Doctor Who: Full Circle

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #26

by Andrew Smith

Romana has been recalled to Gallifrey by the Time Lords — a summons that cannot be ignored, despite her extreme reluctance to give up the freedom and excitement life as the Doctor's companion has brought.

The time travellers' course is set, the flight path is clear, estimated time of arrival on Gallifrey is in thirty-two minutes — then the unexpected happens...

The full significance of their temporary loss of control over the TARDIS is only gradually brought home to the Doctor. For it is not on Gallifrey that they land but on the terror planet Alzarius, and at a time when the legendary Mistfall comes again — when the giant scaly creatures that inhabit the planet's swamps leave the marshes and go on the rampage, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake...

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Fantasy, Media Tie In

123 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 16, 1982

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Andrew Smith wrote the Doctor Who television story Full Circle and its novelisation. At the time of initial broadcast, he was the youngest writer to contribute to the TV series.

Smith submitted his work to more than one Doctor Who script editor. They replied with "positive criticism". Finally he sent The Planet that Slept, which became Full Circle.
Shortly afterwards, he became a police officer, spending a long time in that career.

Smith was approached by Big Finish and displayed interest in writing for them. Because he had started the trilogy with Full Circle, they asked him to write a Companion Chronicles story set in E-Space. The Invasion of E-Space was released in October 2010.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the third serial of the eighteenth season of Doctor Who, which was broadcast in October and November of 1980. Andrew Smith adapted his own teleplay, which was written when he was only seventeen years old, after which he had a lengthy career in law enforcement before returning to writing media tie-ins decades later. The fourth regeneration of The Doctor is the star, who is accompanied by his faithful robotic dog K-9 and the second iteration of Romanadvoratrelundar, better known as Time Lady Romana. This is the story in which Adric stows away and joins the crew, too. It's an interesting if simple story, in which the TARDIS is on the way home to Gallifrey but gets side-tracked to E-Space and is the first of the stories set in that other dimension. There is political conflict and a scientific mystery that has to be solved before the journey can continue. There's more background on the history of the planet Alzarius and its citizens, and the mysterious Mistfall phenomenon is better explained, but it's mostly just a fairly straight adaptation.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a two year hiatus, the Target audio range returned earlier this year and I couldn't have been more delighted at the selection of titles headed to audiobook. Among them was the fondly remembered adaptation of what I consider to be one of the better fourth Doctor stories, Full Circle.

Andrew Smith (a fan of the show) wrote the script for the story and went on to adapt his story from the printed page. I remembered reading this one on a weekend retreat with my family during quiet times and devouring every last page -- even though I was already fairly familiar with the story. Smith's novelization came in an era when the Target novels were beginning to be more than just straight forward adaptations of what we saw on screen. And while Smith's re-telling of the story is fairly faithful to what we saw on screen, he includes a couple of items and scenes that didn't make it into the broadcast version -- either for time or because Doctor Who couldn't necessarily make these sequences come alive on its budget.

Answering a summons to Gallifrey, the TARDIS passes through a mysterious distortion in space. To the scanner, it appears the Doctor and Romana have arrived in the outer wilderness of Gallifrey. Stepping outside the time and space machine, it appears they've arrived somewhere entirely different.

The world is Alazarius -- and it's one that is about to undergo a change. But instead of the usual political revolution or stopping an evil force, this time around the Doctor and Romana will battle the forces of evolution and stagnation. The two come into conflict during mistfall, a time when the planet Alazarius and its lifeforms begin to undergo a change.

I have to admit when I heard that Full Circle was getting the audiobook treatment, I was fairly delighted. Smith makes the most of the standard Target book page count, inserting in background scenes and character moments that enhance the story and give you a new appreciation of this four-part serial. Smith does a nice job of keeping things moving and I found myself getting lost in the story again as I listened to it.

