Doctor Who: The Wheel In Space

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #130

by Terrance Dicks

When the TARDIS rematerialises inside a rocket the Doctor and Jamie are alarmed by the presence of a hostile Servo-Robot. They discover that the rocket is drifting in the orbit of a giant space station - the Wheel in Space.

Once inside this magnificent space ship they are bewildered by its complexity and sheer size. The technicians and programmers are highly trained, but who are they working for?

Suspecting the worst, the Doctor is still horrified to find the deadly Cybermen in control. What evil plan are they plotting? Who or what are the Cybermats? Can the Doctor trust anyone on board to help him stop the Wheel as it spins relentlessly through space?

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Audiobook, Ebooks, Novels

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

Terrance Dicks was an English author, screenwriter, script editor, and producer best known for his extensive contributions to Doctor Who. Serving as the show's script editor from 1968 to 1974, he helped shape many core elements of the series, including the concept of regeneration, the development of the Time Lords, and the naming of the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey. His tenure coincided with major thematic expansions, and he worked closely with producer Barry Letts to bring a socially aware tone to the show. Dicks later wrote several Doctor Who serials, including Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, and The Five Doctors, the 20th-anniversary special.
In parallel with his television work, Dicks became one of the most prolific writers of Doctor Who novelisations for Target Books, authoring over 60 titles and serving as the de facto editor of the range. These adaptations introduced a generation of young readers to the franchise. Beyond Doctor Who, he also wrote original novels, including children’s horror and adventure series such as The Baker Street Irregulars, Star Quest, and The Adventures of Goliath.
Dicks also worked on other television programmes including The Avengers, Moonbase 3, and various BBC literary adaptations. His later work included audio dramas and novels tied to Doctor Who. Widely respected for his clarity, imagination, and dedication to storytelling, he remained a central figure in Doctor Who fandom until his death in 2019, leaving behind a vast legacy in television and children's literature.

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay and pretty paint by numbers base under siege story with the cybermen.


The best thing about this story for me is the introduction of Zoe as she is one of my favorite companions and the reason I bought this story in the first place. There are some fun scenes to make the characters come to life and some exciting scenes to move the plot forward. Unfortunately the story suffers from a bit of a glacial pace, which can make for a boring experience at times. And there’s a few bits that didn’t particularly age well.


Despite its problems, this is not a bad base under siege story and features some interesting characters. Recommended for Doctor Who completists and fans of the second doctor and Zoe in particular.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the final serial from the fifth season of Doctor Who. Three of the most influential writers of the early years of the character were involved: Terrance Dicks wrote the book based on the teleplay by David Whitaker from a story by Kit Pedler. It was broadcast from April to June of 1968, and starred the second version of The Doctor along with his long-time companion Jamie McCrimmon. At the start of the story companion Victoria Waterfield is waving goodbye, having decided to settle down on Earth in the 20th century with a nice family and no longer roam the timestreams and spaceways. Their craft malfunctions, after which The Doctor and Jamie find themselves on a space ship which then rendezvouses with a space station that Jamie explores after The Doctor is knocked unconscious. The Cybermen lay siege to the station, but are turned away with the help of perky Zoe Heriot, astrophysicist and librarian, who stows away to join the TARDIS crew at the end of the story. There are still some sexist bits, but Zoe was a strong and intelligent character, and Dicks tried to smooth out the script in his version. It's one of Dicks' better Cybermen books, I think, with more emphasis on Zoe and Jamie and The Doctor in the background.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dull! Maybe one to many Cybermen and Base Under Siege stories in this era. The weakest one on both counts.

[Jon Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the last times the original Target model of a slightly tidier straightforward retelling of what was on screen was viable. The small scale is refreshing, as is the diversity of the crew, but it’s the most generic of this season of base under seven stories and doesn’t have Tristan de Vere Cole’s fairly stylish direction to rescue it in print. Terrance does his usual bang up job in tidying up infelicities of logic and getting the pulp thrills of the story across in an accessible, clear way though.

[Katarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

my very first doctor who novelization <3

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were many base-under-siege stories in the Troughton era, at least two involving the Cybermen. They come in for a lot of stick for being lazy and trope-ridden:
- the Doctor and Jamie arrive at the base in the midst of A Series Of Unexplained Deaths and are at first blamed for everything
- the base has a multi-cultural crew and an Angry Commander
- the monsters will have a hugely impractical plan
- nobody believes the Doctor or Jamie, particularly the Angry Commander
- the Siege will initially be sneaky, involving a mysterious disease or Cybermats or both
- things will escalate to a full-blown invasion which will be thwarted remarkably easily
The Wheel In Space has all these in spades. In fact it may be one of the most generic bases-under-siege out there. There's nothing particularly challenging going on. It's like an old cardigan of a story, warm, predictable and familiar. And I love it.
I've still no idea what the Cybermen's plan was. It involved stars going nova and meteor storms? For... reasons?
But it introduced Zoe, for which we should be eternally grateful.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good story.

This tale sets the return of Doctor Who to space. They arrive at a ship of huge dimensions that is drifting through space. Cyberman is our evil doers and this is also the first tale with the new companion Zoe Heriot, the Librarian. I really enjoy Zoe. She has an eidetic memory. A child wonder. In this story Jamie has a more important role.

You won't get more about cybermen than you already know. They are evil and want to conquer the earth. Mind controlling is getting a bit... usual. The last couple of books I read someone has their mind taken over by someone. It's quite... annoying?

Nevertheless... interesting reading.

"You can't deny the facts. It's pure logic." -Zoe
"Logic, my dear zoe, mere enables one to be wrong with authority." Doctor

[Jason Bleckly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on a script by David Whittaker this is number 110 in the Target catalogue. The cover art is by Ian Burgess and is his only Doctor Who cover.

Coming of the back of Fury from the Deep (I’m reading in chronology order) the first thing I noticed is how brief this is in comparison. Not only is it back to standard Target page length, but has a very large font with wide breaks between scenes. I did a quick count to make sure I wasn’t imaging things. Fury from the Deep has 37 lines per page, Wheel in Space only has 33 lines. The smaller font means less words per line as well. Fury from the Deep is easily twice as long as Wheel in Space. And yet both are 6 part stories.

I love the Troughton Cyberman stories. In many ways he is the Cyber Doctor as he had 4 stories with them during his tenure in the TARDIS. Sadly a lot of it is missing, and Wheel has yet to be animated. Still there is the novelisation.

Unfortunately, the novelisation is sparse. The story is all there, but there is little else. The characters are just names. There’s virtually no scenery description. It’s almost as if Terrance took the script and just added some dialogue tags. It zips along so fast you can read it in a couple of hours. I’m not saying it’s bad, just very minimalist. And the prose style seems to be targeting the younger end of the target demographic ie pre-teens rather than early teens. This is another Target I’d love to see redone in greater detail and depth.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

An adaptation of a Second Doctor story, this one is based on a 6-part story arc from 1968. It's a standard "Last Stand" type story that was common during the Second Doctor's tenure. A remote location is besieged by aliens and the Doctor's help is needed to save the day. This time, it's Cybermen trying to capture a space station to use it as a launching point for invading Earth.


The TV story arc has a poor reputation. There are several missing episodes, but reviews from when it originally aired uniformily said it was slow-paced and padded, with a lot of time just watching people search empty corridors. That's one advantage to Terrance Dicks' skillfully written novelizations. He is able to condense the story without leaving out important plot points. The Doctor and Jamie might spend most of the first episode in the TV show searching an empty spaceship without any action or important plot development, but Dicks can get through that with just one paragraph and then get to the important parts.

