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Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #115
Doctor Who: The Mind Robber
To escape a catastrophic volcanic eruption the Doctor takes the TARDIS out of space and time - and into a void he can only describe as 'nowhere'. But the crisis is far from over and when the time-machine's circuits overload, the TARDIS explodes. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe come to in a dark unearthly forest. There they encounter a host of characters who seem somehow familiar: a beautiful princess with long flaxen hair, a sea traveler dressed in eighteenth-century clothes, and a white rabbit frantically consulting his pocket watch...What is happening to the three time-travelers? What strange power guides their actions? In the Land of Fiction who can really tell?
144 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
February 26, 2019
The type of oddball story that only 60’s Doctor Who would attempt, with the TARDIS team taken to the land of fiction.
I hadn’t noticed how similar all the puzzles and games during the earlier parts of the story were quite like The Celestial Toymaker form the First Doctor era, it’s probably because the story is such a visual treat with the toy soldiers and the reason behind Jamie’s part of that game.
Though the Toymaker himself would have worked as the main foe during the conclusion.
I liked that Ling referenced that The Master in this story wasn’t the one most commonly known in this series.
It’s a fairly faithful novelisation of one of my favourite Troughton stories.
I hadn’t noticed how similar all the puzzles and games during the earlier parts of the story were quite like The Celestial Toymaker form the First Doctor era, it’s probably because the story is such a visual treat with the toy soldiers and the reason behind Jamie’s part of that game.
Though the Toymaker himself would have worked as the main foe during the conclusion.
I liked that Ling referenced that The Master in this story wasn’t the one most commonly known in this series.
It’s a fairly faithful novelisation of one of my favourite Troughton stories.
May 14, 2022
This is a novelization of the second serial from the sixth season of Doctor Who, which was broadcast in September and October of 1968. The original script was written by Peter Ling, and he also wrote this adaptation which was printed almost two decades later. It's one of the last and longest of the later Target books. The story stars The Doctor in his second regeneration, and he is accompanied by Jamie MacCrimmon, a piper from 18th century Scotland, and Zoe Heriot, a genius librarian and astrophysicist from a space station in the far-future 21st century. Jamie has some unusual problems this time around, and Zoe aquits herself well, as she almost always did. Ling eliminates some of the framing continuity from the video version and adds a few interesting background bits. It's a very psychedelic-sixties story, as the TARDIS team finds themselves outside of the space and time of their own reality and in a land of myth and fiction controlled by The Master. Except he's not -The- The Master, just -A- The Master. Anyway, he's getting on in years and they need a replacement... As several other people have noted, the story bears more than a slight resemblance to The Celestial Toymaker from the first Doctor's era, but it's an intersting read with quite a dose of good humrous content.
October 7, 2009
Based on one of the most surreal "Doctor Who" stories ever produced, "The Mind Robber" is a solid re-telling and expansion of the popular second Doctor story. Peter Ling takes his own script and instead of picking up right where "The Dominators" left off (as in the TV version), chooses to have the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe visit Pompeii. That leads to the volcanic eruption that places the TARDIS in jeopardy and forces the Doctor to remove it from time and space to escape the lava flow.
It's a different way to get to the same place in terms of storytelling and both versions work well. Ling spends a great deal of time with the early, more surreal events that take place inside the TARDIS in episode one. He inserts a scene or two with the Doctor waking from a dream in the forest of letters, all of which really enhance the overall story.
This is one of the Target novels I'm not sure I read back in my time of loving and devouring the line. I think part of it was that I didn't love the story when I first saw it (my opinion of it has been radically reassessed since that time) and the fact that it came with a higher cover price and being on a limited allowance, I spent my "Doctor Who" dollars elsewhere. Hearing it now, read by Derek Jacobi, I wish I'd indulged those few extra dollars for the novelization instead of whatever other Target novel I picked up instead. Part of that is Ling's smooth and solid retelling of the story, but another part of it Jacobi's superlative reading of the story itself. It's high energy, fun and really makes this one of the better Target audio novels on the market.
It's a different way to get to the same place in terms of storytelling and both versions work well. Ling spends a great deal of time with the early, more surreal events that take place inside the TARDIS in episode one. He inserts a scene or two with the Doctor waking from a dream in the forest of letters, all of which really enhance the overall story.
This is one of the Target novels I'm not sure I read back in my time of loving and devouring the line. I think part of it was that I didn't love the story when I first saw it (my opinion of it has been radically reassessed since that time) and the fact that it came with a higher cover price and being on a limited allowance, I spent my "Doctor Who" dollars elsewhere. Hearing it now, read by Derek Jacobi, I wish I'd indulged those few extra dollars for the novelization instead of whatever other Target novel I picked up instead. Part of that is Ling's smooth and solid retelling of the story, but another part of it Jacobi's superlative reading of the story itself. It's high energy, fun and really makes this one of the better Target audio novels on the market.
