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Shada (novelisation)

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Shada by Gareth Roberts was a novelisation of the TV story of the same name written by Douglas Adams, which was intended to conclude Season 17 but never completed due to labour action at the BBC disrupting production. It was the first novelisation of a Doctor Who TV story since Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film in 1996. Interestingly, it was the first novelisation to predate the release of its television equivalent, with Shada not receiving a television airing until 2017 (though there had been animated and "available footage" home video reconstructions since the 1990s). Although new editions of the other Adams adaptations have been released (in revised form) as part of the modern Target novelisation line, as of 2023 this has yet to happen with Shada.

Publisher's summary[]

Hardback[]

(back cover)

At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways — with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.

(inside front cover)

From the unique mind of Douglas Adams, the legendary "lost" Doctor Who story completed at last!

The Doctor's old friend and fellow Time Lord Professor Chronotis has retired to Cambridge University — where nobody will notice if he lives for centuries. But now he needs help from the Doctor, Romana and K9. When he left Gallifrey he took with him a few little souvenirs — most of them are harmless. But one of them is extremely dangerous.

The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey isn't a book for Time Tots. It is one of the Artefacts, dating from the dark days of Rassilon. It must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. The sinister Skagra most definitely has the wrong hands. He wants the book. He wants to discover the truth behind Shada. And he wants the Doctor's mind...

Based on the scripts for the original television series by the legendary Douglas Adams, Shada retells an adventure that never made it to the screen.

This epic "lost" adventure from 1979 features the Fourth Doctor and Romana as played by Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, written by Doctor Who's then script editor Douglas Adams.

Paperback[]

Inside this book is another book — the strangest, most important and most dangerous book in the entire universe.

The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey is one of the artefacts, dating from dark days of Rassilon. It wields enormous power, and it must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

Skagra — who believes he should be God and permits himself only two smiles per day — most definitely has the wrong hands.

Beware Skagra. Beware the sphere. Beware Shada.

Chapter titles[]

  • Part One: Off the Shelf
  • Part Two: An Uncharitable Deduction
  • Part Three: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
  • Part Four: Carbon Copies
  • Part Five: Gallifrey's Most Wanted
  • Part Six: Brought to Book

Characters[]

Worldbuilding[]

Time Lords[]

The TARDIS[]

Music[]

Literature[]

Locations[]

  • Clare believes Gallifrey is in Greece.

Notes[]

  • None of Douglas Adams's three Doctor Who stories had previously appeared in book form for a variety of legal reasons. This novelisation, the first book adaptation of his stories to be released, was released 11 years after Adams' death in 2001.
  • Although Douglas Adams had said he would like to novelise his other two Doctor Who stories, The Pirate Planet and City of Death, when he had "run out of things to do" and didn't want another author writing them, as far as he was concerned Shada would never see print as he felt it was "just not up to much".
  • This story was also released as an ebook available from the Amazon Kindle store.
  • The opening page features epigraphs from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Resident Alien and The Smiths song Still Ill.
  • Some hardback editions incorrectly refer to Skagra as a Time Lord on the sleeve.
  • Chronotis owns a travel guide, Alternative Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse V was a planet in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He also made a slight reference near the end of the book about it.
  • At one point, the Doctor hums the opening notes to the Doctor Who theme tune.

Deviations from the original story[]

