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This is a list of Doctor Who novelisations, in order of publication.
Contents
- Publication details
- Titles
- List of novelisations published by Frederick Muller Ltd
- List of novelisations published by Target
- List of novelisations published by BBC Books and affiliated companies
- Reissues
- List of other novelisations
- Omnibus and two in one releases
- List of Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations
- Illustrators
- Adaptations
- References
The first three Doctor Who serials to be novelised were the William Hartnell stories The Daleks (as Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker), The Web Planet (Doctor Who and the Zarbi by Bill Strutton) and The Crusade (Doctor Who and the Crusaders by Whitaker). They were published in hardback by Frederick Muller Ltd; the first was also published in paperback, by Armada.
Between 1973 and 1991, Target Books published almost every Doctor Who television serial as a novelisation, starting with new editions of the Frederick Muller books. When Target was taken over by Virgin Books in 1991, three further serials - The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks by John Peel and the radio serial The Paradise of Death by Barry Letts - were added to the range.
The only serials from the original 1963-1989 run of the show never to have been officially novelised by Target and its related companies are The Pirate Planet (Published January 2017 by BBC Books), City of Death (published on 21 May 2015 by BBC Books), Shada (published in March 2012 by BBC Books), Resurrection of the Daleks, and Revelation of the Daleks, due to licensing issues with the original scriptwriters. (Unofficial fan novelisations were published by the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club between 1989 and 2000.) The Children in Need special Dimensions in Time and the Comic Relief spoof Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death have also not been novelised.
BBC Books published a novelisation of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie by Gary Russell. There are currently no plans to novelise episodes of the post-2005 revived series. However, in late 2007 unofficial fan-produced novelisations of the first two 2005 episodes were published as ebooks. They were quickly removed from the website following threat of legal action by the BBC's Brand Protection Team.. So far Pearson Education are the only company to publish official novelizations of Post-1996 TV stories having published adaptations of four Eleventh Doctor stories.
In addition to the television serials, three scripts from the cancelled Season 23 - The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus - were novelised. A short series entitled The Companions of Doctor Who comprised the novelisation of K-9 and Company along with the original works Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma and Harry Sullivan's War.
Besides The Paradise of Death, Target also novelised two additional non-televised stories: the radio play Slipback and the audio story The Pescatons.
A novelisation by Barry Letts of a further radio drama, The Ghosts of N-Space, was published as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures range in 1995, as was the novelisation of the independent spin-off Downtime; in the same year, the Virgin New Adventures range published a novelisation of Shakedown: The Return of the Sontarans. The most recent novelisation to be published is an adaptation by James Goss of The Pirate Planet.
In 2005, BBC Audio released unabridged audiobook versions of the first three Frederick Muller novelisations, read by actor William Russell (who played Ian Chesterton). Beginning in September 2007, they began releasing further unabridged audiobooks of the Target novelisations at a rate of approximately two every two months; the books themselves remain officially out of print. BBC Books began reprinting selected titles starting in July 2011.
Publication details
Although Target endeavoured to commission the original scriptwriters to novelise their own stories, this was not always possible. As a result, many books in the Target line were written by Terrance Dicks. During the late 1970s to early 1980s, Target, which classified the novelisations as children's fiction, imposed a page limit of 128 pages. Some books (particularly several by Dicks) even fell short of this limit. By the late 1980s, however, the page cap had been lifted, although John Peel was still required to split his novelisation of the epic 12-episode The Daleks' Master Plan into two volumes because the manuscript was too long.
Target began numbering its novelisations from 1983, with almost all of the first seventy-three books being numbered as reprints came out. The first new book to be numbered was Time-Flight. Target's numbering did not initially reflect original publication order (which would have placed David Whitaker's Doctor Who and the Daleks book first), but rather was conducted in alphabetical order, so that the novelisation of The Abominable Snowmen was numbered "1". The numbering likewise had no connection with production or broadcast order. Due to print delays and last-minute reordering of publication schedules, some of the later books were released out of numeric order.
Titles
For the first few years of the Target line, it was common practice for the novels to have titles that differed from the adapted serials: for example, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, which was based upon the serial Spearhead from Space. This practice was dropped in the mid-1970s. Another tradition established by the books was to append the words "Doctor Who and ..." to the titles, except in a few cases where impractical. This practice continued until the early 1980s. From 1990 onwards reprints of the books generally dropped "Doctor Who and..." from the title and changed titles back to the original television story, although some of the reprints merely rejacketed earlier stock.
List of novelisations published by Frederick Muller Ltd
These three books based on First Doctor serials were first published in hardcover by Frederick Muller Ltd.
List of novelisations published by Target
This list of novelisations published by Target, or its successors, is sortable by its number in the "Doctor Who Library", title, Doctor, author or date. The Audiobook column indicates whether an abridged or unabridged audiobook has been released. See List of Doctor Who audiobooks.
List of novelisations published by BBC Books and affiliated companies
In 1996 BBC Books took over the Doctor Who licence and have published a number of novelisations based on TV stories and webcasts, a few being written exclusively for audiobook publication by their audio company.
Reissues
BBC Books has also republished select Target novelisaions in paperback, unless otherwise noted.
List of other novelisations
Other Doctor Who or Doctor Who-related productions have been novelised outside of the Target and BBC Books lines. This includes a series of novelisations by the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club which were privately published and not licensed by the BBC (all based upon serials Target were unable to obtain the rights to) and several novelisations of radio and independent film stories published by Virgin after it had retired Target.
Omnibus and two in one releases
A number of novelisations were released in omnibus editions, mostly by book clubs.
In 1988–1989, W. H. Allen's Star label published a number of the Target novelisations in a format of two novelisations in one book in a range titled Doctor Who Classics. These were produced by fixing together two Target books with a new front page and outer cover. The pairings were:
List of Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations
Beginning in 2007, Penguin Books under its Penguin Character Books imprint began publishing novelisations based upon the spinoff series The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Illustrators
British artist Andrew Skilleter created much of the cover art for the Doctor Who books from 1979 to 1994, along with video covers and other merchandise. His work on Doctor Who was showcased in his 1995 volume Blacklight: The Art of Andrew Skilleter.
Adaptations
Generally, Doctor Who stories that have been broadcast will be adapted into print, rather than vice versa. There have been some occasions where written media has been adapted for the screen or formed inspiration for television episodes.