Doctor Who: Dalek (Target Collection)

Doctor Who: Target Books #166

by Robert Shearman

‘The entire Dalek race, wiped out in one second. I watched it happen. I made it happen!’The Doctor and Rose arrive in an underground vault in Utah in the near future. The vault is filled with alien artefacts. Its billionaire owner, Henry van Statten, even has possession of a living alien creature, a mechanical monster in chains that he has named a Metaltron. Seeking to help the Metaltron, the Doctor is appalled to find it is in fact a Dalek – one that has survived the horrors of the Time War just as he has. And as the Dalek breaks loose, the Doctor is brought back to the brutality and desperation of his darkest hours spent fighting the creatures of Skaro… this time with the Earth as their battlefield.

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

183 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2021

About the author

Robert Shearman has worked as a writer for television, radio and the stage. He was appointed resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and has received several international awards for his theatrical work, including the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the World Drama Trust Award and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity in association with the Royal National Theatre. His plays have been regularly produced by Alan Ayckbourn, and on BBC Radio by Martin Jarvis. However, he is probably best known as a writer for Doctor Who, reintroducing the Daleks for its BAFTA winning first series, in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award.

His first collection of short stories, Tiny Deaths, was published by Comma Press in 2007. It won the World Fantasy Award for best collection, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. One of the stories from it was selected by the National Library Board of Singapore as part of the annual Read! Singapore campaign. In 2008 his short story project for BBC7, The Chain Gang, won him a Sony Award, and he provided a second series for them in 2009.

He is now at work on his first novel.

Reviews

[ShamNoop · Rating 5 out of 5]

How did this novelisation make an amazing episode 10 times better?

[TheGeekProblem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course I picked the book as soon as it was out. This is one of my favourite episodes of series one and I’m so happy they made the novelisation.

It took me a while to finish it but here I am with an honest review of the book. Overall? It needed more Doctor and Rose.

Don’t get me wrong, the parts we get of Rose were really good, her thoughts and her personality shined through amazingly and I loved that. And the Doctor was just amazing to read. But I felt like they were side stepped just to give all the characters that died in the episode a little back story. Like, no, I don’t want to read about the soldier that told Rose and Adam to run; no, I don’t want to read about the guy that tortured the Dalek, I didn’t even know he had a name; and I definitely don’t want to know about Van Statten’s character. I want to read about the Doctor struggling and Rose’s compassion, not about a side character that I didn’t even know had a name on the episode.

I didn’t like the changes they did for the character of Goddard and the end of Van Statten. I really liked the idea of Goddard being a smart, power hungry woman just because and at the end taking charge of everything and wiping out Van Statten’s memories as retaliation for everything that had happened. I don’t know, I felt like it was a good ending for their characters and instead we get this ending that it’s a little more compassionate to Van Statten and I thought it was a bit boring.

The imagery was really good, there were bits of cut scenes that you didn’t understand until they finally made sense and created this beautiful fantasy world of escapism.

There was also this final tender moment where the Doctor and Rose talk after the whole ordeal and it’s just so sweet and you can see how much they love each other.

All in all, pretty good, perfect to pass the time.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3754620.html

Great novelisation of one of the great New Who episodes. You have seen the show, here's the writer's cut, as it were, giving new background to a number of the characters, smoothing out a couple of plot kinks, with combination of tight-third for Rose interspersed with notes from the omniscient narrator explaining what was happening. We lose a couple of the good lines ("He's a bit pretty" / "I hadn't noticed") but we get a lot more in other areas. Well worth adding to the collection.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/dalek-by-billy-seguire-and-robert-shearman/

Coming to it again just after rewatching the TV episode, I noticed several significant points that I should have remarked on first time around. Goddard is actually an FBI plant, and takes over operations from Van Statten a bit earlier (which makes sense). We get a lot more about everyone’s background, including the security guards. Adam’s personal weapons cache has been built up by him in case he might need to shoot his way out. It’s very satisfactory.

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!
You feel as if you have been exterminated by the time you get to the end of this book. It's stuff of nightmares all the extras even a Dalek biography this 100% more than what was shown on the TV. Background stories that have you crying.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

On television, "Dalek" is a masterpiece and possibly the best hour of the revived Doctor Who has yet produced. I've loved it since it first enthralled me upon first airing and it's probably the new Who episode I've revisited the most.

So, when news broke that Rob Shearman was adapting the story for the second set of new Who Target novels, I was very excited. And a bit nervous, fearing the novel might not live up to my lofty expectations. Expectations only grew when the four new Target novels were pushed back a year in the early days of the pandemic and lockdown.*

* On a positive note, this gave me a chance to explore some of Shearman's other writings, including his collection of non-Who short stories. This, as it turns out, was a very good thing.

And so it was, at last, that the four new Target novels hit my download queue and I could finally take a listen to "Dalek." And I'm happy to report that Shearman has hit out of the park with this one. He's taken one of the quintessential episodes of Doctor Who and turned it into a quintessential Target adaptation. I'm not sure I could have enjoyed this one more.

Like many of the great Target novels of my youth, Shearman tells the same story in an entirely different way on the printed page. The original episode is a bit action-heavy, which Shearman translates well to the printed page. But beyond that, he uses the printed page to explore the characters more -- providing backstory to many of the major and minor characters we meet in the Dalek's attack on VanStatten's underground bunker. The backstories fill in a few details and created an investment so that when many of these characters are exterminated (and there is a lot of exterminated going on here), the loss is felt a bit more profoundly.