Part of this credit goes to narrator Matthew Waterhouse, who was introduced to the Doctor Who canon as Adric in this story. Waterhouse has shown himself to be a solid narrator in the past with his reading of The Visitation. If that one was good, this one is better, partially because the novel is a richer one that the fairly straight-forward adaptation of The Visitation.

Full Circle was a delight to hear again. It made me want to dust off the DVD of the original story and watch it again, mentally inserting some of the scenes from the novel into the televised version. It's releases like this one that remind me just how much I enjoyed the Target novels back in the day and just how much fun these audiobooks can be as a journey down memory lane.

[Ian Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ridiculously competent affair given the author’s age when he wrote the script. Some proper SF ideas explored competently and given a nice Who twist. There’s an awful lot going on in this story and it flows so smoothly.

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s always been interesting to me that in 1980 Barry Letts, John Nathan-Turner, and Christopher H. Bidmead allowed Full Circle to enter production. Not because it is some terrible story that should never have seen the light of day, on the contrary it’s quite a good story about cyclic evolution and bureaucracy interfering in societal development, but because it was submitted by Andrew Smith who was only 17 at the time. A teenager writing for a professional television project is something you wouldn’t really expect, but since the Doctor Who production office accepted open submissions and Letts, Nathan-Turner, and Bidmead were looking for new talent (only two authors for Season 17 would have contributed before, David Fisher and Terrance Dicks, both having ideas ready to go and easily adaptable to the vision plus Dicks’ close friendship with Letts) Smith’s proposal was accepted on its strengths in the form of Full Circle. What makes this especially interesting is that two years later a 19 year old Smith would also write the novelization, his only novel.

The novelization of Full Circle is another perfect example of how Doctor Who changes from television to prose, mainly in expansion. On television, despite being four episodes, the story is actually quite short with the middle two only coming to 22 minutes instead of the more common 24 to 25, though the story is bookended by 24-minute installments. A lot of the expansion to the story doesn’t come from adding any events, but Smith really gets to show off his skills as a worldbuilder. While on television the bureaucracy of the Starliner’s society is there, in novel form it is brought to the forefront since you get a lot of the internal motivations of the other Deciders. Take for instance, Draith chasing Adric in the swamp before Mistfall, on television we don’t actually get much of who the character is but in Smith’s novelization he feels more caring for Adric, trying to catch him to help and calm him. Or for instance the bond between Adric and Varsh, who don’t actually feel like siblings for much of the television series, but here there is a tender bond between the two and the symbol of his rope belt is also vitally important to who Adric is and why he joins the TARDIS in the end. Finally, you have the Marshmen themselves are actually given a culture and language whereas on television they were just sort of there.

That being said, Full Circle is far from a perfect novelization. It does improve on the worldbuilding, but there really isn’t as much capturing the personalities of the Doctor, Romana, and K9, they’re kind of background characters in the story already, Romana being taken over by the spiders in particular really feels like a damselling made worse here by the way Smith writes it. Still it is a genuinely great time of a novel but is still a little uneven in places from being written by a 19 year old based on a story written by a 17 year old. 8/10.

[Christian Petrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the previous Target books I have read, what a difference a new writer brings not only to the story telling, but the writing as well. Even more impressive was this being Andrew Smith's first story to make it being filmed, and the youngest. It is amazing breath of fresh life into Doctor Who.

The Doctor and Romana are called back to Gallifrey, and then fly through an anomaly that takes them to E-Space. Here they get involved with mystery known as Mistfall. This story introduces the concept of E-Space, brings more continuity to the stories, and gives us Adric. Not bad for a first time writer.

For Season 18, this was another strong visual story. Smith is able to translate that visual into a strong book. It is hard to believe this was his first book. The writing is well done and the characterizations are fleshed out. Even within the usual Target restraints, it works well. Even for Doctor Who fans, depending on your view of Adric, he comes off better than he did on screen.

So for those Doctor Who fans who have not had a chance to read this, it is worth it. If you are not a Doctor Who fan, this is a good book to start off with, because you are given enough to enjoy without worrying if you have missed out on an other stories.