  • An opening chapter focusing on Skagra is added. He also created the Ship partially based on stolen Gallifreyan designs. He designed its artificial personality to worship him unconditionally, having determined that this would make for the most obedient servant, though he later somewhat regretted this decision, as the Ship's constant and eager praise got on his nerves.
  • Skagra only allows himself to smile twice a day.
  • A. St. John D. Caldera is replaced by a female scientist named Daphne Caldera. Her specialty is 6-dimensional wave equations, instead of neurology. Caldera's role as the Think Tank survivor who talks to the Doctor is given to C. J. Acroteary.
  • Chris Parsons is given backstory. In 1959, he was watching cricket with his grandfather at his country house, which would remain a pleasant memory for him, even though he didn't think of it much. He often took trips to London in his youth, where he saw a number of police boxes. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School, where he won the seventh Bristol Scout Pack Award for Orienteering in 1966. He began studying at St John's College in Cambridge in 1970 on a physics course.
  • Clare Keightley is given a backstory. After completing sixth form in Manchester, she was employed as an undergraduate at Cambridge during May 1979, though came to feel indignant within only weeks due to how the other students would be coy with her due to her gender. Even when she managed to break the ice with them so that they treated her more as an equal, she still found Chris bumbling around her, which caused her to develop a crush on him. By October, she got a job at a research centre in the United States of America, and had to leave Cambridge behind. In the end, she turns the job down to stay with Chris.
  • Chris and Clare have more explicit romantic feelings for each other than were conveyed in the previous releases, and end the story engaged to be married.
  • When trying to remember Chris's name, Chrontis goes through the alphabet himself with bring prompted by the Doctor and Romana.
  • The scene with the Doctor being chased by Skagra's sphere on the bicycle is relocated to nighttime, as was the original intention in the script, before strike action forced them to film it in the daytime, as stated in DOC: Taken Out of Time.
  • Chronitis tells the Doctor that he had no malicious intent and simply wished to become a respected academic, but the High Council was suspicious of him and his powers, fearing he might try to use them to take over Gallifrey. These fears were supported by a few harmless "pranks" he played on high-ranking Time Lords in his younger days using his power. As he continued to climb through the ranks of Gallifreyan hierarchy, the Council decided to trick him, sending him to Shada as an official and planning to trap him inside forever. The Council then began a smear campaign on Salyavin, telling of him as a crazed villain, soon nicknamed the "Great Mind Outlaw". Salyavin instead took control of his guardians, planting into their mind the idea that they had already locked him up before sending them on their way. Although he had arrived to Shada in his guardians' TARDIS, he had brought his own, disguised by its chameleon circuits as a bookmark, allowing him to escape the prison planet. Fearful that his escape might be noticed, Salyavin committed what he later described as the least moral use of his powers he had ever dared, linking himself to his own TARDIS's telepathic circuits to be able to broadcast his mind all over Gallifrey. Taking advantage of the transformation, he returned to Gallifrey with the brand-new alias of "Professor Chronotis", a harmless archivist — a persona he retconned into all relevant officials' memories with one more use of his mind powers. As curator of the Panopticon Library, he kept a close eye on the book The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, one of the Artefacts of Rassilon and nothing less than the key to Shada, and thus the ruse according to which Salyavian was gone, and Chronotis was innocent, was complete.
  • The fisherman is given the name Bernard Strong. He tries to capture the Sphere before it kills him, as opposed to it ambushing him from behind.
  • PC Smith is getting coffee in Sidney Street when he is brought in by Wilkin. Smith purposely acts snobbish as revenge for Wilkin interrupting his coffee.
  • The man in the car is named David Taylor. His education stopped after three O-levels. He lives a quiet life with his widowed mother, and enjoys the music of Cilla Black. Skagra approaches him from the street and asks for a ride, with David thinking Skagra is trying to flirt with him. Skagra still absorbs David's mind into the Sphere, though David's mind lives on in the Sphere. After the Doctor defeats Skagra, he takes the Sphere to Drornid, where he has the minds of David and the other victims transplanted into new bodies. David asks the Doctor to fetch his mother from Earth for him.
  • Skagra tells Romana his backstory and Thorac's decent to Dronid, rather than she and the Doctor speculating it.
  • The Doctor, Chris and Chronotis relax at an beach on Dronid before they return to Cambridge, where the Doctor tells Chris that The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey had manipulated the entire adventure from the start, and reveals that he saved the victims of the Sphere by uploading their minds into clone bodies. Chronotis' escape from Shada is also explained.
  • The Ship forces Skagra to watch video reports about the Doctor's life, in chronological order in the hopes of getting of his personality flaws. The process is sheer torture to Skagra.
  • The closing of the novel adds a scene of Chris, Clare and Chronotis being escorted to the police station, and a scene of the Doctor and Romana using the Randomiser in the TARDIS.

Continuity[]

Additional cover images[]

Editions published outside Britain[]

  • Published in the USA by Ace Books in 2012 as a hardback edition and 2014 as a paperback edition, it was one of three books published by them in the 2010's.
  • Published in Italy by Mondadori in 2013 as a paperback edition, translated by Alessandro Vezzoli, it was one of three books published by them in the 2010's.
  • Published in France by Milady in 2013 as a paperback edition, translated by Olivier Debernard, it was one of three books published in the 2010's.
  • Published in Hungary by Gabo in 2013 as a paperback edition, translated by F Piroska Nagy, it was one of two novelisations published in the 2010's.
  • Published in Brazil by Suma de Letras in 2014 as a paperback edition, translated by Juliana Romerio, it was one of two novelisations published in the 2010's; this was the only foreign edition to create it's own version of the cover design.
  • Published in Turkey by Ithaki Yayinlari in 2014 as a paperback edition, translated by Ulker Uyanik, it was one of four books published in the 2010's.
  • Published in China by the Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 2014 as a paperback edition, translated by Yao Xiang Hui, it was one of two novelisations published by them in the 2010's.
  • Published in Germany by Cross Cult in 2014 as a paperback edition, translated by Claudia Kern, it was one of five books published by them in the 2010's; this edition uses the same cover design as the UK paperback edition.
  • Published in the Czech Republic by Argo in 2016 as a hardback edition, translated by Pavel Cernovsky, it was one of three novelisations published in the 2010's.
  • Published in Russia by AST in 2016 as a hardback edition, translated by Chatherine Lozovik, it was one of eight books published in the 2010's.

Audiobook[]

This novel was released as an audiobook on 15 March 2012 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Lalla Ward with K9's voice by John Leeson. Unusually, this release uses the series' theme music at the opening and closing, a convention usually not followed in these audiobook releases.

The audiobook was reissued on 2 February 2023 as part of the audiobook anthology The Renegades Collection.

External links[]

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Adapted from
Shada (TV story) +
Doctor
Fourth Doctor +
Featuring
Chronotis +, Chris Parsons +, Clare Keightley +  and Policeman (An Unearthly Child) +
Has image
File:Dw-books-shada-hp3.jpg +
Isbn
ISBN 978-0-425-26116-3 +
Medium
novel +
Pagename
Shada (novelisation) +
Publisher
BBC Books +
Release date
2012-03-15 +
Release end date
2012-03-15 * +
Series
BBC Books novelisations +
Story info
Gareth Roberts, adapted from Shada (Douglas Adams), BBC Books novelisations (BBC Books, 2012). +
Writer
Gareth Roberts +