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Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #158
Doctor Who: Rose
Discover the new Doctor Who classics.
“Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!”
In a lair somewhere beneath central London, a malevolent alien intelligence is plotting the end of humanity. Shop window dummies that can move – and kill – are taking up key positions, ready to strike.
Rose Tyler, an ordinary Londoner, is working her shift in a department store, unaware that this is the most important day of her life. She’s about to meet the only man who understands the true nature of the threat facing Earth, a stranger who will open her eyes to all the wonder and terror of the universe – a traveller in time and space known as the Doctor.
197 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2018
64 people are currently reading
726 people want to read
About the author
Russell T. Davies
24 books386 followersRussell T Davies, OBE, is a Welsh television producer and writer. He is a prolific writer, best known for controversial drama serials such as Queer as Folk and The Second Coming, and for spearheading the revival of the popular science-fiction television series Doctor Who, and creating its spin-off series Torchwood. Both are largely filmed in Cardiff and the latter is set there.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 240 reviews
April 7, 2018
Target novelisations have always been an integral companion for Doctor Who fans, originally they were the only chance to experience an older story during pre-home video releases.
But the appeal has never gone away, the main reason is that it gives the chance for authors to develop their ideas without the constraints of a tv budget.
Most recently there’s been reprints of the best stories, whilst audiobook releases have also been popular.
So it’s great that the BBC are finally producing books of the modern Doctor’s.
‘Rose’ was the first story in the revamped series, so it makes for an obvious choice to be amongst the first batch of adventures.
The novel stays faithfully to the episode, teenager Rose having just finished work for the week in a London department story stumbles across a strange man that tells her to run.
It’s a great introductory story to the iconic Timelord. It includes all the concepts of the series.
One aspect of the episode that I’d always found problematic is when Rose investigates this mysterious man named simply The Doctor, she comes across Clive - Someone Who has spent he’s time researching this strange man.
As the tv show serves as a reboot, the only information he has is on the Ninth incarnation. The book improves upon this and includes both the past and future selves of the Timelord.
There’s plenty of other references not only to the RTD era, but the whole show aswell. I found myself constantly grinning during these moments!
It’s a nice fun read, really adds an extra layer to a strong story.
I just hope that these become regular releases.
But the appeal has never gone away, the main reason is that it gives the chance for authors to develop their ideas without the constraints of a tv budget.
Most recently there’s been reprints of the best stories, whilst audiobook releases have also been popular.
So it’s great that the BBC are finally producing books of the modern Doctor’s.
‘Rose’ was the first story in the revamped series, so it makes for an obvious choice to be amongst the first batch of adventures.
The novel stays faithfully to the episode, teenager Rose having just finished work for the week in a London department story stumbles across a strange man that tells her to run.
It’s a great introductory story to the iconic Timelord. It includes all the concepts of the series.
One aspect of the episode that I’d always found problematic is when Rose investigates this mysterious man named simply The Doctor, she comes across Clive - Someone Who has spent he’s time researching this strange man.
As the tv show serves as a reboot, the only information he has is on the Ninth incarnation. The book improves upon this and includes both the past and future selves of the Timelord.
There’s plenty of other references not only to the RTD era, but the whole show aswell. I found myself constantly grinning during these moments!
It’s a nice fun read, really adds an extra layer to a strong story.
I just hope that these become regular releases.
October 13, 2023
'They ran over the bridge, across the dark river, running headlong towards danger and disaster and death, and she held out her hand and took hold of his, so they ran together hand in hand, and she looked at him and he looked at her and they smiled as they ran, and the smile became a grin as they hurtled along, the lights of the night streaking past them, and in that moment, for all her fear and horror and grief, Rose had never been happier in her life.'
March 17, 2018
Better than my wildest dreams. Brings 2005 flooding back.
August 3, 2019
"Rose had enough of standing back and doing nothing. Of being told to sit still and behave and go to work and wear this and say that, of being told what to do by men, and boys, and her mother, and teachers, and bosses, and boyfriends, by the Doctor and the Nestene and everyone in between. Above her, the world was ending. In front of her, the Doctor was dying. At her feet, Mickey was blubbing. Well, to hell with that."
