Publication Information
Author: Terrance Dicks
Cover artist: Andrew Skilleter / Alister Pearson (1992) / photographic (audio tape)
Publishing date: 16th August 1984 Episode Information
TV serial: Warriors of the Deep
Writer: Johnny Byrne
Transmission dates: 5th - 13th January 1984 (4 episodes) Fact and Findings
The first original Doctor Who novelisation to feature the outline target logo.
Number 87 in the Doctor Who library.
First edition cover price - £1.50
Classic chapter title: The Sea Devils Awake
The original Target edition was published by W. H. Allen. A rejacketed edition followed from Virgin Publishing Ltd. in August 1992, priced £2.99. The ISBN for both editions was 0 426 19561 2.
The hardback had come out in May 1984 (W. H. Allen, £5.95, ISBN 0 491 03302 8).
Was also released as part of The Fifth Doctor Who Gift Set, later in 1984. The full set was made up of Kinda, Snakedance, Arc of Infinity and Warriors of the Deep.
The 1992 reissue was paired, appropriately enough, with (the retitled) Doctor Who - The Silurians.
In 1995 an abridged version of the novel was read by Peter Davison and released on the BBC Radio Collection as a single 90 minute cassette. Davison also recorded Doctor Who - Kinda, although this went unreleased until 1998. The other books recorded for the BBC Radio Collection were Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks, Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon (both read by Jon Pertwee), Doctor Who - Attack of the Cybermen and Doctor Who - Vengeance on Varos (both read by Colin Baker).
In 1995 an abridged version of the novel was read by Peter Davison and released on the BBC Radio Collection as a single 90 minute cassette. Davison also recorded Doctor Who - Kinda, although this went unreleased until 1998. The other books recorded for the BBC Radio Collection were Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks, Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon (both read by Jon Pertwee), Doctor Who - Attack of the Cybermen and Doctor Who - Vengeance on Varos (both read by Colin Baker). The audiobook edition was rated D+ in 'SFX' magazine number 2, July 1995. Cover Data
A larger version of Skilleter's artwork appears in his book Blacklight - The Art of Andrew Skilleter (Virgin Publishing Ltd, 1995).
Alister Pearson's cover artwork for the 1992 reprint was released as a postcard, free with 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 204), September 1993. It was also used on the back cover of the 1992 Silva Screen CD release Doctor Who - The Five Doctors - Classic Music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Volume 2. Reviews
"With Warriors Terrance Dicks has tried his best to put life into the events that take place, trying to get across the relationships between the characters, especially Karina and Maddox and failing. But it is hard to get feelings into characters that neither present opportunities nor live long enough to turn into three-dimensional people. By the end of the story you neither care nor worry exactly how Bulic will ‘explain what had happened to the astonished rescuers from the surface’ and the fact that ‘there should have been another way’ is painfully obvious – not because Dicks fails to add anything to enliven the plot but also because the Sea-Devils and Silurians deserved a better story."
- ‘The Official Doctor Who Magazine’ (number 90), July 1984
"Mr. Dicks would do well to consult a thesaurus to find alternatives for pleasant open face, the words with which he has described the Doctor in all six of his Davison novels so far. There are constant references back to the Doctor's first encounters with the Silurians and Sea-Devils, which are extremely helpful to people unfortunate enough to have missed their original stories. Dicks has tried very hard to make Warriors of the Deep a better story than it was on screen."
- Daniel Blythe, 'Celestial Toyroom' (number 10), October 1984
"While it is by no means one of Dicks' best novelisations, I found it the most enjoyable since The Invasion of Time."
- John Logan, 'Celestial Toyroom' (number 10), October 1984
"Hearing Peter Davison read Warriors of the Deep... I could viualise a much darker, run-down, and therefore dramatic Sea Base Four than the one portrayed on screen. The incidental music from this story is used to punctuate the tape, and oddly enough, it features on some of the other releases as well."
- From a review of the BBC Radio Collection edition, by Dave Owen, 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 229), August 1995
"Areeaaaakkkkk! Kerching! Yep, that's the noise of BBC Enterprises squeezing even more money out of Doctor Who. The question is though, does anybody really want audio cassette versions of Doctor Who novelisations? Especially stories that are already... available on video? And especially when they're based on edited versions of dodgy Terrance Dicks novels, complete with such literary gems as a peaceful area... where row upon row of computer banks hummed peacefully and Tegan's rainbow-coloured dress added a splash of colour to the TARDIS?
Credit must go to Peter Davison and Jon Pertwee for trying to inject some life into the bland scripts... But despite using music from the original TV stories, these audio versions lack any sense of excitement. It doesn't help that neither story was a classic to begin with.
Still, the audio version of Warriors of the Deep has one advantage over the video version - you don't have to watch the Myrka stumbling through rubber doors looking like a green gloss-coated pantomime cow. Small mercies, eh?"
- From a review of the BBC Radio Collection editions of Planet of the Daleks and Warriors of the Deep, by Dave Golder, 'SFX' (number 2), July 1995UK Editions
The Target editions were published as follows:
1984, 16th August (first edition, W. H. Allen, Skilleter cover, light green neon logo, blue numbered spine, outline Target, ISBN 0 426 19561 2, £1.50)*
1985 (W. H. Allen, Skilleter cover, light green neon logo, blue numbered spine, outline Target, ISBN 0 426 19561 2, £1.50)
1992, 20th August (Virgin, Pearson cover, McCoy banner, dark blue numbered spine, outline Target, ISBN 0 426 19561 2, £2.99)*
* copy in site owner's personal collectionMiscellaneous
Author
Terrence Dicks
Gift Set
Formed part of The Fifth Doctor Who Gift Set released in 1984. These sets comprised four recently released (or re-released) novelisations in a cardboard slip case. The four books that made up this boxed set were Kinda, Arc of Infinity, Snakedance and Warriors of the Deep. The box cover utilised a publicity photo of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor (somewhat ironically given the contents). The gift set had ISBN 0 426 19596 5 and it cost £6.50. In all there were nine gift sets released in the 1980s.