Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks (novelisation)

Novelisation

 * This novelisation is based on the original television serial (DW): Destiny of the Daleks which was shown from 1st September 1979 and written by Terry Nation
 * The cover and information shown on the right is for the original Target novel and featured the artwork of Andrew Skilleter. (See below for information on other UK and international editions which published with a different cover).

1979 edition
Landing on an apparently devastated planet, the Doctor and Romana make a horrifying discovery.

The planet is Skaro, home-world of the Daleks.

The Daleks are excavating in order to find and revive Davros, the mad, crippled, scientific genius who first created them. They hope that he will give them the scientific superiority to break the deadlock with their Movellan enemies.

Faced once more with the deadly and seemingly indestructible Daleks, the Doctor’s wits and strength are stretched to their very limits …

Illustrations

 * None

Deviations from the Televised Story

 * The novel keeps with the original script idea to have all the action on Skaro take place at night and being shrouded by darkness.

Author, Writing and Publishing Notes

 * This novelisation was hoped to be released simultaneously with the TV transmission (hence the novel being written from the script version of the story), it eventually appeared two months later.
 * This was the first novelisation to feature the character of Romana as all the novels adapting the Key to Time arc in which she debuted were not published until after.
 * The back cover blurb was rewritten as it originally identified the Movellans as robots.
 * This was the first novel with a cover illustration by Andrew Skilleter. There was no visual reference available to the illustrator who had to conduct his own research using the BBC Picture Publicity Library, before appealing to fans and Doctor Who Magazine.

Publishing History (UK)
To be added

First Publication:
 * Hardback
 * W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK


 * Paperback
 * Target

Re-issues:

International Editions
To be added

External Sources

 * The Target Book by David J Howe (Telos Publishing 2007)
 * On Target a comprehensive guide to the Target novelisations by Tim Neal