This novelization was absolutely perfect. RTD is truly the best Who writer of all time and I'm not afraid to say it. You can just feel the love he has for all of the characters come off the page - and not just in the "they get to be super smart and do everything cool" kinda way. In the "they are flawed and layered and have lush backstories and connections to other people" kinda way.
I expected this book to be basically the episode with a few extra scenes... what I got was something so much bigger. Every single character on the screen in the episode got expanded and built upon. And there were so many more characters that we get to read about, especially Mickey's band, that a viewer of the series never got to experience. I love the diversity in this novelization - you can tell that RTD had a ton of headcanons as to characters sexuality and gender that BBC would not let him show on the screen. It's brilliant and real.
The Auton battle in London was wonderfully done and you got to see it from the point of view of so many important minor characters. There are so many easter eggs to the future of Who throughout ROSE (complete with some Moffat shade, to my delight lol) and chockful of references. Every Doctor Who fan will find some hidden bit to freak out over in this book.
If you are a fan of RTD-era Who, you have GOT to read this novelization. You'll fall in love with these characters and this story all over again. I'm so glad RTD got the chance to re-tell this episode that started it all with the details he never got to include on TV. I adored them all.
And I will not so patiently wait for the day when he decides to write Doctor Who stories again.
5 stars!
May 31, 2024
"Run!"
I decided to read after today marks the 18th anniversary since new Who began.
Polly was a little 8 year old, sitting down for the first time to watch and has been obsessed every since. This was the first episode of the new series that started the new era. This was an improvement of the original episode, adding extra information about side characters- Wilson, Clive, Mickey etc.. along side something that feels very familiar.
I loved the encounter of the Doctor and the Nestene Consciousness so much more- it felt more realistic and the Autons a lot scarier.
2024:
Rereading for 19th anniversary for New Who
I decided to read after today marks the 18th anniversary since new Who began.
Polly was a little 8 year old, sitting down for the first time to watch and has been obsessed every since. This was the first episode of the new series that started the new era. This was an improvement of the original episode, adding extra information about side characters- Wilson, Clive, Mickey etc.. along side something that feels very familiar.
I loved the encounter of the Doctor and the Nestene Consciousness so much more- it felt more realistic and the Autons a lot scarier.
2024:
Rereading for 19th anniversary for New Who
May 24, 2018
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3017727.html
Back in the bad old days of 1996, Russell T. Davies wrote a Seventh Doctor book called Damaged Goods (more recently adapted for audio by Jonathan Morris for Big Finish). It included the following interesting points:
* The first character we encounter in the story is the daughter of Mrs Tyler, who is a single mother
* She says to the Doctor at one point, "You think you're so funny", a line almost echoed by Rose Tyler a decade later
* The Tylers live on a council estate where strange things are happening
* The strange things include (but are not restricted to) a doppelganger of a black neighbour created by an evil alien intelligence
* The Doctor's female companion is Roz
* At the very end the Doctor goes back in time to meet the young Tyler girl before the adventure started in her time line
* As the alien invasion fully manifests lots of people die horribly and swiftly
So this novelisation is actually the third time, not the second, that Davies has visited some of these themes.
Of course he needs to use the script of the 2005 story as his basis, and also has to make it accessible for the younger audience whose aunts and uncles may have bought this, but he adds a lot more material here, starting with a great pen-portrait of the office caretaker, Bernie Wilson, who is the first of many characters to die horribly in New Who. Most notably, Mickey gets considerably more depth and characterisation than he was ever granted on screen, and it turns out that he is in a band including a trans woman and two young men who are just on the cusp of realising their true feelings for each other. The treatment of Jackie on the page seems much more sympathetic than she got on the screen, and poor Clive gets an expansion to his background as well:
"And now, in sudden coordination, every dummy in every window lifted its arm and swung down. Row upon row of glass shattered, bright chips cascading to the floor. All along the street, people screamed, yelled, some still laughing. Caroline said, `Well that's not very funny,' and she grabbed hold of the boys to pull them back.
But Clive was staring. With horror. And yet, with delight.
Because he remembered.