All the same, the story still has a few flaws. We are over halfway into the book before the Cybermen show up and their convoluted plan to take over the space station is unnecessarily complicated and a little silly. But the story is well-told and paced quickly enough to allow one to overlook its flaws. And its always fun to hang out with the Doctor.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between a 3 and a 4 - very nice surprise though when a friend managed to get a copy of this for me, has been some time where this was the only book of original Target collection I didn't have, and so nice change to experience a classic Doctor Who story for the first time given a lost story.
Probably has coloured by view somewhat, which would incline towards a 4, but I did enjoy the story, albeit does suffer from typical Target issue of being very fast paced due to limited page count, could have easily been twice the length to let it breather.
As somewhat typical for Second Doctor, a base under siege type story here, with a somewhat convoluted plot by the Cybermen but can see sense of it, but some good tension throughout, with a couple of interesting moves in the tale, albeit not really any twists as it is all quite transparent to the reader.
Interesting cast of characters, most not given a lot of time to be fleshed out, and a good introduction for Zoe, who I find quite a good character and great contrast to Jamie, is interesting to see how different her behaviour is in later stories, but can see here why that changed occured.
Doctor a bit more absent in parts here, but allows for quite a bit of focus on Jamie who does well for it.
All round a nice first time read.

[James Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that was released with an issue of Doctor Who Magazine recently. It follows on from Evil of the Daleks, having been included in an issue a few months ago. I read that novelisation and enjoyed it. When this was announced, I did want to read it, but not enough to buy the issue. I ended up finding a copy of this in a charity shop, which I was very pleased about and soon after, decided to read it.

I think this is a fine novelisation of a fairly basic Doctor Who story. It's in no way bad, but I've read many better Doctor Who novels. Even as a TV story, I believe The Wheel in Space doesn't have a great reception; it's a mostly missing story that hasn't been animated yet. I have seen episodes 3 and 6, the ones that survive, but have not got around to watching the full story through reconstructions. So, for the most part, this was my first time experiencing the whole story, and yeah, it was alright.

Even if you the Terrance Dicks adapting the story for a Target Novelisation, it's still The Wheel in Space at the end of the day, which, if it wasn't for Zoe's introduction, would probably be the least memorable Cyberman story of the show, it already might be.

[Erin Curran · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can imagine it's hard to novelise a TV episode unless the author is the person who wrote the episode itself. Never mind novelising a lost episode that exists purely through audio and set pictures. For that feat I give Terrence Dicks his flowers. However, as excited as I was to finally experience The Wheel in Space in a medium I could concentrate on, I found myself disappointed in the almost paint by numbers way the story was written. It was very much "this happened and then this happened and this" which I understand was probably necessary due to the inability to stick with one character for too long. I just found myself feeling meh by the end, similarly to how I felt when I read the novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks. TV and books are two totally different mediums and I can imagine that this story was all communicated much better on screen. But the BBC just had to go and wipe the episodes, didn't they?

I'll always be grateful that I now know how my favourite TARDIS trio got together, though. I always wondered how Zoe joined them and it was a pleasure to finally be given that information, even if it was written in an incredibly quick manner without much detail.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an accurate retelling of the 60s serial, which sees the Cybermen attempting to sabotage the titular Wheel. It's an important story in Doctor Who's lore, being the introduction of the fan-favourite companion, Zoe Heriot.

Terrence Dicks provides the engaging and imaginative description typical of his Doctor Who Target book. It is hard to imagine any other writer who could bring The Wheel In Space to life in novel form quite like he did. He has a knack of getting the characterisations for each incarnation of the Doctor spot on in his work for the Target range, and this one is no different. Patrick Troughton's voice oozes out of the page.

The Wheel In Space's Target book ends where the Frazer Hines' Evil Of The Daleks begins. The Doctor prepares to show Zoe himself and Jamie's previous adventure against the Daleks with Victoria. This works quite well in 2025, with both the Evil Of The Daleks repeat and Wheel In Space novelised as part of the Target collection. It makes them feel like two parts of the same puzzle, especially as their recent Target reprints were both issued for free with Doctor Who Magazine.

[Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Who Story: 9/10

Really fun adventure, with a great emphasis on Jamie. The Cybermen are a great match up for the second Doctor, and their menacing plots were fun to think about.

