - 1st February 1964 (7 episodes) Fact and Findings
DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE DALEKS
The book is written in the first person throughout, namely Ian Chesterton. BBC Audio eventually capitalised on this fact when, in 2005, they released an audiobook of actor William Russell reading the entire novel.
As is well known, this first novelisation deviates quite strongly from the TV version of events. The Doctor’s granddaughter is named Susan English. Ian smokes - a fact not revealed on TV, he is an unemployed scientist and he meets Susan and Barbara whilst driving across Barnes Common in London. They have had a car accident in which the other driver is killed. At the climax of the book, Ian and the Thal encounter a glass Dalek: The Dalek looked totally evil, sitting on a tiny seat with two squat legs not quite reaching the floor. The head was large, and I shuddered at the inhuman bumps where the ears and nose would normally be and the ghastly slit for a mouth. One shriveled little arm moved about restlessly and the dark-green skin glistened with the same oily substance that had revolted me before.
Classic chapter title: The Last Despairing Try
In 1973, when promoted in the back of other contemporary Target books, the novel was referred to simply as Doctor Who with the added (based on the famous BBC television series) which was also claimed on all the original covers.
The book reached number six in W. H. Smith's top ten books chart in on the 20th of July 1973.
From 1983 the book was numbered 16 in the Doctor Who library.
One of the top sellers in the series, according to Peter Darvill-Evans' list, compiled in 1991. It went on to sell over 100,000 units as a Target edition alone.
Of all the paperbacks, neither the Armada release nor any of the Target editions used the full title on the spine (Armada settled simply for Doctor Who, while Target used the abbreviation), that honour went only to the Avon Books release in America.
For those wishing to read a more direct interpretation of the TV serial, Titan Books published Doctor Who - The Scripts - The Daleks (ISBN 1 85286 145 2, £3.95) in December 1989, edited by John McElroy. The cover was by Tony Clark who painted covers for Target releases The Rescue and The Space Pirates.
Whitaker wrote two Dalek serials for Patrick Troughton in the mid-60's. These two stories remain amongst the six TV serials never to be released as Target novelisations (although these particular two did make it into print under the Virgin Doctor Who label in the 1990's and their inside covers did state they belonged to the Doctor Who library). However Whitaker did produce approximately twenty pages of novelisation for The Power of the Daleks shortly before his death in 1980. Cover Data
The first edition of the cover featured the words BASED ON THE POPULAR BBC TELEVISION SERIAL, these were dropped from subsequent reprints.
A larger version of Achilleos's artwork appears in David J. Howe's book Timeframe (Virgin Publishing Ltd, 1993).
Amongst the multitude of foreign interpretations of the cover, the most unusual is that for the Japanese translation. It was described in DWM's "Gallifrey Guardian" of May 1981: The cover... portrays an old-style public phone kiosk - of the red (and/or yellow) variety, out of which is emerging a dark girl. She is surrounded by several mechanical creatures which, I suppose, demonstrates the infinite number of designs one can come up with for a Dalek if one follows the text description of them. Suffice to say the Japanese Daleks bear fleeting likeness to a combination of fruit machine and water cooler.
The cover for the 1967 Avon Books release features a photograph of three unknowns being threatened by Woolworths' toy Daleks fitted with sparklers! It was taken by Paul Weller.
The cover for the 1977 reprint differed from the first edition Target cover solely by substituting a blue version of the Pertwee/Baker logo for the original black block lettering.
Artist Penichoux's rendition of the first Doctor for France's Docteur Who - Les Daleks looks little like William Hartnell and has been given the fourth Doctor's scarf. The Daleks and their city, on the other hand, are rendered wonderfully.
Alister Pearson's cover artwork for the January 1992 reprint was released as a postcard, free with 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 205), October 1993. It depicts William Russell as Ian Chesterton being looked over by William Hartnell as the first Doctor. An accurate depiction of Ray Cusick's model of the Dalek city forms the backdrop. Presumably the circle enclosing the Doctor is supposed to represent the viewpoint of a Dalek. Foreign Editions
In 1967, the novel was released as a paperback in the USA, by Avon Books, to coincide with Amicus Film's Doctor Who and the Daleks movie. It cost 95 cents and included the tantalising caption: One man stands against the mutant minds and bodies of an incredible space monster.