In his files. In those mad old stories of monsters from Loch Ness, and wizards in Cornwall, and robots at the North Pole, there had been tales, from long ago, fables about shop-window dummies coming to life and attacking people, a slaughter, so the secret files said, a massacre on the streets of England, hushed up ever since by the Powers That Be, the population doped and duped into forgetting. And Clive, even Clive, had read those stories and thought, How can that possibly be true?
But here it is, he thought. It's happening again.
Which meant the Doctor was true. Every word of him and her and them. All Clive's fantasies were now becoming facts, right before his eyes. But if the glories were true then so were the terrors. And Clive felt a chill in his heart as he watched the plastic army step down into the street.
He turned to his wife and children.
He said, 'Run.'
Caroline stared at him, more scared by the look in his eyes than by the dummies. He said quietly, 'I'll try to stop them. Now for the love of God, run.'
And Caroline, at last, believed. She looked at her husband for one last time and said, 'I love you.' Then she took hold of the boys' hands, and ran."
The one character we don't learn so much more about is the Doctor himself. We get a bit more circumstantial detail about the Time War, but Davies put more than that in the 2006 Annual. Of course, this is sensible enough; the book is told from Rose's point of view, and for her the Doctor is a mysterious stranger who disrupts her ordinary life; the cosmic adventures are yet to come. But having seen how some of the other characters are enhanced by Davies from the printed page, the enigma of the show's central personality is even more palpable than it was on the screen.
Still, this is a worthy start to what we must hope is a revival of the old tradition.
Back in the bad old days of 1996, Russell T. Davies wrote a Seventh Doctor book called Damaged Goods (more recently adapted for audio by Jonathan Morris for Big Finish). It included the following interesting points:
* The first character we encounter in the story is the daughter of Mrs Tyler, who is a single mother
* She says to the Doctor at one point, "You think you're so funny", a line almost echoed by Rose Tyler a decade later
* The Tylers live on a council estate where strange things are happening
* The strange things include (but are not restricted to) a doppelganger of a black neighbour created by an evil alien intelligence
* The Doctor's female companion is Roz
* At the very end the Doctor goes back in time to meet the young Tyler girl before the adventure started in her time line
* As the alien invasion fully manifests lots of people die horribly and swiftly
So this novelisation is actually the third time, not the second, that Davies has visited some of these themes.
Of course he needs to use the script of the 2005 story as his basis, and also has to make it accessible for the younger audience whose aunts and uncles may have bought this, but he adds a lot more material here, starting with a great pen-portrait of the office caretaker, Bernie Wilson, who is the first of many characters to die horribly in New Who. Most notably, Mickey gets considerably more depth and characterisation than he was ever granted on screen, and it turns out that he is in a band including a trans woman and two young men who are just on the cusp of realising their true feelings for each other. The treatment of Jackie on the page seems much more sympathetic than she got on the screen, and poor Clive gets an expansion to his background as well:
"And now, in sudden coordination, every dummy in every window lifted its arm and swung down. Row upon row of glass shattered, bright chips cascading to the floor. All along the street, people screamed, yelled, some still laughing. Caroline said, `Well that's not very funny,' and she grabbed hold of the boys to pull them back.
But Clive was staring. With horror. And yet, with delight.
Because he remembered.
In his files. In those mad old stories of monsters from Loch Ness, and wizards in Cornwall, and robots at the North Pole, there had been tales, from long ago, fables about shop-window dummies coming to life and attacking people, a slaughter, so the secret files said, a massacre on the streets of England, hushed up ever since by the Powers That Be, the population doped and duped into forgetting. And Clive, even Clive, had read those stories and thought, How can that possibly be true?
But here it is, he thought. It's happening again.
Which meant the Doctor was true. Every word of him and her and them. All Clive's fantasies were now becoming facts, right before his eyes. But if the glories were true then so were the terrors. And Clive felt a chill in his heart as he watched the plastic army step down into the street.
He turned to his wife and children.
He said, 'Run.'
Caroline stared at him, more scared by the look in his eyes than by the dummies. He said quietly, 'I'll try to stop them. Now for the love of God, run.'
And Caroline, at last, believed. She looked at her husband for one last time and said, 'I love you.' Then she took hold of the boys' hands, and ran."
