The Target Book Line: Doctor Who & The Zarbi

Release number 73
Writer Bill Strutton
Publisher Target Books
Cover artist Chris Achilleos
ISBN ISBN 0 426 10129 4
Release date 2 May 1973

The serial was the second to be novelised by the publisher Frederick Muller. It was written by Bill Strutton under the title Doctor Who and the Zarbi in 1965. This novel introduced the concept of the "Zarbi Supremo", a vast Zarbi with a role similar to that of a queen bee. Much of the Vortis terms are removed and the Doctor is referred to throughout as Dr Who. In 1973 Target Books acquired the rights to the novelisation and reprinted it as one of the first in their long running series of Doctor Who novelisations, although when the imprint began numbering the books in the series, The Zarbi was listed as Number 73 in the series. A Dutch translation was published in the Netherlands in 1974, and a Portuguese one in 1983.

In 2005 the novel was also issued by BBC Audio as part of the Doctor Who: Travels in Time and Space audio book collectors tin, read by William Russell.