August 16, 2016
This was a fairly fun audio CD to listen to! The story was novelized from a solid Second Doctor serial, and the reader was pretty good. I say pretty good, because he did Zoe's voice as a weak falsetto, which was jarring after listening to Tom Baker's reading of 'Robot', and also because it was sometimes hard to tell when the Second Doctor was the one talking. He did a recognizable Scottish accent, though, so at least Jaime was easy to pick out. Definitely a shame Patrick Troughton isn't around anymore... although this could very easily have been a narration over the original soundtrack instead of a full novelization.
The story itself is kind of scattered and weird, although that generally makes it fun. The Second Doctor, Jaime and Zoe are watching a volcano when it erupts... and for some reason the TARDIS won't work! However, the Doctor has an emergency circuit thingy that he plugs into the center console, and it zaps them to 'nowhere,' outside space and time. This is weird, because this comes up again a number of times in future episodes, and sometimes it's filled with time gods, sometimes with absolute nothingness, and sometimes with sentient predator asteroid pocket universes that eat TARDISes. This one has a floor! They spend the rest of the serial embroiled in mental battles with the Master.
The story is extra interesting because I remember reading somewhere that the actor who played Jaime was sick or something and couldn't make it to the studio to film one of the episodes... so, in the show, Jaime ran into a bad guy who shot him, but instead of killing him, it turned him into a paper cutout with no face! However, on a board nearby, there was a jumbled up bunch of facial features to put him back together with. When the Doctor found him, he tried to put Jaime back together, got it wrong, and Jaime ended up with a different face! Zoe didn't recognize him at first, and the Doctor, embarrassed, downplayed the whole thing. But! This meant that they could swap out the actor who played Jaime for an episode or so! Then, the bad guy showed up and shot Jaime again, and the same thing happened, only this time Zoe was around to show the Doctor which pictures were the real Jaime's features! Poof, original Jaime was back! This is pretty funny to watch, as Zoe suddenly realizes that the Doctor was to blame for Jaime's face! It's also interesting because there was a time for the most recent Doctor (the 12th at this point) where he had a rough regeneration and for the first season or so couldn't seem to keep track of who different people were. If it wasn't for the complete disregard for continuity the past several years, I would say it was a callback to this scene! Perhaps it could be called an unintentional callback.
I would also say that the way the Doctor and his Companions were dealing with the bad guys was a bit jumbled. Sometimes the bad guys were from their minds, dreams or nightmares, and they could defeat them by attempting to disbelieve in them. Sometimes they were storybook characters, and they could be disbelieved, but they could also be talked to and reasoned with, however, sometimes they could only speak using phrases from the book they were from and sometimes not (basically, only Gulliver had this issue). Sometimes there were robots, and they were real, and sometimes they were dressed up as toy soldiers, and evidently some other things were also real. You just have to go with it.
One of the cool and funny things was that if they couldn't disbelieve the bad guys to make them disappear, they also couldn't fight them in a manner too close to their story, otherwise they would 'make themselves into fiction' and the Master would take control of them and they would win! Same with later on when the Doctor gets the ability to rewrite local reality... if he mentions himself, the same thing happens! It's fun as a reader in the real world watching/reading/listening to a story about fictional characters not wanting to become more fictional than they already are. So meta!
The novelization itself:
The good: It was generally pretty good, and I appreciated that when they introduced the main adversary, the Master, they made sure to stipulate that it wasn't the more prevalent Master who is a Time Lord, but someone else. A listener who knew about the Time Lord known as the Master but didn't realize he didn't appear until the Third Doctor serials could have been confused.
The indifferent: It was unnecessary to start with the Doctor midway through the story and have the first few episodes be flashbacks. I guess the writer was bored?
The bad: However, the novelization did ruin the best scene! In the serial, the Doctor and Zoe are advancing upon the Master's castle, when they're confronted by a bad guy! Now, until now, the Doctor had been disbelieving in these guys no problem, except for the Medusa, because of Zoe's recent freak out. However, now she makes up for that, because the bad guy turns out to be a comic book character (the Karkus!) from the future that the Doctor has no knowledge of. If he's not sure it's fictional, he can't disbelieve it properly! Well, Zoe had read it, and stepped up her game, disbelieving for both of them, and using her mental powers to allow her to beat up Karkus... basically, she was fully confident, and was playing with Karkus until he gave up.
The author changed that so that Zoe just beat Karkus up physically, with some extra commentary about her fighting style. It just loses the vindication aspect for poor Zoe.
All in all, a great listen!