The one character we don't learn so much more about is the Doctor himself. We get a bit more circumstantial detail about the Time War, but Davies put more than that in the 2006 Annual. Of course, this is sensible enough; the book is told from Rose's point of view, and for her the Doctor is a mysterious stranger who disrupts her ordinary life; the cosmic adventures are yet to come. But having seen how some of the other characters are enhanced by Davies from the printed page, the enigma of the show's central personality is even more palpable than it was on the screen.
Still, this is a worthy start to what we must hope is a revival of the old tradition.
December 7, 2020
Now this is how an author expands on something they’ve already done! In The Day of the Doctor, Moffat writes like a 12y/o me fanfic writer, trying to cram as much in what is in actuality already done, he tries to pack as many easter eggs and write as many characters as he can. The Special was good on TV but the novel left much to be desired. With Rose, RTD gets to write the things he already knew, the things he probably had already written, the things he wished could have been in the episode and with that he makes the novel grow.
You can really tell the difference between Moffat and RTC with these two novels. I think Moffat is all about the production value and easter eggs and how big can the show get with little to no consciousness about the characters or a plan; RTD is the opposite, he plans his characters with extreme detail so he knows how they will act in each situation they’re in, and while he had some ridiculousness during the running of the show (let us all forget how the Doctor beat the Master with the power of thought while floating like Jesus) he has known his characters in such depth that you can almost forgive those faults.
In Rose, RTD gets into the minds of his characters and shows us who they are.
The Doctor, fresh out of the war, not wanting to take someone with him but liking how Rose challenges him and reminds him of his previous companions and why he took them with him. You get to look into his thoughts and see how devastated he is after the war, how he’s jumping from one adventure to another just to escape from his thoughts. The survivor's guilt is really important with this Doctor’s characterization and I think RTD nails it.
Rose also gets more background. We get more mentions of Jimmy Stone and why she dropped out of highschool. There’s also all that wanderlust she’s feeling, and the desire for adventure that the Doctor awakens in her. (And remember when 10 went back in time to see Rose one last time???? Weeell, let me tell you that it is just as sad from Rose's perspective)
But by far the character who gets the most of the novelization is Mickey Smith. We really get to see his personality, and how even though we get an awful first impression in the show he’s actually a much more complex character. We get so much background! His family relationships, his relationship with his grandma and how incredibly awesome and amazing she was, who his friends are and how they relate and depend on him for comfort and so much more stuff. We get a brief glimpse of the character he’s going to become and is gold! For real, Mickey gets the best treatment in the novel and I think RTD wanted to do this from the beginning but he wasn’t able because of the time frames of the episodes.
I really enjoyed it! It expands the chapter in the way it should be.
You can really tell the difference between Moffat and RTC with these two novels. I think Moffat is all about the production value and easter eggs and how big can the show get with little to no consciousness about the characters or a plan; RTD is the opposite, he plans his characters with extreme detail so he knows how they will act in each situation they’re in, and while he had some ridiculousness during the running of the show (let us all forget how the Doctor beat the Master with the power of thought while floating like Jesus) he has known his characters in such depth that you can almost forgive those faults.
In Rose, RTD gets into the minds of his characters and shows us who they are.
The Doctor, fresh out of the war, not wanting to take someone with him but liking how Rose challenges him and reminds him of his previous companions and why he took them with him. You get to look into his thoughts and see how devastated he is after the war, how he’s jumping from one adventure to another just to escape from his thoughts. The survivor's guilt is really important with this Doctor’s characterization and I think RTD nails it.
Rose also gets more background. We get more mentions of Jimmy Stone and why she dropped out of highschool. There’s also all that wanderlust she’s feeling, and the desire for adventure that the Doctor awakens in her. (And remember when 10 went back in time to see Rose one last time???? Weeell, let me tell you that it is just as sad from Rose's perspective)
But by far the character who gets the most of the novelization is Mickey Smith. We really get to see his personality, and how even though we get an awful first impression in the show he’s actually a much more complex character. We get so much background! His family relationships, his relationship with his grandma and how incredibly awesome and amazing she was, who his friends are and how they relate and depend on him for comfort and so much more stuff. We get a brief glimpse of the character he’s going to become and is gold! For real, Mickey gets the best treatment in the novel and I think RTD wanted to do this from the beginning but he wasn’t able because of the time frames of the episodes.
