Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #170

by David Fisher

The Doctor and Romana's search for the fourth segment of the all-powerful Key to Time leads them to the planet Tara, where courtly intrigue and romantic pageantry employ the most sophisticated technology.

Within hours of arriving, Romana is mistaken for a powerful princess and the Doctor forced to dally with robotic royalty - and both are quickly embroiled in the scheming ambitions of the wicked Count Grendel. Finding the segment of the Key is easy enough, but escaping with it in one piece will prove an altogether more colourful affair...

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 2022

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst the second David Fisher story in the Key to Time series arc isn't as strong as The Stones of Blood, both new novelization's that were originally released as audiobooks are finally in print with the latest batch of Target books.

It's true that Fisher improves on Dick's original slim offering with some nice backstory of the history on Tara.
With much more room to breathe, the side characters get fleshed out more.

This is more of an amusing retelling of an average story.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If "The Stones of Blood" felt like David Fisher trying to get back into the Whoniverse groove, then THIS is the book where he hits a bullsye. He's clearly having a blast here, especially with the background of the family Gracht...on the same scale of embellishment that he demonstrated with his novelizations of "Creature From the Pit" and "The Leisure Hive". Sunny and dry in equal measure, and so much fun.

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again proof that the Doctor Who books are different from the series. This was an audio book in 2011 by David Fisher then when he died in 2018 finished off by his son Nick. This has lot of things that in 1978 could not be broadcast because of cost. Even today would be difficult. We get the history of Tara and the original Androids something that we only need in a book.
So let's go fishing. Another one day wonder

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

More expansive than the earlier version, with much more history and backstory. However, with a similar word count, it does beg the question “why?” However, Fisher does pant Tara as being a little more dangerous and less idyllic than Dicks did.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The planet of Tara is facing a time of heightened political tension as a renegade count has designs on the throne. Designs which are accelerated by the appearance of the Doctor and Romana, on their quest to reunite the Key to Time, since Romana is a perfect duplicate of the princess Estrella.

Fisher's novelisation of 'The Androids of Tara' is a great version of the classic 'Doctor Who' story, which develops the new characters and their motivations for the page.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

And so to the second of these latest Doctor Who novelisations, based on the scripts of the original Doctor Who series. (My review of the first, Stones of Blood, also by David Fisher, is also here.)

The Androids of Tara was the story that immediately followed The Stones of Blood in transmission. Starring the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), the television series was transmitted between the 25th November and December 16th 1978. It was the 101st story transmitted.

Like Stones of Blood, this story had an overreaching arc, in that the Doctor, with companion Romana (played by Mary Tamm in the series) and loyal robot K9 are in search of six segments of The Key of Time – the object that will, when assembled, maintain balance between the Black and White Guardians of Time and thus create universal harmony. This particular story deals with the search for the fourth part.

Also like Stones of Blood, this novelisation is an expansion of the original script. An earlier novelisation by Terrance Dicks, published in April 1980, is much shorter, and mainly sticks to the dialogue of the script.

The Doctor and his company land on the planet Tara. They find a world straight out of science fantasy, combining elements of ancient history with degraded technology. The population, decimated by a plague years ago, now survive with a combination of feudal society norms and ancient technology. Much of the food needed to survive, for example, is produced by androids. The style of clothing is straight out of a King Arthur novel, the society securely based on the feudal and hierachical rule of the male.

To this scenario, the arrival of the Doctor, Romana and K9 happens as there is about to be a marriage between Prince Reynart and Princess Strella, but something that Reynart’s cousin, Count Grendel of Gracht is trying to halt, so that he can take the throne himself. The Doctor and Romana, who rather conveniently is the spitting image of the currently-captured Strella, find themselves inadvertently involved when Romana finds the fourth segment of the Key of Time.

It should not surprise well-read readers that this is a variation on one of the most famous classic novels – The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. (Reminds me of that adage, “If you can’t invent, copy.”) In this “sci-fi Ruritania” the emphasis is very much on swashbuckling adventure rather than anything of great portent. The fourth segment of the Key of Time is a very minor part in the story, and seems rather inconsequential here.

With this idea of a swashbuckling adventure in mind, I found The Androids of Tara to have a much jauntier style than The Stones of Blood. The whole story is suffused with a general sense of amusement, which leads to dialogue that feels like something from the Douglas Adams era. This is entertaining, although the downside of this is that at no real point is there a sense of true malice, although the aristocracy are as mean, nasty and vindictive as you can get. Even the point that Grachtian nobles wall up their wives to die when they tired of them is given with a certain glee. This is not a Doctor Who tale to be taken too seriously.