Also in 1967, Doctor Who en de Daleks was published by Uitgeversmij of West-Friesland, Holland. It had a cover and illustrations by Herson and was translated by Tuuk Buijtenhuijs. The edition included unique illustrations also by Herson.
Holland saw a second version in 1974. Titled Doctor Who en de Daleks, it was translated by JJ vd Hulst-Brander and published by Unieboek B.V. Bussum under their RIV label.
Turkey saw Doktor Kim - ve Daleker in 1975, translated by Reha Pinar and published by Remzi Kitabevi.
On the 31st of March 1980, the book was published in Japanese by Hayakawa Bunko Publishing as number 1 in their Dokutaa Huu Shiriizu (Doctor Who Series). A transliteration of the title is "Jikuu Dai Chi Tataka!", roughly meaning Space-Time Big Bloody Battle! (literal), or The Big Bloody Battle in Space-Time! It was translated by Yukio Sekiguchi. In addition to the full-colour cover (described below), the book included a double-page colour spread and black-and-white illustrations by Michiaki Sato.
In 1986, the novel was published in Portugal as Doutor Who e as Daleks. The cover was by Rui Ligeiro, translation by Eduardo Nogueira and Conceição Jardim, and published by Presença.
The following year, 1987, Docteur Who - les Daleks was released in France as number 3 in their Doctor Who series (ISBN 27340 0204 3). It was translated by Gilles Bergal and adapted by Corine Derblum. The publisher was Éditions Garancière. The adaptation is not written in the first person and, since this novel follows a version of An Unearthly Child (Docteur Who - Le docteur Who entre en scène), the events on Barnes Common do not feature within it.
Doctor Who und die Invasion der Daleks was released in Germany in 1989 and, despite the misleading title, this was a version of The Daleks. It was translated by Peter Tuscher and published by Goldmann. To add to the confusion, it used Andrew Skilleter's cover artwork for Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks. The book includes an introduction to Doctor Who, for the benefit of its readers, by Hermann Urbanek. Reviews
DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE DALEKS
"'He was wearing a cloak and under his fur hat I could see his silver hair, surprisingly very long on the back of his neck and touching the collar of his cloak.' Does the description ring a bell? It should; the mysterious old man who looms out of the fog on Barnes Common is of course the inventor of the Tardis, and that far-ranging time machine stands close by, disguised as a police telephone box. David Whitaker's novel Doctor Who (Muller, 12s. 6d.) assumes no previous knowledge of the BBC-tv serial by Terry Nation on which it is based, and perhaps we ought to warn readers who have yet to meet the Doctor and his companions that the opening pages of this story may well make them feel giddy. In no time at all the scene moves to the distant planet of Skaro. Here the space-travellers discover a nightmarish city inhabited by the dreadfully mutated survivors of an atomic war, the Daleks."
- "Bookshelf", 'Radio Times' (volume 165, issue 2140), November 1964
"...the kids should eat it."
- Kingsley Amis, 'The Observer' , 1964
"Here the author, and to a degree the reader, becomes Ian Chesterton. This brings across the immediacy of the story and the character's situation very effectively. Also more emphasis is placed upon the 'hero' and, supposedly, romantic lead of Doctor Who... Normally the 'first person' technique tends to curtail the development of other characters in the story, something which has only narrowly been avoided in this instance."
- 'The Doctor Who Review' (number 2), 1979
"In the book, several differences from the screenplay are notable. Since only the rights for Terry Nation's Dalek story were acquired for novelisation, Whittaker (sic) was forced to invent a new means of getting the travellers together, which was in fact even more inventive than the one used in the first story."
- comment on the very first Dalek novelisation from the man who would go on to adapt the
final Dalek Target novelisations, John Peel,
"Doctor Who Up Close - The First Season",
'Fantasy Empire Limited', (number 2), June 1984
"...It remains today one of the most inventive and enjoyable of all the books available... As with most of Whitaker's writing...the whole book is a tour de force of gripping entertainment."
- Gary Russell, 'The Official Doctor Who Magazine'
(number 98), March 1985
"Although children have always been the biggest fans of the series in Britain, Whitaker makes no attempt to 'write down'; this is a novel an adult can read with pleasure."
