The New Target Books

The old Target Books are publications of true beauty. I was never as attached to them as fans of a certain age. I could watch the TV stories on VHS or UK Gold and in my teens didn’t really see the point of re-living a story by spending hours reading a book I knew the ending to. However, the artwork I was always thrilled by and amassed quite a collection from second-hand shops in my youth. I read a good deal of them in my twenties and it remains a giddy thrill when I spot one in a car boot or jumble sale that isn’t already proudly displayed on my bookshelves. I am just old enough to remember seeing a brand-new copy of The Space Pirates in WHSmiths (one of the last to be published) and thinking how wonderful a story it looked. That there, in microcosm, is the power of the Target.

For years now, a section of fandom has clamoured for re-tellings of the New Series in Target book form. I was always convinced that new fiction was the way forward. Having read the four new editions over the last month, however, I’ve completely changed my mind. They are glorious, beautiful and utterly worthy of the Target title. I so hope that more are on their way!

TWICE UPON A TIME

I started with Paul Cornell’s novelisation of the most recent Christmas special. The story was the freshest in my mind and, despite featuring my beloved Capaldi, it was the book I was the least excited by. More fool me. 

Paul Cornell has clearly set out to emulate the master, the great Terrance Dicks. He manages to do so with utter aplomb. There is something so familiar, so re-assuring about Twice Upon a Time, that one feels like they’ve known the story inside-out a good deal longer than is practically possible. Cornell also deals with a few scripting niggles: he explains why the First Doctor is so uncharacteristically outrageous in terms of his sexism. He explains how he can pilot the TARDIS back to World War One (I expect this information was edited from the finished programme) and unpeels the reasons why the Twelfth Doctor is so keen not to regenerate. The book is thrillingly easy to read, with clear, cut-throat prose, perfectly reminiscent of those early 160-page dazzlers. To be compared to Terrance Dicks I’m sure Paul Cornell would consider very high praise. To suggest that he is on par with the man I hope would make him very happy indeed, just as his re-telling of this odd, little gem of a story made me.

ROSE

If Paul Cornell is the Terrance Dicks of the Target world, then Russell T Davies proves to be a very welcome substitute for Malcolm Hulke. Rose deviates from the TV episode on which it was based with some sketching of characters and new scenes featuring Mickey’s housemates, just as Hulke had shaded in backgrounds for the IMC people and the future world of The Doomsday Weapon. Truth be told, Rose had a very specific agenda in 2005: it had to re-introduce Doctor Who to the masses in a slick, swift and vibrant way. It was written, more than any other episode up to that point, for Saturday night, prime time television. As such, the plot is very, very slight. It is not honestly very good book material. Davies’s flourishes whilst full of heart and character serve to slacken the pace and at times, getting to the end of the book feels like an uphill struggle. Take the first chapter on Wilson: in its own right, it’s a perfectly lovely opening with lots of emotional shades. In truth though, it doesn’t help propel the story onwards or even have very much to do with anything that follows. Mac Hulke managed to tell the life of Shughie McPherson in the first few pages of The Dinosaur Invasion  whilst thrillingly engaging him in the plot. Similar passages by Davies later in the novel end up brining proceedings to a grinding halt. Even the scenes in Clive’s shed, whilst including a few fannish nods, is longer than it needs to be. A straight re-telling would probably only last 100 pages but it might have been more energetic and that’s something Davies’s novelisation lacks, despite its very strong character work.

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION

Somewhere betwixt Cornell and Davies, comes Jenny T Colgan. Perhaps unusually, for a story that quite brazenly shouts RUSSELL T DAVIES at us in terms of content, Colgan manages to allow her own narrative voice to come through. There are small turns of phrases which are quite, quite beautiful and lift the prose from the page like only a natural novelist could. Despite these ornamental touches, the text breezes by with pace and efficiency. There is an unexpected sub-plot between Llewellyn and Sally which adds a bittersweet romantic weight to their scenes together and works wonderfully. New subsidiary characters also help bring this world to life. It is in the exploration of Rose, however, where Colgan really cements her credentials. This is her story from Page One. It is a very canny move for Colgan to start with the Children in Need post-regeneration scene to really cement Rose’s ambivalence towards her fresh-faced Doctor substitute and the last few pages are made yet more beautiful thanks to this early character work. If all future novels were as good as The Christmas Invasion, then they’d be very, very welcome. 

THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR

Steven Moffat sets himself up as the Donald Cotton of the new Target authors. This version of The Day of the Doctor is not a re-telling of the TV episode at all; it is a novel in its own right. He has clearly set out to write the ultimate Doctor Who story and sod everybody else. It starts with Paul McGann and ends with Jodie Whittaker, encompassing Doctors-past having adventures, saving the children of Gallifrey. The framing device is a masterstroke and keenly engages the reader by inviting them to solve the book’s secrets. The chapters themselves work brilliantly, contrasting each vividly different event from the episode against the next. Whilst the TV story sags a little as we reach Tudor England, here Moffat chooses to tell the tale from three perspectives, giving us new takes on familiar scenes. The Brigadier’s in it. River Song’s in it. It is a book filled to the brim with all the things that make Doctor Who so special. It is not a remotely contentious thing to say that this is perhaps the best Doctor Who fiction ever published. Even after his time on the programme, Steven Moffat delivers his final magnum opus. I applaud you, Sir!

And so what’s next? Hopefully, we’ll get another batch. They’re clearly selling very well. All four novels sing. I was surprised to find Russell T Davies’s my least favourite but then again, if a novel written by Russell T Davies is a least favourite, surely that says more about the grand quality of his associates than it does about Rose? And to have a book as powerful, intricate, beautiful and clever as The Day of the Doctor, is utterly, cherishably joyous. Long may the Targets continue!

JH