I really enjoyed it! It expands the chapter in the way it should be.
June 23, 2018
11 year old me watched "Rose" on BBC 1 thirteen years ago and from that moment I can honestly say Doctor Who changed my life. I'm not normally so exaggerative but I really believe Russell T. Davies' run of the show made me a better person. This novelisation was just what cynical 24 year old me needed right now.
July 16, 2018
I have a mixed history with Doctor Who novelisations. Some I find totally miss the magic of the original. Many are just fair retreads of what was on screen. And a number add more and make them a worthwhile addition. This however manages to do something really new and exciting.
The story in itself is largely unchanged with only a few additions (mostly upping what they could do with the autons). However, it reframes it in a few interesting ways:
1. It very much makes it the start of Season 27, not series 1. By which I mean it places it both thematically and textually much more as part of the ongoing series. This obviously was not something they could do on screen as many of these elements would have been confusing for newer viewers but for fans who will be reading this it is a very rewarding experience. In fact there are a lot of forward references which obviously they couldn't do then but are beautiful now.
2. It moves it from being a fun adventure to a much darker drama. It both ups the level of cosmic horror (which will become the norm for the second half of season 1) and brings out a lot more of the kitchen sink realism, in particular featuring misogny, racism and suicide as parts of every day life for Rose and those around her. (Once again being similar to Season 26 in that way).
My only slight qualm with it is Jackie is not quite as well done as a character, but I think that is more due to the levels with which Coduri is able to play her.
Whilst I don't think this is how the episode should have been done on screen, it is my preferred text as to go back and read this is doing so much more.
The story in itself is largely unchanged with only a few additions (mostly upping what they could do with the autons). However, it reframes it in a few interesting ways:
1. It very much makes it the start of Season 27, not series 1. By which I mean it places it both thematically and textually much more as part of the ongoing series. This obviously was not something they could do on screen as many of these elements would have been confusing for newer viewers but for fans who will be reading this it is a very rewarding experience. In fact there are a lot of forward references which obviously they couldn't do then but are beautiful now.
2. It moves it from being a fun adventure to a much darker drama. It both ups the level of cosmic horror (which will become the norm for the second half of season 1) and brings out a lot more of the kitchen sink realism, in particular featuring misogny, racism and suicide as parts of every day life for Rose and those around her. (Once again being similar to Season 26 in that way).
My only slight qualm with it is Jackie is not quite as well done as a character, but I think that is more due to the levels with which Coduri is able to play her.
Whilst I don't think this is how the episode should have been done on screen, it is my preferred text as to go back and read this is doing so much more.
April 28, 2021
Did I mention? It also travels in time.
July 14, 2018
In prose as well as on screen, RTD and Moffat have the delightful and complimentary talents to be brilliant in completely opposite ways. They are really two halves of a whole (which made their episode collaborations just sparkle) and I’ll miss their collective and individual contributions to Doctor Who. Where Day of the Doctor spends itself entirely in the twisty and twisted labyrinth of the Doctor’s mind, “Rose” keeps him remote — indeed the only such character in the entire story. But in the end, both approaches emphasize the ultimate enigma of the character in different ways. RTD is still the master of crashing the Doctor into the utterly mundane and material realities of human life. While Moffat presents even Clara and Osgood as larger than life echoes of the Doctor’s heroism, RTD sells the wonderfully flawed humanity of his characters: Rose’s selfishness, Jackie’s opportunism, Mickey’s well-intentioned but ineffectual nature, Clive’s tragic longings, the Doctor’s occasional callousness, and even the aborted and greedy ambitions of Wilson the caretaker. And as ever, RTD’s vision is darker: the sick gallows humor, the revelry in the slaughter, the willingness to embrace disappointment. Neither approach is correct or better than the other. These two novels, Rose & Day of the Doctor, demonstrate the opposite poles of what the new series of Doctor Who has been and can be, and their tension is what has made the new series so compelling and successful.
