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Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks

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The third Doctor's last encounter with the Daleks, this book sports one of the most striking covers in the Target series of novelisations.

The Doctor is attempting to take Sarah for a holiday to Florana, when the TARDIS starts to lose energy. The ship lands at night on a desert planet. With no power in the TARDIS, the Doctor lights an oil lamp and uses a crank handle to open the door. Sarah reenters the TARDIS to change into something more appropriate, but when she returns the Doctor is missing and there is blood on the lamp...

This story features a race whose civilisation has fallen back to a primitive one, humans in desperate search for a mineral required to cure a mystery plague, and the Daleks, all trapped on a planet where nothing relying on electrical (or similar) energy works.

I've got a soft spot for this story: not only is it written against a very broad background and requires all the characters to think, but it is also the first Doctor Who story that I saw in colour.

Terrance Dicks takes it and turns it into a readable book, despite the fairly clichéd characters with which original writer Terry Nation populated the story.

The planet of Exxilon has a City, a Living City, that sucks the planet dry of all its energy and material. And both the Doctor and the Daleks are now trapped on the planet. Together. Forced to work together. Because they need a mineral from the planet to cure a terrible space-plaque. The Daleks, without energy weapons, are forced to use guns that sounds, funny enough, like special effects from old Westerns. A novelization of one of the weirdest Dalek stories in the whole series, Death to the Daleks really isn't that bad a book, but no where near as interesting as watching the episodes. So I would suggest getting Doctor Who: Death to Daleks [VHS] even if it is only VHS.

The TARDIS encounters a sudden power failure in all systems and is forced to land on the planet Exxilon. Here, the Doctor and Sarah are caught up in a struggle between the local population to keep everyone away from thier wonderous city. They also find humans also stranded by the power failure. They need to find the cause of the power drain before anyone can leave as well as deal with the locals. Then the DALEKS arrive.

The book is a great adaptation of the tv serial. It follows the plot line perfectly, even adding to it through explaining the trials, in more detail than the tv serial, the city makes the Doctor and Bellal undergo. Recommended!!!