The Target Book Line: Doctor Who & The Doomsday Weapon

Release number 23
Writer Malcolm Hulke
Publisher Target Books
Cover artist Chris Achilleos
ISBN ISBN 0 426 10372 6
Release date April 1974

A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Hulke, was published by Target Books in April 1974 as Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon. This was the first serial of the 1971 series to be so adapted; as a result, Hulke breaks continuity by having Jo Grant introduced to the Doctor for the first time, even though on television her introduction was in Terror of the Autons (and this would be reflected in the later novelisation of that serial). There is another extensive Malcolm Hulke prologue as an elderly Time Lord describes the Doctor-Master rivalry to his assistant and learns of the theft of the Doomsday Weapon files. The various races of Primitives are also described very differently to the televised version - complete with four-thumbed naked telepaths. There have been Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Portuguese language editions. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Geoffrey Beevers was released on CD in September 2007 by BBC Audiobooks.