- Patrick Daniel O'Neill, 'Doctor Who' (Vol. 1, No. 7), April 1985
"Today, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks remains not just an excellent book, but one of the most important TV tie-in novels of all time - it started a run of novels still going and is always worth a re-reading."
- Gary Russell, 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 162), July 1990
"In Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, Whitaker's novelisation of Terry Nation's first Dalek story, the Doctor has a supply of everlasting matches, a fantastical invention akin to the self-regulating medication he uses in The Edge of Destruction, while in The Ambassadors of Death he can miraculously transport objects through space with his bare hands. Years before Sylvester McCoy's incarnation took to silencing the opposition with a hypnotic twitch of his finger, Whitaker's Doctor was a mystical creature whose insight and abilities transcend our comprehension.
Until Donald Cotton's three highly idiosyncratic Doctor Who books [Doctor Who - The Myth Makers, Doctor Who - The Romans and Doctor Who - The Gunfighters] were published in the mid-eighties, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks enjoyed the distinction of being the only novelisation narrated in the first person by one of the characters - in this case by Ian himself. Whitaker relishes the use of Ian as a hero who is human enough to begin to lose hope at various stages of the story, and even to reflect that he wants a cigarette at moments of stress - a touch which is so natural and so unselfconscious that it endears us to him despite being a sign of the times in which it was written; how many heroes today would be allowed to smoke?"
- Philip MacDonald, "Whitaker's World", 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 200), June 1993UK Editions
| YEAR | DATE | PUBLISHER | COVER ARTIST | LOGO | SPINE COLOUR | SPINE NUMBER | TARGET LOGO | ISBN | PRICE | NOTES | OWNED |
|---|
| 1973 | 2nd May | Universal-Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | 0 426 10110 3 | 25p | first edition, full title on inside, Based on... on cover | Y |
| 1973 | October/November | Universal-Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | - | - | - | - |
| 1974 | January/February | Universal-Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | - | - | - | - |
| 1974 | October | Universal-Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | 0 426 10612 1 | 30p | "second impression", full title on inside | Y |
| 1975 | - | Tandem | Achilleos | - | - | - | - | 0 426 11287 3 | 40p | - | - |
| 1975 | - | Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | 0 426 11287 3 | 40p | "reprinted in Autumn", full title on inside | Y |
| 1975 | - | Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | - | 0 426 10110 3 | 60p | - | - |
| 1976 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1977 | - | Tandem | Achilleos | block | purple | - | colour | 0 426 10110 3 | 60p | full title on inside, Wyndham W on back | Y |
| 1977 | - | Wyndham | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | - | 0 426 10110 3 | 70p | "3rd impression" | - |
| 1978 | 17th August | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | - | 0 426 10110 3 | 85p | "4th impression" | - |
| 1979 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 10110 3 | 70p | "third impression", Wyndham W on back | Y |
| 1980 | 31st March | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | - | 0 426 10110 3 | 85p | "4th impression" | - |
| 1982 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 10110 3 | £1.50 | abbreviated title on inside | Y |
| 1983 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 10110 3 | £1.50 | abbreviated title on inside | Y |
| 1984 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | outline | 0 426 10110 3 | £1.50 | - | Y |
| 1992 | 16th January | Virgin | Pearson | McCoy banner | dark blue | 16 | outline | 0 426 10110 3 | £2.99 | retitled Doctor Who - The Daleks throughout | Y |
Miscellaneous
Author
DAVID WHITAKER
David Whitaker was born in Knebworth in 1928.
He was script editor on Doctor Who from the time of its inception. He oversaw the programme into its second season and contributed scripts for the First, Second and Third Doctors. He wrote the 1965 stage play The Curse of the Daleks.
Whitaker also wrote scripts for The Gold Robbers, Mr Rose, Public Eye, and Undermind.
Whitaker adapted two Doctor Who serials, originally published by Frederick Muller as hardbacks in the 1960s.
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks
Doctor Who and the Crusaders
He also wrote the stories for the first Dr Who Annual.
Whitaker met June Barry in 1962 and the couple were married in 1963 (shortly before Doctor Who started). He married again in 1978 in Sydney, Australia.
David Whitaker died on the 4th of February 1980. He was working on another Doctor Who novelisation.