The story itself is kind of scattered and weird, although that generally makes it fun. The Second Doctor, Jaime and Zoe are watching a volcano when it erupts... and for some reason the TARDIS won't work! However, the Doctor has an emergency circuit thingy that he plugs into the center console, and it zaps them to 'nowhere,' outside space and time. This is weird, because this comes up again a number of times in future episodes, and sometimes it's filled with time gods, sometimes with absolute nothingness, and sometimes with sentient predator asteroid pocket universes that eat TARDISes. This one has a floor! They spend the rest of the serial embroiled in mental battles with the Master.
The story is extra interesting because I remember reading somewhere that the actor who played Jaime was sick or something and couldn't make it to the studio to film one of the episodes... so, in the show, Jaime ran into a bad guy who shot him, but instead of killing him, it turned him into a paper cutout with no face! However, on a board nearby, there was a jumbled up bunch of facial features to put him back together with. When the Doctor found him, he tried to put Jaime back together, got it wrong, and Jaime ended up with a different face! Zoe didn't recognize him at first, and the Doctor, embarrassed, downplayed the whole thing. But! This meant that they could swap out the actor who played Jaime for an episode or so! Then, the bad guy showed up and shot Jaime again, and the same thing happened, only this time Zoe was around to show the Doctor which pictures were the real Jaime's features! Poof, original Jaime was back! This is pretty funny to watch, as Zoe suddenly realizes that the Doctor was to blame for Jaime's face! It's also interesting because there was a time for the most recent Doctor (the 12th at this point) where he had a rough regeneration and for the first season or so couldn't seem to keep track of who different people were. If it wasn't for the complete disregard for continuity the past several years, I would say it was a callback to this scene! Perhaps it could be called an unintentional callback.
I would also say that the way the Doctor and his Companions were dealing with the bad guys was a bit jumbled. Sometimes the bad guys were from their minds, dreams or nightmares, and they could defeat them by attempting to disbelieve in them. Sometimes they were storybook characters, and they could be disbelieved, but they could also be talked to and reasoned with, however, sometimes they could only speak using phrases from the book they were from and sometimes not (basically, only Gulliver had this issue). Sometimes there were robots, and they were real, and sometimes they were dressed up as toy soldiers, and evidently some other things were also real. You just have to go with it.
One of the cool and funny things was that if they couldn't disbelieve the bad guys to make them disappear, they also couldn't fight them in a manner too close to their story, otherwise they would 'make themselves into fiction' and the Master would take control of them and they would win! Same with later on when the Doctor gets the ability to rewrite local reality... if he mentions himself, the same thing happens! It's fun as a reader in the real world watching/reading/listening to a story about fictional characters not wanting to become more fictional than they already are. So meta!
The novelization itself:
The good: It was generally pretty good, and I appreciated that when they introduced the main adversary, the Master, they made sure to stipulate that it wasn't the more prevalent Master who is a Time Lord, but someone else. A listener who knew about the Time Lord known as the Master but didn't realize he didn't appear until the Third Doctor serials could have been confused.
The indifferent: It was unnecessary to start with the Doctor midway through the story and have the first few episodes be flashbacks. I guess the writer was bored?
The bad: However, the novelization did ruin the best scene! In the serial, the Doctor and Zoe are advancing upon the Master's castle, when they're confronted by a bad guy! Now, until now, the Doctor had been disbelieving in these guys no problem, except for the Medusa, because of Zoe's recent freak out. However, now she makes up for that, because the bad guy turns out to be a comic book character (the Karkus!) from the future that the Doctor has no knowledge of. If he's not sure it's fictional, he can't disbelieve it properly! Well, Zoe had read it, and stepped up her game, disbelieving for both of them, and using her mental powers to allow her to beat up Karkus... basically, she was fully confident, and was playing with Karkus until he gave up.
The author changed that so that Zoe just beat Karkus up physically, with some extra commentary about her fighting style. It just loses the vindication aspect for poor Zoe.
All in all, a great listen!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2020
Utterly delightful. It ditches the actual surreal first episode as broadcast, but ends up providing its own introduction to this magical story that clearly shows an author very much in love and invested in what he created. A prose adaptation nearly as lyrical and sweet as the television version.
December 23, 2021
The TV serial The Mind Robber is one of the best from the Patrick Troughton era, and the setting of the story is a world of fiction, so this novelisation had a good basis. And, fortunately, Peter Ling is a good writer and so does justice to his own story. This is a significantly longer book than most of the Target novels, and so it feels more like a novel than a straight adaptation of the script.
December 21, 2018
I got rather a surprise as I started this book, to find that the TARDIS crew were suddenly on the side of Mt Vesuvius when moments before they had been on an island on the planet Dulkis. That was nothing compared to my surprise a page later when I found Jamie was piloting the TARDIS.