Classic Whos side characters often follow a very similar formula each time - an arrogant, ignorant and indignant leader who usually serves as a secondary antagonist but I haven't marked it down in this instance because it was done much better, and felt less distracting from the main trio than it did in 'Fury of the Deep'.

Prose and characters: 4/10
Unliks the last who book I wrote a review for, the prose in this book was a little shaky. All of the books have a practical and digestable prose, but this book suffered in ways that ultimately diminishsd the tension.

All the characters were written amazingly and its impossible for me not to see the actors of the main trio saying the lines.


For non who fans: 7/10

It's not a bad starting point, but not one I'd recommend. Overall though, it introduces a recurring villiam, and one of Who's best and Zoe, one of.DWs most interesting characters.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brisk and easy read, this Terrence Dicks adaptation of a 1967 Doctor Who television serial is as functional as ever. He wrote a lot of these, and had a concise, straight forward prose that moved the story along at a rattling pace, if at the expense of characterisation. Approximately 150 minutes of television have been distilled into 135 pages, which perhaps also reflects the amount of padding old Who had, but a writer with more time in his hands could have explored the denizens of the wheel a bit more. But Dicks knew his audience, mostly children, who wanted a rollicking adventure story, and he was at least partly responsible for seven year old me falling in love with books. This isn't one of the greatest Who stories, but it's fun, and Dicks does capture the characters ifbthebleads very well, I read all of The Doctor's speeches in Troughton's voice, same with Jamie and Hines, and he conveys the horror of the cybermen well. It is what it is, and is entertaining enough, even for a old man like me!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

I mean, it does the job, more or less, but I can't help but feel this is one of Dicks' weaker efforts. There are a few reasonably nice bits, but large swathes are just speech, and I mean I get it's sometimes hard to adapt the heavily dialogue based form of a script to prose, but when I've already watched the original serial it's just a bit boring to read. I also think there's points where so slavishly writing down what happens is detrimental to the tension (We cut from Gemma overhearing the Cybermen's plan to her calling the others immediately, so there's never any concern they won't find out and never any dramatic effect to her knowing calling them will kill her). Plus, reading it did sort of highlight that there are elements of this serial that sag a bit, something that was perhaps papered a bit more over on screen where the charisma of actors can somewhat carry things.

[Mark Higginbottom · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last I get to read this again for the first time probably since I was around 14 years old!The Target novel is quite rare now hence the extortionate prices it's fetching on certain web sites!The only reason I managed to got to read it again was by purchasing The Essential Terrance Dicks Volume 1 in which this book was included.Anyway,was it a good read?Yes!For me it's just classic Doctor Who.Patrick Troughton,Frazer Hines, Cybermen....what could be better?I think it's a really fun romp set in space with the Cybermen being their usual menacing and it must be said a bit daft selves!It's such a shame that the majority of the story has been wiped by the BBC as I would have loved to have watched it now.I didn't realise until I got halfway through how short the later Target novels were !Still, definitely enjoyable,good fun,great characters.... loved it.....

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I recognize The Wheel in Space as derivative of past Cyberman stories (especially The Moonbase), Terrence Dicks' adaptation makes it feel rather fresh and pacey, in large part, I think, thanks to the air of mystery that consistently hangs over the proceedings. The Cybermen are playing the long game, but to what purpose? We're always asking, and even before they're even introduced, the Doctor and Jamie are in situations they strive to explain. This is also the introduction of Zoe, who has a good showing here, but then, the rest of the Base Under Siege cast is well-rendered too. This story is still mostly lost and has yet to get an animated treatment, so even if I've listened to the audio and seen a reconstruction at SOME point, it still felt full of surprises. And in prose, the outer space action is left up to one's imagination, which I'm sure helps it loads.

[Joe Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terrance Dicks is the 'good hands' writer of the Doctor Who Target series. No matter how bad the TV serial was, and this one was bad, he manages to write an enjoyable adaptation that feels like a Doctor Who story. This sounds like an odd thing to say, but fairly often the Doctor and his companions feel like just another couple of the dozen or so characters in DW novels instead of the protagonists.