There's even a passage in which Shearman examines what it really means to have a Dalek exterminate someone that is truly haunting and memorable.

This is one of the few books that not only lived up to but exceeded my expectations. I couldn't be happier with it. Listening to the audio, the performance by Nick Briggs is nothing short of spectacular.

This one sits up there with "Day of the Daleks," "Remembrance of the Daleks," Black Orchid," and "The Cave Monsters," and "The Curse of Fenric" as one of the crown jewels of the Target line.

[Helen (they or he) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is now one of my favorite Doctor Who novelisations. I'm in awe of just how much this book makes the episode better. The episode itself was already so good but the book made it to a whole new level of awesome. The characters of the episode were fleshed out, they were given names and stories. At first, I thought "Oh, great. Now I have to care for minor characters. I don't want to." But as it went on, they just made so much more sense. Before today, I would never remember the character's names in the episode. Now I can tell you what their family's names were. The writing is just so... extra-terrestial. Out of this world.

[Paul Griggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many fans who became professional writers, Robert Shearman grew up on the Target novelisations and now, given the chance to represent his classic Ninth Doctor adventure, he does so in a style inspired by Malcolm Hulke as he expands on the background of many of his characters. It also gives us a look at the story minus Russell T Davies own polish showing minor differences to the dialogue and plotting while still presenting the story that is recognisably “Dalek”. Masterpiece.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dalek" is a perfect episode of "Doctor Who". It’s got great character work, thrilling action sequences, and an expertly crafted and executed plot. The idea of novelizing the episode must have been a daunting one for Robert Shearman, the episode’s original writer and the author of this new Target novelization. How do you successfully translate the episode’s bone-chilling tension into prose? The answer, in "Dalek"’s case, is that you don’t. Instead, Shearman takes the opportunity to delve deeper into the story, stretching out the backstories of all of the characters and allowing the narrative a lot of room to breathe. This results in a compelling novel, but one that lacks the tension and focus of the episode it’s adapting. It’s a fun read—but a wildly different experience when compared to the episode.

On the surface, Robert Shearman’s novelization of "Dalek" closely follows the events of the episode. The Doctor and Rose pick up a distress signal and arrive in Henry Van Statten’s underground alien museum. They find a lone Dalek chained up, having been subjected to various forms of torture to get it to talk. Naturally, the Dalek (with a little inadvertent help from Rose) breaks free and reins terror on almost everyone trapped in the fortress. It’s a simple plot, but one that allowed the episode’s direction and character work to take center stage. The episode works as well as it does because it’s brilliantly directed, Rose and the Doctor are given a lot of great character work to play with, and Billie Piper and Christopher Ecclestone take that character work and deliver breathtaking performances. You lose all of these qualities in a novelization, as the reader only has whatever the writer’s written to go off of. Now, to be fair, Shearman has a true gift with words. His prose is so easy to read, striking a perfect balance between description, emotion, and action. There’s never a dull moment in the book, and you get the impression Shearman has a perfect understanding of the story he wants to tell—and that understanding results in an expertly crafted narrative.

The problem is that, compared to the episode, Shearman’s novelization of "Dalek" is rather unfocused. If you’ve always found yourself wanting to know the backstories of all of the side characters, then Shearman’s novelization is the book for you. Every single side character—Van Statten, Goddard, Adam, Simmons, Bywater, and the Dalek—gets an expanded backstory. These backstories mostly enrich the characters, giving readers a much better understanding of why certain people do certain things. Surprisingly, the Dalek ends up being one of the most compelling characters, with Shearman emphasizing how unique this particular Dalek is when compared to its brethren; how its personality has been shaped by the specific trauma it’s undergone. However, these expanded backstories come at the cost of the book’s main characters and the story’s tension. The Doctor and Rose receive the least attention of any of the named characters in the book, often fading into the background as Shearman focuses extensively on another side character. We still get all of the powerful moments from the episode, with the Doctor showing exactly how he came to have the reputation he has. But these moments fall a bit flat when we spend so little time with the Doctor and Rose. When the main characters fade away into the background, it’s kind of hard to care about their journeys. They don’t seem to be at the top of Shearman’s list of concerns, so they’re not at the top of ours either.

The same is generally true for the book’s plot. The episode is a tightly-paced, claustrophobic affair—similar, in many ways, to Ridley Scott’s "Alien" film. Everyone is trapped in this fairly small location with an alien hellbent on killing them. Everything that happens in the episode is in service of this plot, and then tension just keeps increasing with every moment that passes. This isn’t the vibe emitted by the novel. Here, everything feels a bit more relaxed. Shearman takes his time putting all of the pieces on the board, and then he takes even more time slowly moving them from Point A to Point B. Those expanded backstories are scattered throughout the book, often placed at pivotal moments in the narrative. And, unfortunately, they tend to grind the narrative to a screeching halt. It’s hard to go from a thrilling action scene to a very lengthy delve into the backstory of a character who’s either just been killed or is just about to be killed while still maintaining any kind of tension. And that’s exactly what the novel lacks—tension. Now, the story works reasonably well without this tension, becoming more of an examination of how these individual people react in the face of certain Dalek-related death. But the lesser tension is very noticeable and sometimes detracts from the book’s effectiveness. I understand, and appreciate, the desire to use a novelization to delve deeper into underexplored characters, but there’s a balance between doing that and still focusing on the narrative’s core elements—and I’m just not sure Shearman’s "Dalek" novelization struck that balance. This doesn’t end up being a deal-breaker or anything, but it is a bit of a disappointment.