That less than auspicious start had me uncertain about my feeling for the book I was about to read, but all in all, it turned into a pretty standard Target novelisation of a story from the '60s. We had a dash of sexism I could have done without, but it was a pretty faithful representation of what appeared on screen (to the best of my recollection.) The Doctor did occasionally seem to alternate between his Second Doctor-y self and moments when he seemed to have reverted back into the First Doctor. My feeling is that the later wasn't visible on screen, so I'm laying that at the hands of the author, novelising his own story nearly twenty years later.
My favourite two lines where an almost throwaway remark about the Master (you know, THE Master) to show that the Master of the Land of Fiction wasn't the same person. While the script was written before THAT Master was even invented, anyone reading it would be familiar with both Delgado and Ainley's versions of the character, so a moment's clarification was worth adding. Unlike some of Dicks' heavy-handed foretelling in other books, this was dealt with neatly and effectively in a line and a half.
Ling didn't manage to catch everything though, as the Doctor is described as having a singular heart when that would have changed to two hearts long before 1986. Neither incident is desperately important to the story and I'm probably just showing myself up as an obsessive fan commenting on either, but I would have preferred all or nothing instead of half and half.
An okay book though and hey, I'm just caught up in time for the next podcast.
That less than auspicious start had me uncertain about my feeling for the book I was about to read, but all in all, it turned into a pretty standard Target novelisation of a story from the '60s. We had a dash of sexism I could have done without, but it was a pretty faithful representation of what appeared on screen (to the best of my recollection.) The Doctor did occasionally seem to alternate between his Second Doctor-y self and moments when he seemed to have reverted back into the First Doctor. My feeling is that the later wasn't visible on screen, so I'm laying that at the hands of the author, novelising his own story nearly twenty years later.
My favourite two lines where an almost throwaway remark about the Master (you know, THE Master) to show that the Master of the Land of Fiction wasn't the same person. While the script was written before THAT Master was even invented, anyone reading it would be familiar with both Delgado and Ainley's versions of the character, so a moment's clarification was worth adding. Unlike some of Dicks' heavy-handed foretelling in other books, this was dealt with neatly and effectively in a line and a half.
Ling didn't manage to catch everything though, as the Doctor is described as having a singular heart when that would have changed to two hearts long before 1986. Neither incident is desperately important to the story and I'm probably just showing myself up as an obsessive fan commenting on either, but I would have preferred all or nothing instead of half and half.
An okay book though and hey, I'm just caught up in time for the next podcast.
March 6, 2014
This was a very nice retelling of The Mind Robber, one of the most bizarre Doctor Who stories in the television series. There was some interesting additions and tweaks made to the original script, which enhanced the novelization of the story.
August 23, 2018
42 WORD REVIEW:
Peter Ling’s only Doctor Who novelisation is more competently written than many in the Target range. As a Wonderland homage, however, and as a pioneering work of metatextualism, the story trots out and bottoms out on visual flourishes better suited to television.
Peter Ling’s only Doctor Who novelisation is more competently written than many in the Target range. As a Wonderland homage, however, and as a pioneering work of metatextualism, the story trots out and bottoms out on visual flourishes better suited to television.
October 20, 2023
I must confess, ‘The Mind Robber’ is a story that is very close to my heart. It is said that the first exponent of the Doctor you experience will forever be “your Doctor”, and thanks to limited TV reruns on the BBC in the early 1990s (and the tail end of the final episode of the serial on a much watched VHS recording of the Buck Rogers television movie), the 2nd Doctor with Zoe and Jamie will forever be the incarnation closest to my heart.
Also a cherished part of my childhood was the vast number of Target Novelisations that were tucked away throughout my high-school’s library. For the twenty-odd years between the end of Sylvester McCoy’s run and the 2009 Revival — and long before digital streaming made access to the BBC Archives possible — these detailed adaptations of the scripts to Classic Who serials was the only way to experience decades of adventures. I knew almost all of the stories despite only having actually seen a handful on-screen through BBC VHS and DVD releases. Finding so many of these Target Novelisations released as audiobooks on Books, read by actors with deep links to those stories, has been a pleasant surprise.
Derek Jacobi (himself an important member of the Doctor Who extended family through his role as the War Master on TV and many Big Finish audio adventures, perfectly captures the voice and character of Patrick Troughton’s 2nd ‘Doctor’, as well as Wendy Padbury’s ‘Zoe Heriot’ and Frazer Hines’ ‘Jamie McCrimmon’. This performance, coupled with the script adaptation by Peter Ling (and some well-edited foley work) very much captures the feel of the black and white era of Doctor Who.
My only criticism, would be related to the technical aspects of this release. It feels like this may have been an earlier recording, published before streaming and download bandwidth limits could be more of a concern to users. As such, the audio has a somewhat “fuzzy” quality. Additionally, this is a direct upload of what was originally a CD release; there several points, throughout the story, when Sir Jacobi does, in-fact, announce the end and start of each disc! And, as with most audiobooks published to Apple Books (where this was accessed), no effort has been made to utilise the metadata functions allowed by the platform, to split and correctly label the individual chapters, to make navigation easier.