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following the previous more middle of the road adventure, I find this one a lot more interesting tale, even despite introducing Adric, a campaign that at least when I was younger I really didn't like, so will be interesting to see my views this time around.
The central concept of this tale is quite a fascinating one with a really cool and interesting twist for me, even when rereading it, and that central concept is fleshed out further in the book here than on TV, helping to deepen the initial mystery.
This is the first of the E-Space 'trilogy' as well, and some interesting scenes in the book for the Doctor, Romana and K9 as they find out and come to terms with where the TARDIS has taken them.
Adric himself is well introduced here I think, we get to see most of his character traits from the get go, good and bad, but in this story at least he is also a sympathetic character.
The other one off characters are also reasonably fleshed out too, adding well to the stakes and storyline, building to a strong finish.
Overall, a really good story from the author here.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who : Full Circle (1982) by Andrew Smith is the novelisation of the third serial of the eighteenth season of Doctor Who.

The Doctor, Romana and K9 are summoned back to Galifrey but are put off course by an anomaly in space. They wind up on a strange planet called Alzarius. There they discover a starliner that has crashed some time ago on Alzarius but has a crew who diligently repair the craft. Some young people also escape from the Starliner to avoid the somewhat oppressive environment. One of the young folks from the Starliner is Adric, who is extremely good at math. The mists arise on the planet every so often start to appear and Marshmen arise from the swamps.

Full Circle is a good start to the E-Space trilogy.

[Camilasc · Rating 3 out of 5]

A competent novelization. The serial itself is very run-of-the-mill, so I did not expect more from this adaptation. In light of Brexit, the political satire intended with The Deciders is quite overt.

I read this as a refresher on Adric's introduction... I totally forgot he had minor regenerative powers . And a dead brother. And that he tried to be a "rebel" in his own way despite being holding the same values as the technocratic elite of his people.

Good to keep this in mind when I tackle Five's era of novels proper, and watch none of it be brought up ever :)

[Ivana Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd addition to the Trget novels in some ways - while the world-building is very good, I can't the same for the characterisation of the Doctor or Romana. It's probably better to watch the tv show of this story than to read the book.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com...

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always liked this episode. The plot is clever and it ushers poor tragic Adric into the series. The novelization was well written and added to the story. All in all a good book.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. A decent read, looking forward to checking out the tv story and the full E-Space trilogy.

[Julian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat more satisfying novelisation than is often the case - the original writer adds some detail to the story which may not be immediately obvious from the televised version.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1051656.html#cutid8[return][return]Hmm. Smith is of course determined to give his own script a fair wind, but the end result is not very special; it is one of those rare occasions when the book doesn't quite do justice to the special effects of the original series. Of course he gives us a bit more background to the Alzarians and their origin - or not - on Terradon, but if anything it rather confuses the picture.

[Leela42 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fourth Doctor and Romana (II). Almost as good as seeing the episode. And an excellent piece of science fiction in its own right. A few spelling errors (the most conspicuous one is on the second page).

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novelization written by an 18-year-old...one that is miles better than any number of hack-writers with five times his experience at that time. A brilliant adaptation of a young fan's brilliant TV story.

[stormhawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of the better stories, but at least it's clever, though I remembered the hook differently. It's been years since I've seen the episode, would like to see it again as it is an introduction for a new companion.

[Damon Habbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for me as although not the first tv story I watched it's the one that has the most memories.

Then finding out that a fan sent the story in made it possible for all of us to do it

If I take my feelings out it's still a 3 star

[bluetyson]

isbn,original

[Jennifer Baratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent to workout to.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, easy read with a surprising end.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice Doctor Who book.

[Sean Fishlock]

Most Doctor Who novelisations were pretty poorly written and relied heavily on the show to engage readers. I remember this as one of the ones that stood out as a good standalone science fiction story with reasonable depth.