Battlefield (novelisation)

Novelisation

 * This novelisation is based on the original television serial Battlefield, written by Ben Aaronovitch and shown from 6 September 1989.
 * The cover and information on the right are for the original Target edition. It featured the artwork of Alister Pearson. (See below for information on editions with different covers).

Publisher's summary
Only a few years from now, a squad of UNIT troops is escorting a nuclear missile through the English countryside. At the nearby archaeological dig, knights in armour are fighting battles with broadswords – and guns and grenades.

The Doctor arrives on the scene and meets two old friends: Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, called out of retirement to help in an emergency, and Bessie the souped-up roadster. Ace escapes from death by drowning in a submerged spaceship, only to find herself at the mercy of a demon known as the Destroyer.

The action is fast and furious, as expected in a script by Ben Aaronovitch, who wrote the classic Remembrance of the Daleks. And why do the knights address the Doctor as 'Merlin'? What is the power of the sword that Ace retrieves from the bottom of the lake? Will Morgaine carry out her threat to destroy the world?

This novelization is by Marc Platt, who both scripted and novelized Ghost Light, the story that immediately followed Battlefield in the 1989 season.

Deviations from televised story

 * A flashback sequence includes an unknown future incarnation of the Doctor, who has red hair and wears a camel-hair coat. This incarnation would later reappear in a cameo sequence in Ben Aaronovitch's PROSE: Transit.

Writing and publishing notes

 * Dedication: “For Ben the perfect gentle Knight who let his humble squire take over the reins”
 * This was the last novelisation of a televised story to be published in the short-form paperback format introduced in 1973; after one non-televised story adaptation, the format would switch to the longer, Virgin Missing Adventures format for the final releases.
 * The novel completed the Seventh Doctor story adaptations, with the exception of the 1996 TV movie which would be adapted by BBC Books five years later.

British publication history
One single paperback edition, priced £2.50 (UK), estimated print run: 22,000 copies.