All in all, however, I can highly recommend this story!
Also a cherished part of my childhood was the vast number of Target Novelisations that were tucked away throughout my high-school’s library. For the twenty-odd years between the end of Sylvester McCoy’s run and the 2009 Revival — and long before digital streaming made access to the BBC Archives possible — these detailed adaptations of the scripts to Classic Who serials was the only way to experience decades of adventures. I knew almost all of the stories despite only having actually seen a handful on-screen through BBC VHS and DVD releases. Finding so many of these Target Novelisations released as audiobooks on Books, read by actors with deep links to those stories, has been a pleasant surprise.
Derek Jacobi (himself an important member of the Doctor Who extended family through his role as the War Master on TV and many Big Finish audio adventures, perfectly captures the voice and character of Patrick Troughton’s 2nd ‘Doctor’, as well as Wendy Padbury’s ‘Zoe Heriot’ and Frazer Hines’ ‘Jamie McCrimmon’. This performance, coupled with the script adaptation by Peter Ling (and some well-edited foley work) very much captures the feel of the black and white era of Doctor Who.
My only criticism, would be related to the technical aspects of this release. It feels like this may have been an earlier recording, published before streaming and download bandwidth limits could be more of a concern to users. As such, the audio has a somewhat “fuzzy” quality. Additionally, this is a direct upload of what was originally a CD release; there several points, throughout the story, when Sir Jacobi does, in-fact, announce the end and start of each disc! And, as with most audiobooks published to Apple Books (where this was accessed), no effort has been made to utilise the metadata functions allowed by the platform, to split and correctly label the individual chapters, to make navigation easier.
All in all, however, I can highly recommend this story!
December 14, 2024
Based on the script mostly written by him (eps 2-5), with ep 1 written by Derrick Sherwin, this is number 115 in the Target catalogue. The first cover is by David McAllister and the second by Allister Pearson. The audio version is read by Derek Jacobi. I don’t generally do audio books, but I might have find a copy to listen to as a love Jacobi. It would have been so great having him as the Master if he hadn’t been killed by an insect.
I was a bit thrown by the start of this book. Vesuvius? WTF? They were on Dulkis when the volcano went off. I’m guessing he wanted the book to stand in isolation rather than tie in to the previous story. I’ve always loved this story as it’s different from the normal sort of stories. It’s got quirks like the Doctor saying, ‘I can’t say that or I’ll turn myself into fiction. I love the idea of fictional characters being worried about being turned into fictional characters.
From a textual perspective it’s also unique with quite large sections in brackets to avoid scene breaks It sort of works but also seems inconsistent at times. Initially it’s just the Master what he’s thinking and saying in his room as we’re in the Doctor et al perspective. But later some of the Doctor’s speech/thoughts are bracketed. This is a difficult story to novelise due to it’s structure and I guess this is a good a solution to the problem as any.
There’s quite a few more literary references in the book than the broadcast version. Zoe’s Alice in Wonderland section, and some smaller book references like Little Women. These make it more fictional for me as the many actual mini-adventures are myths; unicorns, Medusa, Minotaur, which it could be argued have a grain of truth in their origins. Whereas Gulliver, Rapunzel, and Karkus are true fiction. Whatever the case this book is great fun. I love the literary battle between the Master and the Doctor right at the end, although again not all the characters are fictional. Blackbeard and Cyrano de Bergerac were real people, though they have many fictional exploits.
This is a book I can see myself enjoying numerous times. I might need to get myself a battered reading copy so I can keep my collection ones in good order.
I was a bit thrown by the start of this book. Vesuvius? WTF? They were on Dulkis when the volcano went off. I’m guessing he wanted the book to stand in isolation rather than tie in to the previous story. I’ve always loved this story as it’s different from the normal sort of stories. It’s got quirks like the Doctor saying, ‘I can’t say that or I’ll turn myself into fiction. I love the idea of fictional characters being worried about being turned into fictional characters.
From a textual perspective it’s also unique with quite large sections in brackets to avoid scene breaks It sort of works but also seems inconsistent at times. Initially it’s just the Master what he’s thinking and saying in his room as we’re in the Doctor et al perspective. But later some of the Doctor’s speech/thoughts are bracketed. This is a difficult story to novelise due to it’s structure and I guess this is a good a solution to the problem as any.
There’s quite a few more literary references in the book than the broadcast version. Zoe’s Alice in Wonderland section, and some smaller book references like Little Women. These make it more fictional for me as the many actual mini-adventures are myths; unicorns, Medusa, Minotaur, which it could be argued have a grain of truth in their origins. Whereas Gulliver, Rapunzel, and Karkus are true fiction. Whatever the case this book is great fun. I love the literary battle between the Master and the Doctor right at the end, although again not all the characters are fictional. Blackbeard and Cyrano de Bergerac were real people, though they have many fictional exploits.