May 25, 2018
When my husband first showed me this series, I must admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the first episode. I didn’t like Christopher Eccleston, I wasn’t scared of manikins, and as a female, I couldn’t relate to Rose Tyler. After reading this book, my whole perspective came to a dolphin flip. This book made me fearful of Autons, they are relentless plastic! The way they explained the Nestene Consciousness, was brilliant. I fell in love with Rose page by page. How you can feel so empty and search for purpose by following a timelord. I highly enjoyed this reading, it made me laugh, pushed my heart to remain curious, and kept me wanting more. Thank you Russell T Davies! And thank you hunky hubby.
August 16, 2018
Oh that time in 2005 when the air was full of anticipation as what the new Doctor Who series was going to be like. It was all new, Nu-who, and here it is gloriously described by Russell T Davies as he expands on his creation with lovely Easter Eggs here and there. It’s a wonderful trip to that wonderful time.
April 13, 2021
This is the novelization of the first of the new "Doctor Who" series (from 2005). At the time, it struck me mostly as just plain silly. The book retains some of that daftness, but adds a lot of background to the show, and expands on the rather abrupt TV ending. It's still a bit silly, but it's more enjoyable.
March 23, 2025
4/4.5* Aaaah dit was zo leuk om te lezen! Het is een boek naar de gelijknamige Doctor Who aflevering van de revival (S1E1) en het eerste verhaal met Rose en de 9e doctor, die de strijd aangaan met tot leven gekomen paspoppen die voor dood en verderf zorgen.
Het zit vol extra informatie over de personages (boek-Mickey is daardoor leuker dan serie-Mickey) en hints naar toekomstige afleveringen (Donna wordt kort genoemd, de band van Mickey verandert hun naam tijdelijk naar Bad Wolf, de 10e, 11e en 12e doctors worden genoemd). Helemaal leuk! De televisieserie moet geschikt zijn voor families, maar de boeken duidelijk niet, want de scènes waarin de aliens de Londenaren aanvallen zijn een stuk explicieter (al wordt het nergens gory of zo).
Het eerste boek van de Target Doctor Who serie dat ik heb gelezen en heb genoten! Gelukkig heb ik er laatst een set van besteld, dus de volgende liggen al klaar ;-)
"In the devastation, people now began to stand upright. Stepping out of doorways. Emerging from hiding. Gazing around in horror. And then they looked up, above the wreckage, to see the stars in the night sky, unchanged."
Het zit vol extra informatie over de personages (boek-Mickey is daardoor leuker dan serie-Mickey) en hints naar toekomstige afleveringen (Donna wordt kort genoemd, de band van Mickey verandert hun naam tijdelijk naar Bad Wolf, de 10e, 11e en 12e doctors worden genoemd). Helemaal leuk! De televisieserie moet geschikt zijn voor families, maar de boeken duidelijk niet, want de scènes waarin de aliens de Londenaren aanvallen zijn een stuk explicieter (al wordt het nergens gory of zo).
Het eerste boek van de Target Doctor Who serie dat ik heb gelezen en heb genoten! Gelukkig heb ik er laatst een set van besteld, dus de volgende liggen al klaar ;-)
"In the devastation, people now began to stand upright. Stepping out of doorways. Emerging from hiding. Gazing around in horror. And then they looked up, above the wreckage, to see the stars in the night sky, unchanged."
June 5, 2018
It was the best Doctor Who book I've ever read (though I've read only about 6 of them). The only bad thing was RTD's writing. The plot was good but some of the paragraphs repeated what was already written.
Every character got a punch of back story and it was pretty good. Also Rose wasn't a little bitch here like in TV episode (example leaving Mickey).
The chemistry between the Doctor and Rose was even better than in the original episode.
Every character got a punch of back story and it was pretty good. Also Rose wasn't a little bitch here like in TV episode (example leaving Mickey).
The chemistry between the Doctor and Rose was even better than in the original episode.
March 29, 2025
Fantastic
July 26, 2025
5 stars
My first introduction to Doctor Who. Great episode.
My first introduction to Doctor Who. Great episode.
December 7, 2022
this made me so very, very nostalgic.
