Customer Reviews

Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon: An Unabridged Classic Doctor Who Novel (Doctor Who Classics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

_I found this to be a quite enjoyable revisitation with the good Doctor. While I remember the original airing of this episode, the book fleshes things out a bit better. It reads quickly and with few let downs in interest or action.

_It was especially nice to have the Doctor's assistant, Jo Grant, introduced for the first time. But then you have a wealth of the Who universe introduced here: the Doctor himself, Jo Grant, the T.A.R.D.I.S., U.N.I.T., the Time Lords, the Master... If you are unfamiliar with the Who mythos this would be a good place to start- and if you are familiar then it is a pleasant nostalgic reminder.

_Here you have the tale of the two renegade Time Lords. One, the Doctor, broke with the Time Lord code of noninterference to end suffering and bring justice to the Cosmos. The other, the Master, broke with the same code to bring sadistic suffering and personal power to the same Cosmos. It is this that brings them both to a remote planetary colony in the year 2972, and the conflict between a band of agrarian nonconformists and an evil Interplanetary Mining Corporation. Yet, none of them guessed at the ancient, monstrous evil slumbering beneath their feet...

_I found this to be a quite enjoyable revisitation with the good Doctor. While I remember the original airing of this episode, the book fleshes things out a bit better. It reads quickly and with few let downs in interest or action.

_It was especially nice to have the Doctor's assistant, Jo Grant, introduced for the first time. But then you have a wealth of the Who universe introduced here: the Doctor himself, Jo Grant, the T.A.R.D.I.S., U.N.I.T., the Time Lords, the Master... If you are unfamiliar with the Who mythos this would be a good place to start- and if you are familiar then it is a pleasant nostalgic reminder.

_Here you have the tale of the two renegade Time Lords. One, the Doctor, broke with the Time Lord code of noninterference to end suffering and bring justice to the Cosmos. The other, the Master, broke with the same code to bring sadistic suffering and personal power to the same Cosmos. It is this that brings them both to a remote planetary colony in the year 2972, and the conflict between a band of agrarian nonconformists and an evil Interplanetary Mining Corporation. Yet, none of them guessed at the ancient, monstrous evil slumbering under their feet...

A fairly simple plot without a lot of back story. Easy to read in one sitting. I have not seen this one on TV, so I do not know how closely the show's plot matches the book. The story moves along well and is primarily actions and dialog, not a lot of words are spent on what goes on inside the character's heads.

The doctor ends up in the middle of a conflict between colonists and miners who are trying to kick them out. Of course all this turns out to be irrelevant when the Doomsday Weapon is discovered to be hidden on the planet.

It was not hard to guess where the major story lines would lead, but this did not really detract from my overall enjoyment.

Master impersonation plan.


A Third Doctor story, and a malfunctioning TARDIS, too. As the Doctor is showing Jo his impressive piece of equipment it takes off on them and they are stranded in the middle of a dispute between workers and management on a mining colony world.

A nasty shock is had by our favorite Time Lord when the master turns up as the labour arbitrator sent to deal with it.

Based on the TV serial 'Colony in Space', Malcolm Hulke adapts his own story, which features the first trip of the third Doctor and Jo in the TARDIS.

Showing Jo the TARDIS interior, the ship suddenly takes off without any actions from the Doctor and the pair are deposited on an alien planet 1000 years in the future. They are captured by colonists, who believe they are working for the IMC, a mining company who wants to exploit the minerals of their planet. Amongst conflict between the two groups of humans, and the possible threat of the Primitives of the world, a Earth Adjudicator arrives to settle the problems. But he is, in fact, the Master...

For the first trip into space in two years, this story is actually very dull, making the Earth-based ones seem much better by comparison. It is quite drawn out, taking a while to get to the point, with several spurious conflicts that seem to exist simply to string out the book.

The illustrations are OK, but not great.

This novel was one of the first published by Target, and somewhat spuriously adds the meeting between the Doctor and Jo to the beginning of the book. If you were reading the novelisations in order, this would be your second encounter with this seen, the previous one being three books before!