This is a book I can see myself enjoying numerous times. I might need to get myself a battered reading copy so I can keep my collection ones in good order.
March 10, 2023
To escape a catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mt Vesuvius, the Doctor takes the TARDIS out of space and time. The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe end up in some strange forest, encountering some fictional characters.
I am assuming that this is the Second Doctor, considering he has Jamie and Zoe.
The plot itself is pretty good, although it takes a while for it to start getting interesting. The story with the eruption, followed by Jamie's and Zoe's thinking that they're seeing their homes is moving really, really slow.
The Doctor is...the Doctor. He does what the Doctor does, so I have no issue with him.
Jamie seems to be impetuous, a little ignorant, and a bit hot headed, but he's also all right.
Now Zoe...well...I am guessing this has something to do with the 60's, but reading it in 2023, her character is really irritating. Zoe is supposed to be a modern futuristic woman who is very into science. However, she doesn't seems to use her brain much. Running out instead of waiting for the Doctor. Tripping some warning system because she stupidly thinks it won't happen. She is also very fearful, always clutching at both Jamie and the Doctor.
I am assuming that this is the Second Doctor, considering he has Jamie and Zoe.
The plot itself is pretty good, although it takes a while for it to start getting interesting. The story with the eruption, followed by Jamie's and Zoe's thinking that they're seeing their homes is moving really, really slow.
The Doctor is...the Doctor. He does what the Doctor does, so I have no issue with him.
Jamie seems to be impetuous, a little ignorant, and a bit hot headed, but he's also all right.
Now Zoe...well...I am guessing this has something to do with the 60's, but reading it in 2023, her character is really irritating. Zoe is supposed to be a modern futuristic woman who is very into science. However, she doesn't seems to use her brain much. Running out instead of waiting for the Doctor. Tripping some warning system because she stupidly thinks it won't happen. She is also very fearful, always clutching at both Jamie and the Doctor.
January 17, 2019
Doctor Who in general is a great idea with dicey execution. The whole of the vast story across decades of TV and hundreds if not thousands of books is quite amazing, but often the individual stories themselves were workmanlike affairs which featured one of three plots with different monsters. In the case of Docs Two and Three this was often base under siege. Imagine a decade of a King Arthur TV series with 90% of the stories being about 'Camelot besieged'. Anytime the Knights left the round table for a bit of grail searching or dragons slaying would have been a welcome relief. This book is one of those welcome explorations of what might happen in journeys aboard an eccentric and aging time machine built by extraterrestrial Time Lords. While the writing itself is merely passable, the change in direction and the quirky ideas are enough to give this one a higher rating than many series books.
February 28, 2021
Another one that is a bit more of a weird tale, a bit like Celestial Toymaker in that regard, but generally a lot better story that comes through in this one, as didn't seem to have the issues the Celestial Toymaker did, allowing this one to be more natural.
Not as metaphysical as the former story either, but still quite an interesting idea for the tale, and allows for all sorts of quite interesting and unusual interactions, both between the Doctor and his companions, and between them and the various other characters in this tale.
It allows all three to have good moments to shine, and at the same time all make various believable mistakes as well, to help them all be well fleshed out in the tale.
The story adds more detail than the TV story did, but they help add / flesh out the original story.
All round a good read.
Not as metaphysical as the former story either, but still quite an interesting idea for the tale, and allows for all sorts of quite interesting and unusual interactions, both between the Doctor and his companions, and between them and the various other characters in this tale.
It allows all three to have good moments to shine, and at the same time all make various believable mistakes as well, to help them all be well fleshed out in the tale.
The story adds more detail than the TV story did, but they help add / flesh out the original story.
All round a good read.
May 16, 2025
I've always liked The Mind Robber as a rare sideways-in-time story for the base-under-siege-obsessed Second Doctor era (and now this kind of thing seems to be the focus of Disney+ Doctor Who), and Peter Ling adapting his episodes to prose makes it even better. He adds literary characters and references not in the show (or that wouldn't have been detectable without a bit of exposition). He turns Part 1 into an extended flashback and plays around with structure. He makes the comic book sequences with the Karkus come alive like a Batman '66 episode. He gives us a different ending that dips into meta-text (I wish he'd done more of that). He's on less of a budget and manages to up the fun without deviating overmuch from the televised version (we still get, for example, the strange "Jaime's actor goes on vacation" conceit). Quite fun and it betters the show.
April 2, 2023
Doctor Who : The Mind Robber (1986) by Peter Ling is the novelisation of the second serial of the sixth season of Doctor Who.