Ultimately, whether or not you enjoy Robert Shearman’s novelization of "Dalek" is gonna depend on what you wanted out of it. If you wanted something as tense and thrilling as the original TV episode, you’ll be wildly disappointed. But if you wanted a nice, expansive look at the story that acts more as a complementary companion to the story, instead of a replacement for it, then you’ll be enraptured by this book. All of the added character beats are, pun-intended, fantastic. But they come at the cost of some of the narrative’s best elements. The Doctor and Rose fade into the background some, and the story’s nowhere near as tense as it could be. But it’s still a fun read. It’s a wildly different experience when compared to the episode, but it’s not a bad time. It’s just… different. In good ways and bad ones. And that’s probably how these Target novelizations should be. Overall, "Dalek" is a fun read and a lovely companion to one of my favorite "Doctor Who" episodes. It’s well worth a read, even if it’s not perfect.

[S.E. Martens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was mixed on this book for the first half. Shearman also wrote the episode, which is excellent, but the way he chose to craft the novelization involved adding multiple chapters explaining the full backstory of nearly every minor and supporting character. And sure, some backstory for the main antagonists is useful, but when it comes to a random guard, or the man who tortures the Dalek, it only interrupts the flow of the narrative.

But then we get to "The Soldier's Tale" - which is the backstory of the Dalek itself - and that was excellent. It was really unexpected and good and surprisingly devastating. Page 165, man.

There are some more differences to the ending that I thought worked really well. In the end, I appreciated how well this all came together.

[Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be my favorite episode of "Doctor Who," ever. Coincidently, it's also the episode that first sold me on the show. I'll never forget the chills that ran down eleven-year-old me's spine during the Dalek reveal. Seeing absolute terror on Nine's face drew me in, and solidified my interest in all things related to Whovian lore. That was nearly seven years ago, and I'm still haunted by the story, the complex themes, and the brilliant acting.

So, suffice to say, my expectations for this novelization were high. Thankfully, they were very well met! Shearman did a great job creating rich, dynamic backstories for even the simplest of background characters. The lone Dalek's, in particular, is gripping, and surprisingly had me in tears. A tortured mess of an alien child, bred solely to hate and abhor fear? And now he's got to experience human emotion for the first time in his hateful life? UGH!! That's some good stuff.

There are so many reasons why I love this story. My brain is too much of a jumbled mess to explain everything. However, the strange kinship that's found between the Doctor and Dalek—each the sole survivor of their species following the Time War— that's the best kind of "Doctor Who" content for me. These enemies are hell-bent on the destruction of one another, and yet, in a completely unexpected way, their foils transform into common ground. Thanks to Rose, the Dalek learns human emotion. The Doctor—who has sworn against weapons—carries a gun, because he has a shot to end the Time War, once and for all. Also, the whole exchange between the Dalek and the Doctor on the video cams???? AGHHHHHHHHH IT JUST MAKES ME SO EMOTIONAL!!!!


On my life, this scene is one of the greatest in all DW. Y'all have no idea how many times I've rewatched it. Anyway, link plug cause everyone needs to do the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92DXk...

This review is so long, and I haven't even talked about the Rose Tyler stuff yet. And honestly, if you know me, I've probably already given you the rant about how good she is in this episode 100,000 times.


This breaks my heart, every damn time.

Anyway, yeah...I have a bit of an emotional attachment to this story. Thanks for checking out my extremely long and over-the-top rant/review. 5 stars might be a little inflated (I wish there were more Doctor and Rose sections), but I physically can't give anything related to this episode less than 5/5. Go check this out Whovians. I need sleep.

[Amy Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"This is the story of Maya Klein. It is not a remarkable story, and neither is it a happy one. But it won't take long to tell."

Robert Shearman is a brilliant Doctor Who writer, but he is also a brilliant prose writer, and 'Dalek' is very much a Robert Shearman book. It's creepy, it's gory, it's weird, it's absurd. It's confident.

It's still Doctor Who, and the book captures perfectly why this story is one of the most important in New Who at least, if not the whole show. Nine and Rose are amazing; after all this time they're still such distinct, magnetic characters, and this moment is pivotal in their dynamic.

"Rose Tyler hadn't been travelling with the doctor long, but already she thought she knew him better than she'd ever known anyone."

I just wish my tastes were more attuned to Shearman's style.

[Nicola Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been enjoying watching the episode and chasing them up with the Target novel adaptations and just wish they’d done more of the first series with Christopher Eccleston! Rose and Dalek that they’ve done in this series have both been fab and await the day they release more!

With the 20th year anniversary since their first airing, I decided to revisit this and listen to the audiobook narrated by the legendary voice of the daleks (Nicholas Briggs) himself. It was narrated really well and I love the added bits of extra detail they add to the novels which flesh out the stories we already know so well.

I don’t think I’ll ever not enjoy these novels and plan on making my through all if I can!