Illustrations
All of the Target editions included 12 black and white illustrations by Arnold Schwartzman (taken from the 1964 Frederick Muller hardback). Unusually for most of Doctor Who illustrations, the drawings of the principals actually look a great deal like the actors who portrayed them.
Muller
A thick fog and a girl in distress are just the things that Ian Chesterton needs to escape from a life of dull routine. He has no idea that this is merely a prelude to an adventure quite beyond any normal conception of the word. Or that Barnes Common on a foggy autumn night is the last view of Earth he may ever have.
Both he and the girl he tries to help, Barbara Wright, are transported to a distant planet named Skaro by a mysterious old man known to them as the Doctor. With his granddaughter Susan, the Doctor sets them down in a world all but destroyed by atomic warfare, the only survivors being a peace-loving and cultured people called the Thals and their bitter enemies the Daleks, horribly mutated both in mind and body.
Thrust into constant danger, his courage and determination tested almost beyond endurance, Ian is forced to struggle against alien creatures and superior enemies with no other weapons than surprise and ingenuity.
The rewards of victory are life for Ian and his new friends... but life where? Can the Doctor return him and Barbara to Earth again?
Originally published by Frederick Muller in hardback on the 12th of November 1964 with a pink dustjacket. Such was the success of the initial release, it was quickly reprinted this time with a grey dustjacket. A further reprint also followed. The book contained the Arnold Schwartzman illustrations, later reused by Target.
Armada
The story from the beginning! Here is the exciting adventure of Dr. Who, Susan, Barbara and Ian, from the moment they meet one foggy autumn night on a lonely common beside a Police Box (Ah, but what a curious Poilce Box!) to the time they encounter the weird Daleks.
It is a thrilling story, and we know this book will be one of the most popular published in the Armada series. Can you wait any longer? Start reading!
The Armada Paperbacks (for boys & girls) edition was published in 1965 by May Fair Books Ltd. It featured six black and white illustrations by Peter Archer that were not reused by Target (Target used the illustrations from the Frederick Muller hardback), including a rather dynamic illustration of the glass Dalek on page 147.
[I owned this version of The Daleks before I bought the Target edition - then gave it away because it didn't "fit" the Target style!!!!]
White Lion
In 1975, the rights to the first three hardbacks (Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Doctor Who and the Crusaders) were bought by White Lion publishers and re-released. To boost their appeal, the current Doctor, Tom Baker, was used on the covers despite the illustrations of Hartnell within. The book had ISBN 85686 172 3.
Audio
In March 2005, BBC Audio released an MP3 CD of William Russell reading the complete text of Whitaker's Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks. The book was written in the first character of Ian Chesterton, the character Russell had played in the original TV series. The CD format allowed inclusion of the Arnold Schwartzman line drawings (used in the Muller/Target editions), displayed on a TARDIS-style screen. This was the first time an unabridged reading of a Doctor Who novelisation had been commercially available.
In November 2005, BBC Audio rereleased the audiobook on 5 CDs as part of a limited edition tin. The tin contained Russell's unabridged reading of Doctor Who and the Daleks alongside first-time releases of the actor reading Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Doctor Who and the Crusaders. The executive producer on the readings was Michael Stevens, with additional music by Simon E. Power.
Countries
Netherlands
In 1966, Doctor Who en de Daleks was published by Uitgeversmij of West-Friesland, Holland. It had a cover and illustrations by Herson and was translated by Tuuk Buijtenhuijs. The edition included 5 unique illustrations also by Herson (but clearly inspired by the illustrations from Schwartzman).
Another Dutch edition was published in 1974.
Cover artist: Herson
1967 Uitgeversmij hardback edition
USA
THE DALEKS HAVE ARRIVED
"Free...free... He thought when he woke in the strange machine that had whisked him away from despair on Earth. But the flight through space had ended and he and the hollow-eyed girl he found by his side were strangling in the poisoned air they swallowed with every breath. And around them lay a world in ashes controlled by a hidden city of monstrous machines."
In July 1967, the novel was released as a paperback in the USA, by Avon Books, to coincide with Amicus Film's Doctor Who and the Daleks movie. It cost 50 cents and the book's serial code was G1322. Apparently, according to the cover, One man stands against the mutant minds and bodies of an incredible space monster, whilst on the inside we are told He was known only as THE DOCTOR, but only he possessed the power of the Daleks(!). The back cover blurb is quite fun too! This was the only American paperback Doctor Who novelisation until the release of the Pinnacle series in 1979.
