|
Post by Starflower on Feb 10, 2009 3:14:18 GMT
Me, Prim, and Evelyn were at a book store and we ran into the very small Doctor Who section. Scanning through the books we found The Web of Fear. Being a missing episode we bought the book and I began reading it. Good plot but I really don't like the way it was written. I would suggest listening to the audio with narration.
|
|
|
Post by IMForeman on Feb 10, 2009 5:04:16 GMT
That's a shame, the actual serial is one of my favorites. Two! Jamie! Robot Yeti! Not-yet-Brigadier! I watched the recon of it.
I'm jealous that your bookstore has a Doctor Who section. I knew a second-hand bookstore with several of the books but they've all been sold now. The only novelization I own is The Green Death, which was included with one of the DWMs and smells oddly of glue.
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Feb 10, 2009 20:24:50 GMT
I think...I think it was probably Terrence Dicks who wrote the novelisation of The Web of Fear (not much of a shot in the dark, he did write a _lot_ of them); Uncle Terry, er, isn't much of a stylist, it's fair to say, but gets the job done very economically.
Seriously, the little Target novelisations of oldschool Who stories are great; I've got a shelf of them, gained by hook or by crook since my long-ago youth, and Web of Fear is one of them. I really don't know how available they are outside the UK; in my childhood, you could still buy them new, yet strangely most of mine were acquired secondhand and have crayon drawings, people's names etc on the inside covers. A couple even have library markings on them - can't think where I might have acquired those *shifts eyes about shiftily*. They created the strange impression in me of being familiar with Who stories that I had never seen, so that watching them for the first time was often an interesting experience. In fact, some of them are better than the televised stories (The Two Doctors novelisation is a Bob-Holmes-penned classic and may well be one reason why I like that story more than I possibly should).
Really interesting are the early-90s novelisations of some of the Seven stories - Battlefield, Curse of Fenric, Remembrance of the Daleks being the best examples. Familiar names on the covers (Marc Platt, Ben Aaronovitch), and lots of extra elements added, greatly expanding on the televised stories in a way that a lot of the earlier novelisations (Uncle Terry's, for instance) never really did. In hindsight, it's easy to see them as dress rehearsals for the New Adventures novels, which were beginning to emerge at about the same time.
|
|
|
Post by magnusgreel on Feb 10, 2009 22:42:42 GMT
Interesting. I may someday acquire the Sylvester novelizations and add them to the pile of New Adventures in my closet.
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Feb 11, 2009 19:58:21 GMT
Another good one, bizarrely, is the novelisation of the Twin Dilemma by Eric Saward - there is really no correlation between how good the televised story is and the quality of the novelisation. Saward brings something of the sensibility he did to his best screen story, Revelation of the Daleks, with lots of macabrely humorous asides and additions so the story ends up being some sort of sub-Douglas-Adams black comedy, and strangely entertaining. Now, I know the TV version was funny as well, but the book is _intentionally_ funny. ;D
|
|
|
Post by magnusgreel on Feb 11, 2009 21:55:42 GMT
Interesting too. There's still lots of Peri-throttling and Six cowardice I hope? Actually there were potentially worthwhile bits and pieces throughout TD; they just seemed not to work as filmed. One element after another would be interesting for a few seconds, and then would seem to fall flat.
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Feb 12, 2009 20:23:51 GMT
There's still lots of Peri-throttling and Six cowardice I hope? Oh, yes, lots, along with odd things like the misadventures of the twins' father and exactly how Azmael came to leave Gallifrey, all told in this light, comical sort of tone. As I say, strange but a good read.
|
|