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love about the best Target novels is that the authors take any number of approaches to adapt their work in interesting ways...and Rob Shearman hits a home run in this department. He takes his television episode and strips down the narrative to its emotional basics, pushing aside most of the secondary characters. The result maintains the focus on the Doctor, Rose, the Dalek, and Van Statten...maximizing the intensity of their journey. But the secondary characters aren't forgotten: they all get their own interludes, most of which are tragic, disturbing, or achingly sad. The end result is that "Dalek" the Target novel is a much darker and more dramatic adventure when compared to its TV incarnation, and confounds expectations time and time again. This is utterly superb work.

[John Peel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the novelization of the story that brought the Daleks back to "Doctor Who" after the show's revival. It was one of the best TV episodes, so I was looking forward to the book version. This fills out the characters in the story, giving them more personality than simply "Victim #1" and so forth. The only problem with that is that the author feels the need to make them all into characters that all deserved to be killed off for one reason or another. Other than that, a decent and readable book.

[Dominic King · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of both Rob Shearman's writing and the episode 'Dalek', this is a wonderful addition. Rather than a replacement experience, like some of the novelisation, this is more of a supplementary piece. It adds insight from all (and I mean all), of the secondary characters, in a way that really enriches the story. Basically the episode Dalek plus 5 or so Rob Shearman short stories, what's not to enjoy?

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Doctor and Rose Tyler find themselves in a bunker half a mile below Utah where a multi billionaire has a secret collection of alien artefacts, including an old enemy of the Doctor's.

Shearman adapts his television episode version of the Big Finish audio play 'Jubilee' and this works well in the main, though Henry van Statten's back story is weak and Adam Mitchell does not feel right.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great episode, and it made for a great book. I really liked the expansions to the episode plot, and the deep dives into individual characters. The book formatting allowed for more depth to The Doctor's thoughts and actions, and it added a lot of interesting moments for the Dalek. Overall really good, I would recommend it!

[Imroze Aslam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Doctor Who novel. It's the novelization of an iconic episode from the show. The premise was quite interesting and deep with themes similar to psychology, consciousness, negotiation, hate, forgiveness, morality, evolution, obedience and even Artificial Intelligence. Overall it was a nice novel and a memorable experience but it felt a bit incoherent at some places.

[Gabriel Mero · Rating 4 out of 5]

The episode this novelization was based on was one of the best episodes in the first series; this novel did a good job of taking the story and expanding it with back stories for the characters, especially Van Statten. However, I felt like the MC of this book was Van Statten, and the Doctor and Rose were barely there in the background. I was disappointed that Rose's farewell speech to the Doctor was omitted.

[Jadyn Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting. It was my first time reading a Doctor Who Target novelization, and it wasn’t what I expected. It went into a lot of detail on the backstories of the minor characters which I’d never really found myself wanting to know, and didn’t really care about. It was a pretty quick read.

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was perfection. The author took a well known story and truly made it his own. I liked that it wasn't a simple retelling of the episode; minor characters were given compelling backstories and throwaway lines from the episode could fill a chapter.

[C R E Mullins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalek, by Robert Shearman, was the first Doctor Who story I ever watched. I saw it at school on a VHS tape in the spring of 2005 not long after it first aired, and I remember finding it terrifying and fascinating. To this day it is my favourite Doctor Who TV story and I've rewatched it many times.

When this novelisation was announced, sixteen years on, I decided to preorder it, and I only just got around to reading it.

Here are my takeaways:

The good: I love the way the novelisation expands on the characters' backstories. The Dalek, Simmons, Henry Van Statten, Adam and Goddard all get given interesting character studies that expand and develop their characters beyond the forty-five minutes allotted in the original TV story. In this light, Van Statten becomes a tragic, though still contemptible figure, and the Dalek, conversely, becomes an even more richly-developed character, and every bit as tragic as on television.

I also appreciated much of the changes the novelisation makes to the TV story, in particular giving Van Statten a far more deserved punishment. I liked that the story also made use of some of the sixteen years of canon that have developed since the original story's airing; the cameo appearance of John Hurt's War Doctor was welcome and appropriate.

What's more, the already frightening sequences of mass-murder carried out by the Dalek in the TV story are made all the more horrific by Shearman's gruesome descriptions of just exactly how the Dalek's death-ray brutally exterminates people.

The bad: Unfortunately, the novel feels at times like it over-relies on having previously seen the TV story to fully appreciate it. The third-person omniscient narration works quite well, but the narration seems to be in two minds about whether it wants to be third-person subjective, leading to this strange, disjointed feeling like we're not allowed to be in the characters' heads for too long.

Additionally, I found that for all the development of the one-episode characters, the Doctor and Rose come off as remarkably underdeveloped - we're given little insight into their states of mind, and they feel almost as if they're just acting out the lines from the TV episode. This has the effect of making the Doctor and Rose feel like non-entities in a story in which they are meant to be the protagonists. I think I would have liked to have spent more time in the Doctor's and Rose's heads, and given how short this novel is I don't think that would have been a big ask.

Overall, I recommend this novel as a supplement to the television story, as the character work is extremely strong, and I genuinely did appreciate the way it expands many of the characters beyond mere one-dimensional corpses-in-waiting. That said, I do not think it is an adequate substitute for the television story, and for a Doctor Who novel it's remarkably light on the Doctor and his companion. It's by no means a bad novelisation, but it could have been better.

[Logan Irrelevant · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Rating: 3.5 Stars] 🧡

“I was never intended to have choice…”

Now, I didn’t mention this in my previous review on the first of these episode novelizations I read, but I adore the cover artwork and the paper texture of the outside of the book. The inside is also decent but that’s kind of a given, isn’t it? It feels really unique in the hand and folds open very, very easily; which is in stark contrast to the book I read before this, Dune, which was a pain to pry open. Nice change of pace.