The cover for features a photograph of three unknowns being threatened by Woolworths' toy Daleks fitted with sparklers!
Cover artist: photograph - Paul Weller
1967 Avon Books edition
Turkey
Turkey saw Doktor Kim ve Dalekler in April 1975, translated by Reha Pinar and published by Remzi Kitabevi. The spine and back cover border for this edition was a leaf green. Like the other Turkish translations, the illustrations were not included. There were six novelisations translated into Turkish in 1975 (the seventhDoktor Kim ve Peladon Gezegeni appears never to have materialised).
Cover artist: Chris Achilleos
1975 Remzi Kitabevi edition
Japan
On the 31st of March 1980, Doctor Who and the Daleks was published in Japanese by Hayakawa Books of Tokyo. It was number 381 in their SF range and the first of five Who translations. A transliteration of the title is Jikuu Daikettou!, roughly meaning Space-Time Big Bloody Battle! or The Big Bloody Battle in Space-time! It was translated by Yukio Sekiguchi. The book included a double-page colour spread and black-and-white illustrations by Michiaki Sato. Amusingly, the cover indicates some confusion over Japanese understanding of a Police Box. The action in the foreground is a rather effective interpretation of the Daleks, and the Darth-Vader-like figure striking out is actually the Doctor. The books are smaller than standard paperbacks, being approximately 10.5 cm wide by 15 cm tall. The covers are loose dustjackets. The Daleks cost 300 yen and, by English conventions, reads from back to front. The rest of the range was made up of translations of The Auton Invasion, The Cave-Monsters, The Doomsday Weapon, and Day of the Daleks.
Cover artist: Michiaki Sato
1980 Hayakawa Books edition
Portugal
In 1983, the novel was published in Portugal as Doutor Who e os Daleks. The wraparound cover was by Rui Ligeiro, translation by Eduardo Nogueira and Conceição Jardim, and published by Editorial Presença. The book contained the Arnold Schwartzman illustrations, in line with the Target release. It was number 7 in the Portuguese releases. Number 8 was Doctor Who and the Crusaders.
Cover Artist: Rui Ligeiro
1983 Editorial Presença edition
France
Un milliard d'admirateurs à travers le monde!
Seigneur du Temps, héros de l'Éternité, le Docteur Who connaît aujourd'hui une fantastique popularité. Le succès inégalé de la série télévisée qui lui a donné naissance, la fascination qu'il exerce sur un immense public à travers plus de cent pays contribuent à faire de ce personnage un véritable mythe pour la premiere fois révélé en France.
En débarquent sur la planète Skaro, le docteur Who s'allie aux pacifiques Thals pour combattre le plan diabolique des hideux Daleks. N'est-il déjà pas trop tard?
In 1987, Docteur Who - les Daleks was released in France as number 3 in their Doctor Who series (ISBN 27340 0204 3). It was translated by Gilles Bergal and adapted by Corine Derblum. The publisher was Éditions Garancière. The adaptation is not written in the first person and, since this novel follows a version of An Unearthly Child (Docteur Who - Le docteur Who entre en scène), the events on Barnes Common do not feature within it. The fourth book (of 8) was Docteur Who - Les Daleks envahissent la Terre.
Cover artist: Jean-François Penichoux
1987 Éditions Garancière
Germany
Die einzigartige britische Fernsehserie jetzt als Goldmann Taschenbuch!
Der phantastische Dr. WHO mit seinem unmöglichen Raum-schiff auf Abenteuersuche im Weltall!
Doctor Who und die Invasion der Daleks was released in Germany in July 1989 and, despite the misleading title, this was a version of The Daleks. It was translated by Peter Tuscher and published by Goldmann Verlag. To add to the confusion, it used Andrew Skilleter's cover artwork for Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks. The book includes an introduction to Doctor Who, for the benefit of its readers, by Hermann Urbanek. ISBN 3 442 23611 8, price DM 7,80. It was the first in a series of Goldmann releases, followed by Das Komplott der Daleks.
Cover artist: Andrew Skilleter
1989 Goldmann Verlag edition