First Broadcast: 27th March 1965 – 17th April 1965
First Published: 17th February 1966
Despite the first episode of this story being broadcast just a week after the story that preceded it, the novelisation of this story begins with
Behind them lay the adventure of the talking stones of the tiny planet of Tyron, in the seventeenth galaxy.
My first guess is that David Whitaker, author of the script this is based on and the first novelisation in the series, is trying to make the range of adventures a little wider than what was shown on screen (“Gaps for Big Finish,” as future showrunner Steven Moffat would say), but as I’m not the biggest fan of the previous novelisation (The Zarbi by Bill Strutton), I’m thinking of a less charitable reason…
…it also mentions some changes in the status quo that have occurred since The Daleks, too:
Susan had gone, left behind in an England all but destroyed in the twenty-first century when the Daleks had attempted the conquest of Earth… (he) knew in his heart that she must share her future with David Cameron…
Unlike The Zarbi, this acknowledges that some changes have occurred and attempts to explain them.
Unfortunately, Susan was left behind in the twenty-second century, and with David Campbell. There was a David Cameron who played an active part in the twenty-first century, but I’m fairly confident the Doctor wouldn’t have been happy about Susan staying with him.
There’s also the matter of “in his heart.” The idea of two hearts being a part of Time Lord biology hadn’t arisen yet (nor had the idea of Time Lords, to be honest, but still…) so we have another piece of prose that has been proven to be an anachronism in the space of a single paragraph, which is a bit of a record in any work of fiction, I believe.
Never mind, though, because the rest of the book is an absolute cracker.
The TARDIS, or Tardis as it is referred to here, lands in Palestine during the Crusades, specifically the Third crusade. The crew quickly become separated and involved in local intrigues that may change the status quo as dictated by the history we know now. Our heroes meet Richard the Lionheart and his sister Joanna, as well as Saladin, all major figures in this era of history.
I’ve noted some minor faults in this book, largely due to Whitaker not paying attention to some details of a story he was the script editor of (The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, where Susan leaves). In his defence, it was the last story he worked on so he may have had other things on his mind while producing that which resulted in the goofs made here. There’s also some casual sexism in this story – hardly surprising for the time it was made in – and some blackface in the television production. This is elevated – though not excused – by the portrayal of characters from other races in the story.
Saladin is shown to be urbane, witty, sophisticated and a respected leader; Haroun and Safiya (two supporting characters that Barbara meets) are presented sympathetically as well. The other characters met in the story are also shown in different lights, with strengths and weaknesses that do not depend upon stereotypes or discriminatory traits.
And Whitaker delivers a fantastic and exciting story. It’s based upon his own script which helps, and he manages to deepen the characters he knows so very well with details that you couldn’t really get across on screen.
He also furthers the idea he posited in The Daleks that Ian and Barbara have a relationship, nascent or otherwise. It’s stated fairly baldly in the prologue:
But always her eyes turned to Ian and her hands were ready to reach out and touch, for, whatever world of the future enmeshed them, they knew their destinies were bound up in each other…
…and reinforced in the last few pages:
Modern people though they were, they had stepped into a world of chivalry and barbarism and Ian had not failed her… She leant across from her horse, put her arm around his neck and kissed him softly on the lips. She sat back again, her heart beating a little faster, a slight tinge of pink at her cheeks, holding his eyes with hers.
Remember, this was written in 1966.
For kids.
The rest of the story is rendered just as vividly: Barbara’s terror at being in the hands of the moustache-twirling villain El Akir makes his rather cartoony personality feel a lot more evil and frightening than he has done previously – this woman has faced down Daleks, after all; the Doctor and Vicki, practically secondary characters in this story, have to rely on their wits to survive in an environment filled with intriguers and plotters. Fortunately, the Doctor proves that he isn’t just a technical genius but an expert at diplomacy and half-truths himself.
I was loath to read this one when I first came upon it as a youngster: it was set at a point in history that I had little interest in at that point (despite being a fan of Robin Hood) and it didn’t have anything that identified it as being a science fiction story in it save our heroes. I wanted spaceships, monsters, aliens, lasers, the whole shebang. I was not a fan of the purely historical stories.
Fortunately I came to my senses and this novelisation is one of the best in the entire series, and definitely my favourite of these original three books.
Coming up next: Doctor Who And the Auton Invasion