Dalek is one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who ever. It’s one of the highlights of series one, topping episodes like Father’s Day and Bad Wolf, and was the first episode of the new run to really tie the bow between Classic Who and Revival era Who. The whole, “base under siege,” concept, popularized in the Troughton era, was one that grew to define the show as it went on, and this was the first episode that really effectively brought that back, and might have actually have created the definitive version of the trope.

The writer of this episode, Robert Shearman, was a writer for Doctor Who strictly through Big Finish and their audiodramas and he was a writer of some of the more favorite/popular stories of the time and it’s nice to see along with Russell T, Steven Moffat, and presumably some others all writers from the wilderness years to piece together the first new series. The fans, sometimes, have a good sense for what works, and this is one of the few examples where that was proven full heartedly.

The original episode has stood the test of time, but so has the tradition of creating these novelizations tying into the original episodes. It’s a trend that’s sort of died out since home media became a thing, but it’s always been a good outlet for the writers to really get their work out there the way they would like, to a certain extent. I found myself with ten of them and this is the second one I’ve gotten to.

Does it live up to the original episode?

To start, you’ve got to talk about the differences; or at least that’s what I feel is most “at hand” right now. Throughout the novel, I believe something like every other chapter cuts away from the main story and develops some sort of backstory. The first we get and the only recurring storyline is that of a boy on a hill, no memory of anything except roles, holding a kite without a spool, only to be crushed in by the finger erasing memory.

There’s a lot of directions you can take that, it ties directly into another of the stories with the Dalek referring to authorities as father and the boy does the same in the final chapter, so it’s very clear that throughout, the boy is a parallel to the Dalek. What makes it hard to completely pinpoint is the fact that it’s completely fake, a vision pressed onto a Dalek at birth, given seven seconds, then wiped and chopped and scrutinized.

It’s very interesting to see this built upon and elaborated, creating a mythos around all the goings on with the Dalek’s, and the fact that it’s a child, a lost child, ties in quite well with the rest of the perspectives in the novel. Adam Mitchell as a child, growing up into his current position, Maya’s child and her growing disconnection with him, I forgot the name but the one with the headaches and homocidal tendencies becoming the torturer of the Dalek under Van Statton, and Van Statton himself as a child, the boy raised by a man not dissimilar to himself, but with different concepts.

Next to the mystique of the Dalek/Hill chapters, the Statton backstory is something I wasn’t expecting, not that I was expecting any in the first place, but came out as one of my favorite additions to the story.

In the previous novelization I read, Rose, Russell added unnecessary details into the story, a certain type of course correction or completion of ideas left unexplored in the final episode. While it was interesting, the constant wavering storyline was just weak. It felt “additional,” making the whole thing seem a little unimportant.

In this, that’s not the case. In this, Shearman uses this newfound artistic liberty, the medium he was always most comfortable in, to take the story he wrote in 2005, and rather than just checking boxes of, “What he wished he had done,” he instead took the format in its stride, allowed some creative license and abstract thinking to be applied to the material, had some fun with it, and built these well placed stories, all connected to the people and narrative at hand, and left the story much more complete and fulfilled than before.

Something I wasn’t expecting after the previous novel.

It has its own voice as a whole, a personality, a certain prose. While it likes to refer to things as they will happen and then move to when they have, one of the few hiccups, it does create a certain perspective and progression that allows the book to flow very well.

That being said, it’s not the most thrilling book ever made. Yes, it’s a clearly defined, well deserved, and fascinating thing both on its own and in relation to the original episode, but it also builds on the more straightforward narrative and story than trying to create something emotionally complex or even riveting. It has those moments, for sure, and it really taps into the extent of the effects of certain things, but it never really allows itself to be anything more than very firmly defined.

It’s not one that left me particularly moved, unlike the previous one I read, which I now find incredibly ironic, but it was one that left me much more satisfied. It was just a very well thought out, interesting, and compelling development in the story. It allows itself to look more large scale than the episode while still getting across the intimacy better than the episode ever could.

I do find it interesting how small The Doctor and Rose are in the story though, they are technically the leading characters but we spend so much time with everyone else that they almost seem like just the character interacting with the larger puzzle, and I find that very interesting. The episode is more from the pair’s perspective than anything, seeing everything slowly revealed, but here, we already have all the foreknowledge, so much so we get the backstory, and it allows this to feel like something a lot bigger than before, dwarfing our leads

I love stuff like that.

It’s not a particularly quotable book, which is a shame, but it flows very well, is written very well, makes you think, builds on the original story without contradicting it too often, allowed Shearman to express what he was really going for quite a bit better than before, especially regarding the insanity of the Dalek, and I feel the added layers here not only made for a very strong book but will vastly improve on the episode once I return to it.

Before I go, I just want to talk about one thing. Van Statton’s tiny telescope, his toy telescope on his desk. Something that before might’ve seemed like something making the man more impish than ever now given a touching and tragic backstory, something that makes you shudder when The Doctor disregards it, something as small as a toy telescope being given genuine emotional weight within a story as large scale as this became.