The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe have to get the TARDIS out of the way of lava and have to pull an emergency switch in the TARDIS that takes it out of normal reality.
They wind up in a world where fiction is made real. It’s a bit like the earlier Celestial Toymaker serial.
The Mind Robber isn’t bad though, there are puzzles and battles of wits and it’s a reasonable read.
The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe have to get the TARDIS out of the way of lava and have to pull an emergency switch in the TARDIS that takes it out of normal reality.
They wind up in a world where fiction is made real. It’s a bit like the earlier Celestial Toymaker serial.
The Mind Robber isn’t bad though, there are puzzles and battles of wits and it’s a reasonable read.
November 30, 2019
I really liked the way that this novelization was written. It didn't leave out any important details that I could notice ; it also took the time to explain some of the character thoughts and feelings which I thought was a very nice touch. Definitely one of my favorite novelizations, even thought the episode itself didn't wow me.
January 26, 2022
One of the better novelisations in a lot of ways - I liked the insights into Jamie's past, and it read like a novel which more than one of these has failed to do! I think Conundrum slightly spoiled me if only because it has more space to do interesting things with the 'Land of Fiction in prose' idea, but this was still an enjoyable book.
October 15, 2023
I ended up really liking this one. It was a very Doctor Who episode. I love the premise of the story. Doctor, Jaime, and Zoe having to deal with a lot of storybook and mythological characters definitely made for an interesting read. I would love to see this episode.
January 22, 2021
It eventually turned into an ok read, after the first dodgy chapter. Not my favourite adaptation, but I've read worse.
June 7, 2023
A well written adaptation, although it struggles against the repetitive nature of the original plot.
November 9, 2024
Great TV story but novelisation was a pretty faithful adaptation and was expecting more given the Land of Fiction premise. Sir Derek Jacobi read the audiobook too which was an added bonus.
April 23, 2025
Delightfully surreal.
May 31, 2022
pdf; 152 pages
A fine slightly updated novelisation of an early story - one of the best!
A fine slightly updated novelisation of an early story - one of the best!
October 16, 2015
To quote one of the Doctors….”Geronimo!”
Ok, obviously I’m referencing a much later Doctor than the one in this book, but you have to understand my sheer excitement. You see, I’m a Doctor Who fan (duh, right?) and a bibliophile (book lover). And up until I purchased this book, I only had 4 Doctor Who books in my collection because that’s all I thought were out there.
I happened to be at a local bookstore just browsing when I turned a corner down a lonely little aisle in Sci-Fi paperbacks, just glancing around at the shelves. After a moment or two I spotted Doctor Who gleaming off the spine of a book and so I stopped to check it out. I quickly realized that there were almost 100 Doctor Who books on the shelf…books I didn’t know existed!!
Slightly at a loss, I whipped out my phone and did a little research and discovered that the books I had just discovered were the serialized additions of the Doctor Who TV show for the first 156 seasons (serials) that started in 1963. I was speechless and a little overwhelmed but excited like a kid on Christmas morning.
I tell you all this to help you understand the type of books these are, so you know better what to expect. You see, these books are NOT meant to be great works of fiction or award winning novels. They are simply the retelling of the TV show, episode by episode. Back then a serial or season of a show was 3-4 short episodes long and usually contained a story arc start to finish. The BBC decided way back then to serialize each season into a book and thus the books I found in the bookstore were born!
The books are short, easy reads and offer very little difference from the matching TV season. This is amazing since there are many missing episodes or serials from the original show. These books are the best way to experience the early doctor and in some cases the only way.
As for The Mind Robber, I found it fascinating because the story line was interesting, fast paced, and because I had never seen that particular old season of Doctor Who. Overall, it was great for what it was. If you are expecting more, for the book to be just as good as the modern TV series, then you’ll be vastly disappointed. It’s very Doctor Who and worth the read if you like the series, especially if you’re interested in seeing the progression of the Doctor over the years.
Ok, obviously I’m referencing a much later Doctor than the one in this book, but you have to understand my sheer excitement. You see, I’m a Doctor Who fan (duh, right?) and a bibliophile (book lover). And up until I purchased this book, I only had 4 Doctor Who books in my collection because that’s all I thought were out there.
I happened to be at a local bookstore just browsing when I turned a corner down a lonely little aisle in Sci-Fi paperbacks, just glancing around at the shelves. After a moment or two I spotted Doctor Who gleaming off the spine of a book and so I stopped to check it out. I quickly realized that there were almost 100 Doctor Who books on the shelf…books I didn’t know existed!!
Slightly at a loss, I whipped out my phone and did a little research and discovered that the books I had just discovered were the serialized additions of the Doctor Who TV show for the first 156 seasons (serials) that started in 1963. I was speechless and a little overwhelmed but excited like a kid on Christmas morning.
