Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks (novelisation)

 was a novelisation based on the 1973 television serial Planet of the Daleks.

1976 edition
Jo peered through the panel and saw nothing. Yet someone had entered the cabin. She could hear hoarse breathing and stealthy padding footsteps. A beaker rose in the air of its own accord, then dropped to the floor … THE INVISIBLE ENEMY

After pursuing the DALEKS through Space, DOCTOR WHO lands on the Planet of Spiridon, in the midst of a tropical jungle … and finds more than Daleks. Vicious plants spitting deadly poison, invisible Spiridons attacking from all sides and, in hiding, a vast army, waits … for the moment to mobilise and CONQUER.

Chapter Titles

 * 1) Jo Alone
 * 2) The Invisible Menace
 * 3) The Deadly Trap
 * 4) In the Power of the Daleks
 * 5) The Escape
 * 6) Danger on Level Zero
 * 7) Ascent to Peril
 * 8) The Enemy Within
 * 9) Vaber's Sacrifice
 * 10) Return to the City
 * 11) An Army Awakes
 * 12) The Last Gamble

Deviations from televised story

 * The Daleks saturated the forests with deadly rays which destroyed most of Spiridon. The cliffhanger ending, left out of PROSE: The Space War is instated here.
 * The supreme Dalek is an envoy from the Dalek Emperor.
 * The Thals give the Doctor and Jo anti-fungus suits.
 * Jo states in the log that the Doctor was injured in a Dalek ambush. In the televised version of Frontier in Space, he was injured in a confrontation with the Master and the Ogrons after the Daleks left.
 * Vaber questions Taron's decision to go and help the Doctor.
 * Codal states that he volunteered for the mission because he was the only scientist young and fit enough, rather than because his entire section volunteered.
 * Vaber is present when Rebec tells Taron about the Dalek army, rather than having gone to look for other survivors.
 * Vaber and Latep's bomb doesn't detonate because it is buried by an icecano, rather than because it was faulty.
 * It is Vaber, rather than Taron, who joins the Doctor in spray-painting the invisible Dalek.
 * Wester removes his robes before releasing the virus, meaning he is invisible at the time. There is no mention of him becoming visible when he dies.

Writing and publishing notes
To be added
 * An unused and unfinished piece of cover artwork for this title by Roy Knipe was later finished and and sold privately in the early 2000s.
 * Title page includes: THE CHANGING FACE OF DOCTOR WHO. The cover illustration of this book portrays the third DOCTOR WHO whose physical appearance was altered by the Time Lords when they banished him to planet Earth in the Twentieth Century.

British publication history
First publication:
 * Hardback
 * W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK


 * Paperback
 * Target

Re-issues:
 * 60p (UK)
 * 1992 Virgin Publishing with a new cover by Alister Pearson priced £2.99 (UK)

Editions published outside Britain

 * Reprinted, with added illustrations, in the 1976 collection Doctor Who and the Daleks Omnibus issued by St. Martins Press.
 * Published in Germany by Schneider-Buch in 1980 as Dr. Who Der Planet der Daleks.

Audiobook
In June 1995, BBC Audio released an abridged audiobook version of the novel, read by Jon Pertwee. It was later reissued on Tales from the TARDIS Volume 2.

An unabridged reading by Mark Gatiss, with Dalek voices provided by Nicholas Briggs, was released by BBC Audio.

The audio set of four CDs was released in June 2013 priced £13.99 (UK)