The Two Doctors (novelisation)

The Two Doctors
Based on:	The Two Doctors
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri
Featuring:	Second Doctor, Jamie
Main enemy:	Dastari, Chessene, Shockeye, Stike, Varl, Sontarans
Main setting:	Seville, 1985 Space Station J7, 1985
Key crew
Publisher:	Target Books, W.H. Allen
Writer:	Robert Holmes
Cover by:	Andrew Skilleter
Release details
Release number:	100
Release date:	5 December 1985
Format:	Hardcover and paperback editions; 12 Chapters, 159 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20201-5
Target novelisations
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The Two Doctors was a novelisation based on the 1985 television serial The Two Doctors. This was the first novelisation of a Sixth Doctor story to be published.

Publisher's summary

Disturbed by the time travel experiments of the evil Dastari and Chessene, the Time Lords send the second Doctor and Jamie to investigate. Arriving on a station in deep space, they are attacked by a shock force of Sontarans and the Doctor is left for dead.

Across the gulfs of time and space, the sixth Doctor discovers that his former incarnation is very much alive. Together with Peri and Jamie he must rescue his other self before the plans of Dastari and Chessene reach their deadly and shocking conclusion...

Chapter titles

1. Countdown to Death
2. Massacre on J7
3. Tomb in Space
4. Adios, Doña Arana
5. Creature of the Darkness
6. The Bell Tolls
7. The Doctor's Dilemma
8. Company of Madmen
9. A Song for Supper
10. Shockeye the Donor
11. Ice Passage Ambush
12. Alas, Poor Oscar

Deviations from televised story

• A scant prologue featuring what is implied to be the Time Lords in yellow robes in a violet, misty garden where the flowers grow as tall as trees is recounted briefly by Jamie.
• Much of the violence and gore has been exacerbated in the novelization, featuring grisly details of the duty officer's acidulous murder, the bullet-ridden corpses of massacred scientists, the sanguineous method in which Chessene reads the Dona Arana's mind, the Sontarans' merciless deaths, etc.
• A fire breaks out in the main computer room while the Sixth Doctor is focussing his mind for astral projection, forcing Peri and Jamie to move him into the corridor as the flames consume the station.
• The Sixth Doctor hesitates to combat Dastari, telling Jamie he was once a champion sampola wrestler.
• Chessene's use of coronic acid alarms Dastari, as the Rutans are the weapon's inventors. With it they decimated the Sontarans at Vollotha.

Writing and publishing notes

• The publishing issue regarding making payment for using the likeness of actors in the covers of the novelisation was very much a complicated (and costly) issue at the time. It was an issue that meant this cover did not feature the either of the Doctors' faces.
• The cover price for this special (collectible) novelisation (with gold foil logo), rose from £1.50 to £1.75, before dropping down to the increased price of £1.60).
• There is a suggestion that this title had a first print run of 100,000 copies (beating the previous high of 65,000 copies of The Myth Makers and Marco Polo), but the recorded figures show a first print run of only 60,000). The fact that most of these copies were sent to the USA meant that a rapid reprint was needed. The combination of the two first very-close print runs may explain the discrepancy.
• Cover Flash: The 100th DOCTOR WHO NOVEL!
• Cover Flash: INTRODUCTION BY JOHN NATHAN-TURNER
• Back page includes Fantastic Doctor Who Poster Offers without the colour images.

Cover gallery



Hardcover edition

First paperback

Second paperback

British publication history

First publication:

• Hardback

W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK

• Paperback

Target

External links

• On Target a comprehensive guide to the Target novelisations by Tim Neal