I find that lovely…

“The little boy stood on a hill, until the hill was crushed beneath him…”

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rob Shearman’s contributions to Doctor Who are mostly bizarre audio dramas, and his TV episode - Dalek - isn’t hugely representative. Away from the whipcrack of 45 minute television his work thrives on black comedy and warped families. Dalek, by comparison, felt like a slightly mercenary race against a monster.

This novelisation goes some way to restoring the author’s oddness. It adds heaps of (usually disturbing) back story for the peripheral characters, from seemingly random guards to the Dalek itself, and there is invariably some sympathy mixed in with the disgust. It feels more like a Rob Shearman story now. It removes a few scenes (and heartbreakingly, the hairdryer joke), which may point to which bits were and were not Shearman’s doing on screen.

For all the luscious extra detail, the story itself feels almost vestigial now - a minor inconvenience to which we must occasionally return. The plot remains simply that a rich collector has a damaged Dalek in his possession, the Doctor wakes it up, it rampages, it imprints on Rose, it dies. Thinking back on the episode afterwards it surely must be about twenty minutes long! All the best bits here are in the expanded material, with the dialogue seeming to whip along even faster than it did on screen. The whole thing feels at once very detailed and very brisk, but this is sort of perfect for a Target book.

The Doctor and Rose are the only ones not expanded upon. Maybe it was all said on screen, or in subsequent episodes, so there’s no need to dig further. Whatever the reason, it feels like this novelisation takes place next door to the episode about those characters, is an interpretation of those events rather than a definitive version. That or the Doctor and Rose have somehow landed in a novel that is about everyone else but them.

Dalek (the novelisation) takes a solid episode and adds plenty to think about, as well as being funny and a bit horrible. It’s great. Now let’s all go and investigate the author’s other work.

[Plingsben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending of the *opinion alert* the best Dalek episode felt a bit stale because of the puppet of the inner Dalek looks quite bad. Every time I watch the scene I struggle to feel anything. In fairness they were on a limited budget while in episodes like Daleks Take Manhattan and the Stolen Earth the Daleks look far more fluid. When I read the scene in prose I had a much better emotional reaction that was unhindered by 2005 level practical effects effects. I did like the background details for some side characters but I think Henry Van Staten had maybe a little too much backstory.

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 5 out of 5]

When watching the television episode “Dalek” while the script is clearly from Robert Shearman, you can tell that Shearman’s more esoteric tendencies had been pulled back for a 2005 television audience. Giving Shearman a chance to novelize his script as part of the second wave of revival novelizations is perhaps the best reason to read Dalek over the television episode. Shearman does adapt the television episode in an almost Terrance Dicks style fashion when it is events of the episode. Much of the dialogue remains in tact and the sequence of events themselves are not actually expanded upon for the novel format, the plot points occur in the exact sequence bar some minor alterations with Van Statten’s introductory sequence being placed near the end of the novel as Shearman excels at adding events outside of the story to really make Dalek its own distinct Robert Shearman entity. Perhaps invoking Terrance Dicks when discussing the events of the episode does Shearman a disservice, as while Dicks could be rather plain in his prose, Shearman while not particularly flowery in the sections from the episode, is deliberately simple which creates this sense of realism throughout the novel. As an author, Shearman’s realism contributes to this atmosphere of almost magical realism, especially for Dalek becoming apparent when you examine the additions to the script from Shearman.

The novel opens with a prologue about a child flying a kite, imagery intent on evoking the perfect childhood innocence. The prologue doesn’t reveal who the child represents, yet throughout the novel there are multiple candidates. Readers may have the first impression be the Doctor, the Ninth Doctor featured in the rest of the novel is clearly scarred by the Time War, but there are several added interludes to provide background information for the supporting characters. This leads the reader to believe the child with the kite could be perhaps any of them, until the eventual reveal that this child is the fleeting memories of the Dalek itself. Shearman in flashback shows the mutilation of a Kaled child into becoming a Dalek, mutated and mutilated from birth, fascist conditioning being a fascinating concept for Shearman to explore in this particular flashback. Shearman proposes the more ‘human’ range of emotions outside of hate and fear are allowed to be felt at the beginning of the process before the creature can be broken, leaving some sense of ambition to play its part in Dalek society. It’s a genuinely revolting chapter to read which of course is what makes it work.

The dark edge also permeates the backstories of the rest of the characters in some way. For instance, Simmons, the Dalek’s torturer, is a psychotic man who had assumed the identity of Simmons after murdering him and entering van Staten’s employ, showing the breadth of van Staten’s power and ability. Or take van Staten himself, neglected by his father and obsessed with capital in all of its forms, though the abuse giving him an equal obsession with space, plus an added breakdown at the end. While characters like Adam and Goddard are made more sympathetic by their interludes, Goddard being revealed as working undercover for the United States government and Adam revealed to being a bit more misunderstood, if still unworthy to travel in the TARDIS. Adam joining the TARDIS at the end also has this great moment for the Doctor added, scarred by the experience with the Dalek only offers to bring him aboard as a way to induce change and growth in himself.

Overall, Dalek is a fascinating little novelization that doesn’t try to put back in scenes cut for time, instead spending its time making the tone of the story vastly different from the television episode and deepening the side characters for the best. This depth also allows the Doctor and Rose’s characterizations to deepen as well, making it just as enjoyable as the television story and a triumph of adaptation. 10/10.

[DevryBasketball · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like your enjoyment of Dalek is predicated on how enamoured you are with the idea a) of the Daleks as more humanised (yuck) and b) the time war and the Russel T. Davies era "last of my race" histrionics (mega yuck).