I tell you all this to help you understand the type of books these are, so you know better what to expect. You see, these books are NOT meant to be great works of fiction or award winning novels. They are simply the retelling of the TV show, episode by episode. Back then a serial or season of a show was 3-4 short episodes long and usually contained a story arc start to finish. The BBC decided way back then to serialize each season into a book and thus the books I found in the bookstore were born!
The books are short, easy reads and offer very little difference from the matching TV season. This is amazing since there are many missing episodes or serials from the original show. These books are the best way to experience the early doctor and in some cases the only way.
As for The Mind Robber, I found it fascinating because the story line was interesting, fast paced, and because I had never seen that particular old season of Doctor Who. Overall, it was great for what it was. If you are expecting more, for the book to be just as good as the modern TV series, then you’ll be vastly disappointed. It’s very Doctor Who and worth the read if you like the series, especially if you’re interested in seeing the progression of the Doctor over the years.
December 18, 2022
One of the better novels. 2nd Doctor story involving a disembodied brain creating a fantastical world with familiar characters and some not so.
November 1, 2024
Original rating 3
2024 reread rating 4
Hadn’t read this since the original publication and decided this year to re read a handful of Target Who books because ….. just wanted to.
First out of the bag was this second Doctor story.
This was an unusual story when originally broadcast, very basic sets , odd storyline, replacing main actor due to illness for a couple of episodes but keeping their character in the story.
I only saw it at some point in the 1980’s at some convention or other - back in the days when video rooms ran for 24 hrs showing old tv shows on Video cassettes sourced from millionth generation copies but it was still exciting to see them.
Anyways the adaptation did a good job of telling the original story and also expanding it with some essentially pov thoughts from the main characters.
Still a very quick and fairly predictable resolution though but definitely enjoyed it more than I remembered.
Overall a solid read but would suggest someone views the story first, at least episode one, before reading this to experience the weirdness of the whole thing.
2024 reread rating 4
Hadn’t read this since the original publication and decided this year to re read a handful of Target Who books because ….. just wanted to.
First out of the bag was this second Doctor story.
This was an unusual story when originally broadcast, very basic sets , odd storyline, replacing main actor due to illness for a couple of episodes but keeping their character in the story.
I only saw it at some point in the 1980’s at some convention or other - back in the days when video rooms ran for 24 hrs showing old tv shows on Video cassettes sourced from millionth generation copies but it was still exciting to see them.
Anyways the adaptation did a good job of telling the original story and also expanding it with some essentially pov thoughts from the main characters.
Still a very quick and fairly predictable resolution though but definitely enjoyed it more than I remembered.
Overall a solid read but would suggest someone views the story first, at least episode one, before reading this to experience the weirdness of the whole thing.
May 15, 2009
What a wizard book. The story is absolutely enthralling -- I nearly missed my stop this morning because I was so absorbed in the plot. Basically, this is a novelization of a Second Doctor serial called "The Mind Robber", in which the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves outside of time and space in a land peopled with fictional characters. Riddles and puzzles abound, and it's almost like their arrival was expected. What will happen to them, and will they make it out alive?
As I said, this is a great story. The writing is fairly standard with a tendency to go overboard in the simile and metaphor department (and a bit in the adjective department as well), but it doesn't get in the way of the plot. If you don't know what the Second Doctor is about, give this book a try. It's a very pleasant diversion.
As I said, this is a great story. The writing is fairly standard with a tendency to go overboard in the simile and metaphor department (and a bit in the adjective department as well), but it doesn't get in the way of the plot. If you don't know what the Second Doctor is about, give this book a try. It's a very pleasant diversion.
January 14, 2022
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1031032.html#cutid2
The original TV version was one of the most surreal stories ever; the novel takes some liberties with the script, but basically improves it further to make it one of the better Second Doctor novels. Even the Karkus somehow makes better sense here. One to look out for.
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3836799.html
One point to add is that even though Ling did not actually write the first of the five TV episodes, he gives it more page time (38 out of 144 - 26%) than any of the others in the novelisation.
The original TV version was one of the most surreal stories ever; the novel takes some liberties with the script, but basically improves it further to make it one of the better Second Doctor novels. Even the Karkus somehow makes better sense here. One to look out for.
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3836799.html
One point to add is that even though Ling did not actually write the first of the five TV episodes, he gives it more page time (38 out of 144 - 26%) than any of the others in the novelisation.
October 25, 2011
What I at first thought was too reminiscent of Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker, turned out to be a very different and entertaining romp of twists and turns, puzzles, labyrinths, and literary characters. After yet another emergency situation The Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie get pulled into a section of space that is a true world of fantasy and imagination, peopled with familiar characters from literature. The premise is as absurd as premises get, but The Doctor carries through it with his typical flair!
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