January 22, 2024
The episode Rose holds a special place in Doctor Who history. It was, if nothing else, the beginning of the series 21st century regeneration, securing it new generations of fans and launching a series that shows no signs of stopping nearly nineteen years later. As such, it comes as no surprise that it was among the first to be chosen for novelizing as nostalgia for the Target books of decades past caught up with Modern Who. Given that the episode only ran forty-odd minutes, how well could it translate to the page?
Russell T Davies, writer of both the TV episode and its prose version more than a decade later, would take a cue from Target books that expanded on their TV counterparts such as The Cave Monsters or the likes of Remembrance of the Daleks or Ghost Light, Davies takes the world’s reintroduction to Doctor Who and builds upon it. Something that’s clear from the opening pages of the novelization which focus not on Rose herself but on the mentioned but unseen character of Wilson who has a rather meta realization about his existence before his demise. It’s an opening which sets the tone for the slim volume that follows.
Because wherever Davies can, he fleshes out the episode so well known to fans since 2005. Mickey gets an entire band put together around him, bringing in a whole new group of supporting characters. Readers get to learn more about Clive, his family, and what lies behind his quest to find out more about the Doctor. It’s in that those chapters that Davies does something he was unwilling to do on TV: acknowledge Doctor Who’s pre-2005 past with mentions of Doctors that were and would be to come. Scenes that didn’t make the final cut on-screen appear, from the infamous burning couch to a larger role for Mickey in the Nestene’s lair. It’s a nice fleshing out out of a familiar tale which adds something for even the most jaded fan to take notice of as they read.
But those extensions have their limits. Despite how slim of a book this is, there are times when it feels that Davies prose simply exists to chew up word count. The sequence where Mickey is captured by a plastic garbage bin is a case in point, going on for pages instead of being the throwaway scene it was on-screen (and, worse, still ending with the cringe inducing satisfied belch). Nowhere is Davies more guilty of that than in the finale, a sequence that lasted only a few minutes onscreen. While it’s nice to have Mickey’s role put back and thus giving the character more of a presence, it also helps to drag it out. Worse comes with the Auton attack on London, a sequence that amount to a handful of minutes on screen, which now consumes entire chapters of page count without really adding anything narratively. All of which is a shame as it hampers what would otherwise have been a strong novelization.
As I learned in 2015 when I read his 1996 Virgin New Adventures novel Damaged Good, one has to take the rough with the smooth with Davies as a prose writer. His “writer’s cut” of Rose has its moments, particularly in how it fleshes out the supporting characters and adds a wider friend circle for Mickey. Yet building up other moments causes them to lose tension or simply weighs down the book. Something that, ironically, leaves the Rose novelization as a case of damaged goods for fans to pick their way through.
Russell T Davies, writer of both the TV episode and its prose version more than a decade later, would take a cue from Target books that expanded on their TV counterparts such as The Cave Monsters or the likes of Remembrance of the Daleks or Ghost Light, Davies takes the world’s reintroduction to Doctor Who and builds upon it. Something that’s clear from the opening pages of the novelization which focus not on Rose herself but on the mentioned but unseen character of Wilson who has a rather meta realization about his existence before his demise. It’s an opening which sets the tone for the slim volume that follows.
Because wherever Davies can, he fleshes out the episode so well known to fans since 2005. Mickey gets an entire band put together around him, bringing in a whole new group of supporting characters. Readers get to learn more about Clive, his family, and what lies behind his quest to find out more about the Doctor. It’s in that those chapters that Davies does something he was unwilling to do on TV: acknowledge Doctor Who’s pre-2005 past with mentions of Doctors that were and would be to come. Scenes that didn’t make the final cut on-screen appear, from the infamous burning couch to a larger role for Mickey in the Nestene’s lair. It’s a nice fleshing out out of a familiar tale which adds something for even the most jaded fan to take notice of as they read.
But those extensions have their limits. Despite how slim of a book this is, there are times when it feels that Davies prose simply exists to chew up word count. The sequence where Mickey is captured by a plastic garbage bin is a case in point, going on for pages instead of being the throwaway scene it was on-screen (and, worse, still ending with the cringe inducing satisfied belch). Nowhere is Davies more guilty of that than in the finale, a sequence that lasted only a few minutes onscreen. While it’s nice to have Mickey’s role put back and thus giving the character more of a presence, it also helps to drag it out. Worse comes with the Auton attack on London, a sequence that amount to a handful of minutes on screen, which now consumes entire chapters of page count without really adding anything narratively. All of which is a shame as it hampers what would otherwise have been a strong novelization.