On the former point, it's missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The Daleks at their best (Power, Remembrance and Jubilee, in case you were wondering) work as big, pompous allegory, two dimensional on the face of it but replete with big fat juicy Socratic questions. Shearman makes a valiant effort, and I hesitate to call the end-result bad or poorly executed as just sort of mildly bewildering. Dalek has to cop to an internal contradiction that its thesis statement is that even the uncomplicated pepperpots can have feelings, but also cede that those feelings are as a direct result of Rose's influence.

But the idea of humanising and expanding oft-cliched stock characters does come to the fore in some fascinating ways here. Interspersed with the main narrative (perhaps out of acknowledgement that the plot itself really can't sustain novel length) are short segments diving into the backstories and motivations behind the redshirts, minor characters and plot devices. Shearman gives a real bittersweet pathos to characters who go largely faceless and unacknowledged in genre works, and it works more often than it doesn't. I won't exactly call these backstories burning with originality, but hey, it's a sci fi novella. Lighten up.

On the second point, and at the risk of sounding excessively cold and snooty, boy do I not in the least care about the time war and The Doctor's angst. Even if I could forgive how cliched it is and how little it adds to the mythos, it's got absolutely no narrative legs. To wit, Dalek brings up imagery surrounding the parallels between The Doctor and the last Dalek but the statement itself just seems to be a resigned shrug. The cost of this shrug is that The Doctor gets to be characterised as a quite unpleasant and melodramatic moper. The Doctor in the Virgin New Adventures could angst himself into a singularity, but he's the picture of stability and good humour compared to this goober. The Ninth Doctor could be a cheery fella, but here he's reduced to shouting like an infant and inwardly chastising himself for his every thought like he were in a convent. He's the worst character in the book so it's quite merciful that he's not in for very much.

Shearman writes as though attempting to justify the conceit of this novelisation, not a 1-to-1 expounding of the screenplay like back in the old days but a true blue attempt to retrofit the story from one medium into an entirely different one. It works. He avoids being prosaic except when he needs to be, and there are times that he taps into something more tactile than a visual medium like television could. I can't speak to if it's an improvement on the TV episode (since I haven't seen it and never will), but it worked here. It felt like a novelisation that needed to exist, unlike many of the originals. Given the inherently anachronistic nature of this series, I'd say that's for the best.

I liked Dalek overall, but that does come with the caveat that I'm almost positive that it's not for me. I'm the kind of Doctor Who fan who really prefers their spacefaring sci fi serials to be more about making bold operatic statements than about being quiet intimate character plays. Still if there's a place in my heart for Shearman's "Scherzo" the cause isn't entirely hopeless. But it's not diplomatic enough to come and meet me halfway like that serial did. I was, in parts, too ambitious and in the parts I would have preferred it to be, not ambitious enough. Sometimes that's the way it be.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Shearman had a major responsibility back in 2005 when he was given the job of penning the return of Doctor Who's most iconic villains; the Daleks! As the show was being released to a whole new generation with maturity and realism embedded in the theme it was up to Shearman to bring the Dalek's into the modern age. It's been noted that Shearman wanted to give a lot of credibility and terror back into Doctor's most iconic enemies and try to take them away from ridicule and mockery they were often associated with leading up to that point.

The story of Dalek follows the 9th Doctor and Rose Tyler as they follow a distress signal to Utah. Inside a underground base ran by the egotistical millionaire Henry Van Statten we see the Doctor come face to face with the sins of his past when he meets the last surviving Dalek of the Time War. The unexpected reunion forces the Doctor to reflect on the dark reality of his actions in the Time War and in turn face his hatred for his oldest enemies. Through Rose we see the Dalek find a way to escape the confines of it's cell and the story turns into a base under siege story.

The narrative here is fantastic and is still to this day one of my favourite Dalek stories in the show. The idea of a putting a infamously evil and powerful force such as a Dalek in a more vulnerable and character driven story offers a great way to explore their identities and relevancy in the modern iteration of the show. This Dalek is just as dangerous as a whole army from the old show but Shearman uses Rose and the Doctor's relationship with the creature to also explore some more interesting concepts rooted in their identities and purpose in a post-Time War landscape. Both the Doctor and the Dalek are the last of their kinds and while the Doctor hides behind their differences the Dalek toys with the Doctor by showing how much they are alike. The narrative is all about exploring relationships, The Dalek, the Doctor and Rose are all utilised brilliantly to show how much mature the show has become by exploring the post-war trauma and deep rooted ideologies of resentments and hatred.

Pacing and tone delivery of the novel are also great for the most part. Shearman handles tone brilliantly in the story. A lot of the moments of interactions and conflict show an incredible sense of maturity. There is so much anger and hatred shared between the Doctor and the Dalek and it makes for some truly compelling character moments when you see these two relics of a huge scale war relive the wounds of their past. Rose in turn serves as an emotional and optimistic challenge to their old hatreds and it's through her empathetic nature we see some of the best character exploration sequences for the Dalek and the Doctor. One thing I didn't gel with too well in the novel though was the pace breaking character stories Shearman seemed to plop in throughout the story. I appreciate Shearman probably wanted to give a lot of these throwaway characters a bit more of a compelling backstory to make their inclusion in the story feel much more notable. For me though I didn't appreciate how they seemed to cut the pacing and tension short to tell a completely separate story, I often found myself resenting them and just wanting to get back to the ongoing story instead.