Neither the author or the book are going to win awards, but for Doctor Who fans or even enjoyers, as I am, it is a pleasant hour spent with Doc Two and Jamie. This isn't a read to start your Who reading career.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Who : The Wheel in Space (1988) by Terrance Dicks is the novelisation of the seventh and final series of the fifth season of Doctor Who.

The TARDIS malfunctions slightly and the Doctor and Jamie materialise in a rocket where the crew have mysteriously disappeared. The rocket then approaches the wheel in space, a remote manned space station.

Cybermats launch from the rocket and journey to the wheel in space. The Doctor and Jamie get to the space station and then the Doctor discovers some cybermats and realises that their masters will not be far behind.

Again, it’s an OK Doctor Who serial. It’s really notable for being the serial where Zoe joins the crew.

[Finlay O'Riordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fairly straightforward novelisation of a pretty dull script. It's a story that doesn't suit the Cybermen and isn't very exciting. The upside to the novelisation is that it's a lot more condensed than the full six televised parts, and also it's a nicer way to enjoy the story beyond just telesnaps or an audio soundtrack, since two-thirds of the episodes are missing.

Not one of Dicks' best, but to be fair, I don't really think there's any author in the world who could make this script exciting in any form. He did the best he could with weak material.

[Mikes Dw Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

The original tv story has always suffered from being too long with nothing much happening. There's only 2 cybermen throughout the story, with characters standing around until they start getting killed off. All building up to an invasion that ends very very quickly.

However the book, while being a straight forward re-telling, cuts alot of that dragging and padding out. Focusing on the key elements of the story and getting on with it. This I feel makes the story somewhat better to consume then its tv story and I rather enjoyed it.

[Shaun Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with so many of the episode novelizations, this one adds just enough to the proceedings to be a fuller, richer experience than just the episode. The fact that the episode only exists as a recon make it a bit fuller, and a bit richer than most. For a more complex review, visit www.travelingthevortex.com

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly standard Terrance Dicks telling of a lost story. Like most of the lost stories, I know the basics if not the details, and it was nice finding out a bit more of what happened (as best as we know given the source material is missing).

Terrance Dicks' usual tics are there, especially in descriptions of the characters, but that's to be expected.

A quick and enjoyable read.

[Ivana Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another highly enjoyable book from the master of doing adaptations. I do like it when the enemy goes unintentionally mucky - this one has a Cyberman saying "Effective penetration should be immediate." Ooh-er, Matron.I'm now eagerly looking forward to the forth-coming animated release of this sadly missing Troughton story.

[John Parungao · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terrance Dicks made an invaluable contribution to Doctor Who by adapting many of the old scripts into the Target novel range. Wheel in Space is one of the many incomplete stories from the 1960's era of Doctor Who and Dicks has done his best to give readers an entertaining version of an otherwise lost story.

[Scott Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original TV serial is a decent story, though it followed on from 3 other base-under-siege cybermen stories, which is perhaps why Patrick Troughton was beginning to get bored. Despite the scriptwriter's concerns over scientific accuracy, there are some silly physics errors that even a school child could spot. However, Terrance Dicks has done his job well here and made this story a good read.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dicks was a great writer but he had pretty thin gruel to dramatise here. The Cybermen are probably in it less than the Cybermats, and so it's hard to really get a sense of danger going. Some reasonable characterisation of guest parts, but the plot has the Doctor concussed for some time, which just adds to his marginal role.

[Luke Nyul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely little book that I got to read as an extra with an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, I was curious to see how this story was paced as I'd only watched the 2 existing episodes of the TV version prior to reading this version. It's quite a ploddy story with quite a quickfire ending but full of lovely moments! Not enough Cybermen though!

[Toby Sutton-Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not much to say here, just some good old classic Uncle Terry taking you through a story that I wish could be complete in the archives or at least animated fully. I actually have the rare original edition of this one, I bought it in The Who Shop. It had somehow made its way into the fifteen pound section...