As I learned in 2015 when I read his 1996 Virgin New Adventures novel Damaged Good, one has to take the rough with the smooth with Davies as a prose writer. His “writer’s cut” of Rose has its moments, particularly in how it fleshes out the supporting characters and adds a wider friend circle for Mickey. Yet building up other moments causes them to lose tension or simply weighs down the book. Something that, ironically, leaves the Rose novelization as a case of damaged goods for fans to pick their way through.
May 8, 2019
I liked the changes made in the story Russell did here and made it had more depth. I had so much fun reading this as this was the first story that got me into the doctor who all those years ago back in 2005.
Great fun.
Great fun.
December 1, 2025
Het is net zo goed als afl 1 van doctor who, loved it
April 8, 2018
I didn't realize that this was the book version of the first episode of the current Doctor Who. However, even if I did know that I would have still read the book because it's the 9th Doctor and Rose!!! I can't get enough of the 9th Doctor and Rose. Really wish we would have had more time with them together in the series but at least readers can visit them in the books.
April 5, 2018
O, I so hope this is the first of a Target Collection of all New Doctor Who. It's a fantastic novelisation that fleshes out characters and plot elements from the original episode. I'm going to keep this short because it is late and I'm tired but I'd love this book for Chapter 6 - Life at No. 90 on its own. Great work RTD. And hopefully, more to come.
July 5, 2018
I'll tell you a secret. Shhhh.... I think Nine may be my favorite Doctor. Sad, isn't it? Because he was only around for 13 episodes and is never, ever coming back to Doctor Who. But Russell T. Davies, showrunner extraordinare who revived the show for the 21st century wrote an novelization of Nine's first episode. And my husband had a business trip to the UK... Yeah, I couldn't resist even though I usually disdain media tie-ins. But this is semi-official! Right?!? First up, there's no Nine point-of-view, which would have been an exercise in imagination in and of itself. But much more of the episode gets fleshed-out, often in ways that makes the destruction and chaos much, much worse than on screen, a choice I'm a little disturbed by. But Rose herself gets to speak about her feelings and reactions, which made this slim volume worth the read in the end. This was enjoyable, but not revelatory, probably only of interest to hardcore Whovians. Which means, of course, I'll be loaning this to all my friends.
May 27, 2018
For the first time in almost 30 years, we get new Target novelizations of modern "Doctor Who" stories...and who better to inaugurate the continuation of the line that Russell T Davies himself -- the man who brought the show into the 21st century. "Rose" is exactly what Target books were best at: not a simple transcription of an episode, but an expansion, an enhancement, and re-imagining that acts as a companion to the original. Like the best Target novelizations of the mid 70s and the late 80s, this is a book that manages to include an enormous amount of expanded material, yet maintain a compact, concise shape. Absolutely brilliant...a brilliance I inhaled in the span of an hour!
November 10, 2018
4 🌟
Then a man reached out of the darkness and took hold of her hand and said, `Run'.
I love reading Nine and Rose!! They are my favourite who duo to read. 'Rose' is where it all started and this book has all the stuff from the tv episode but with added bits. Doctor bits, Rose bits, Mickey bits, backstory bits, lovely Russell T Davies-y bits and little nuggets of future who! Loved it!
Then a man reached out of the darkness and took hold of her hand and said, `Run'.
I love reading Nine and Rose!! They are my favourite who duo to read. 'Rose' is where it all started and this book has all the stuff from the tv episode but with added bits. Doctor bits, Rose bits, Mickey bits, backstory bits, lovely Russell T Davies-y bits and little nuggets of future who! Loved it!
April 30, 2021
Russell should novelise more of his stories. It does the original story justice and expands it in some great ways, you can never go wrong with more Clive. It drags a bit when the Autons are wrecking London, but that's only a minor complaint.
October 5, 2021
Honestly just the best time, very happy!! RTD classic, with some really fun extended scenes and additional lore. The best 👌
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