Dalek is a great story in a lot of respects. It cements the pepperpots as a credible force to be reckoned with for a new generation while also taking the opportunity to explore their identities and in turn further explore a post time war Doctor and the decades of history he has with the creatures.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the 1970s and into the 1980s, the only way fans of Doctor Who often could encounter an older story was by reading it. The Target novelizations were slim books, frequently running little more than 150 pages. Yet, they became the cornerstone of the show's merchandise. These days, of course, that isn't the case with options, including DVDs and streaming platforms. That hasn't stopped such demand for new Target-style novelizations of twenty-first-century episodes, which BBC Books began obliging with in 2019, with a new batch released in spring 2021. One of the most anticipated was Dalek, the novelization of the 2005 episode that brought Doctor Who's greatest monster back to the screen and penned by its original scriptwriter, Robert Shearman.

When the original Target books were in their heyday, they generally came in two types. The first, and by far the most common, were straightforward adaptations of the episodes that (at worst) felt like a copy and paste of the script with a few lines of description and "said" added. On the other hand, you would also get books that expanded upon the televised stories with more detail and backstories or, in some cases, reinstating material cut for time. Shearman's Dalek falls into the latter category, and the results are nothing short of intriguing.

For starters, Shearman interspaces little interludes at intervals between moments from the TV episode. These various “Tales” by Shearman, they offer insights into the past lives of the characters we meet in the underground base in Utah. They range from Dalek torturer Simmons and how billionaire Henry van Statten acquired the Dalek to an almost complete reinvention of the Diana Goddard character. The best of them, The Soldier's Tale, comes late in the book but is a powerful and even unsettling piece of storytelling in its own right. Each of them, and one about the guard who helps Rose and Adam escape to safety about midway through the narrative, are highlights. Together, they tell the story of how they ended up half a mile underground in Utah while adding to its emotional pull.

Those aren't the only changes that Shearman makes. Fans of the TV episode (as this reviewer is), you're going to be surprised by how much Shearman essentially rewrites the episode. Character introductions are moved about or reimagined, and pieces of dialogue (such as the exchange between van Statten and Goddard about who the next US President should be) get moved around. Elsewhere, moments such as the Cyberman's head in the museum are entirely missing. Shearman also puts in much of his trademark dark humor, toned down during the original TV episode's adaptation from the Big Finish story Jubilee, including a delicious flashback to a golf game with the US President. Many of the changes work wonderfully in context though I can't help feeling that the changes to the ending undermine the characters of van Statten and Goddard to an extent. In doing so, Shearman creates a version of Dalek (to paraphrase the strapline of the Virgin New Adventures of yesteryear) broader and deeper than what viewers saw in 2005.

Perhaps the best way to sum up this version of Dalek is that it isn't so much a novelization as it is a slight reimagining of it in prose. From expanded character backstories to new twists on familiar scenes, Shearman creates an intriguing new take on his classic episode. For fans of one of the best episodes of the 2005 series or Shearman's writing, Dalek is simply a must for their collection.

[Kaoru · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a recent interview with the Doctor Who Magazine, Shearman said that (and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't have a copy of said issue at hand) when he was attempting to write this novelization he came to realize that regarding the plot there wasn't all that much to the TV episode. Overall it's just a bunch of people running away from a Dalek. So to make the story novel-worthy he had to look into the 'past' and expand on the characters' backgrounds, which is achieved by a myriad of extended flashbacks between chapters.

The result is something that could probably be viewed from two sides. They barely have an impact on the main story, so one might very well argue that it's obvious that they're only there to stretch things out to make up enough pages for a novel (with a quite large font size). On the other hand they weave a web of lore around the van Statten basement that is just as interesting to read as to see all its pieces falling into place over the course of the pages. Not to mention that they're often the best part of the book, showing some shearmansian moments that one didn't get to see that much in the transmitted episode. As neat as 'Dalek' on TV was, it had very little of one would come to expect from a Shearman-penned story, and it probably could have been written by anybody. But here, in all these little side-arms, we get them all; the grotesque black humor, the slightly warped characters and delicious nastiness sprinkled over the dialogue. Paired with the main thread as seen on TV it works and it doesn't work at the same time. I'm not sure if it all fully gels, but at the very least it makes for an interesting read, especially for those who come to this book mainly because it was written by Shearman, not just because it's Doctor Who and it has a Dalek in it.

What's still intact however is the certain blend of wishy-washy magic wand plotting that used to be predominant in the RTD years. I've been trying to wrap my mind around the idea and logistics behind Rose's time-traveler touch somehow bringing the Dalek fully back to life when the episode aired, and I'm still not buying the twist in 2021. So what would have happened if the Doctor had touched it? Would it have gone timelord? Would it have regenerated after it blew itself up? And since when was this a thing in the first place? Why did it never happen before when either the Doctor or one of his companions touched a battered Dalek, and why did it never happen again? I had completely forgotten how this era of the show was littered with these not fully thought through moments like these. They might have been convenient for the script of the day, but they were headaches for the viewers who caught them. Shearman doesn't attempt to make this point any more plausible than it was on TV, instead he rushes through it as quickly as he can, drawing attention towards it as little as possible. I don't blame him, however, because sometimes there's only so much that one can do. After all, to appreciate Doctor Who you sometimes just have to keep an eye or two closed and generously overlook a flaw.