As a romp though, it is great fun. The Doctor and Romana almost bounce their way through the plot, with Romana being not just a female Time Lord but the doppelganger of another character as well. Similarly, as Tom Baker’s Doctor usually did, his Doctor always has a quip or an humorous rebuke close to hand, which again feels very much like the television character.

At the end of the book there is an Afterword, which tells us how this version of the story is slightly different from the audiobook version. Doctor Who afficionados will no doubt find this snippet of Whovian history interesting.

In short, this is a livelier tale of the Fourth Doctor that is pleasingly different from the more serious tone of the previous. Reading them back-to-back, as I guess I would have seen them on television in the 1970’s, this novel shows how the series could be mercurial in its manner and broad in its variety. This novelisation reflects that admirably and is another crackingly entertaining and graciously short read.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-prisoner-of-zenda-by-anthony-hope-the-androids-of-tara-by-terrance-dicks-and-david-fisher/

this is actually the 2022 print version of a 2012 audiobook, slightly adapted for the page (as Steve Cole explains in an endnote). It is thoroughly satisfying. The social structure and recent history of Tara are explained in depth, if still not completely believably, and it’s very clear that the relationship between Count Grendel and his engineer Madame Lamia is sexually as well as economically exploitative. The whole thing feels very much bulked up rather than padded out, and I’m very glad that the BBC asked Fisher to have another go at it before it was too late.

[Rob Keeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read the original novelisation of this by Terrance Dicks years ago, I thought I'd give the new one by the actual screenwriter a go, and to be honest, I think I preferred Terrance's version. Fisher hasn't his ability to bond with the reader or to write a likeable Doctor and while he adds lots of backstory, this often distracts from the main narrative. Sexual references and adult humour also feel out of place in a classic Doctor Who book. Worst of all, a lot of the TV story's most memorable lines ("Do you mind not standing on my chest, my hat's on fire?", "Next time, I shall not be so lenient!") have been cut. Disappointing.

[Travis]

Fun romp that..."borrows", shall we say, quite heavily from the 'Prisoner of Zenda', but adds androids and lasers.
Witty time waster, set in the middle of the 'Key to time' saga.
Everyone in the Tardis crew gets to do something, Count Grendel is a worthy bad guy and Tara is a planet worth revisiting.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

We Absolutely love this story and is great to add to my growing target collection, the story is underrated in the who community but I believe it is a wonderful episode and the novelisation adds so much more wonder and adventure.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun read that I read In one sitting i enjoyed the plot and I love that K9 was In this book I smiled and heard his voice in one head every time I read is dialogue lol

[Sarah Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think ive already forgotten everything that happened in this?? still fun though

[Duncan Steele · Rating 2 out of 5]

The original writer makes a mess of it!!

Next time I shall not be so lenient!!!!

[Dan Herrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, if short and easy, read. I remember the original episodes well.

[Iain Hawkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novelization of the 1978 DW serial of the same name, and about as average as one would expect.

Anyway, the Doctor and Romana go to Tara to find the Key to Time, which is quickly relegated to the sidelines as they wind up in politics on the planet Tara. Tara, or at least this part of it, is a feudal society but where androids are aplenty due to a quirk of technological development in response to plague (Black Plague analogy is obvious). Romana is captured and spends most of the story staying captured without doing anything, leaving the Doctor to use his wits to save the day and navigate Taran politics.

If you can't tell, I didn't think much of this. The idea of a feudal society skipping ahead to developing androids is potentially interesting, but nothing interesting conceptually really comes of it. There's a few times when the author, writing in narrative, tries his hand at satire on the absurdities of the society the pair have found themselves in, but they come and go only as time permits. This is particuarly notable since I've just come off Hogfather which, regardless of my own gripes with that work, keeps its satire constant and on point. At the end of the day, it's just pulp sci-fi, and not particuarly engaging pulp sci-fi at that.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second revised version of a former Terrence novel by David Fisher, and I really liked this version. It expanded on the character of the Archimandrite and was very humorous, although it lost the poignancy of Lamia's love for Grendel, and hints that he actually loved her too. At least we got to see a lot more of Strella, and she wasn't as big a drip as depicted on TV.