Customer Reviews

Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation

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The Ribos Operation is the start of the very groovy epic Key to Time sequence. Here, the Doctor meets the White Guardian, and is told what is in store for him.

He is told he is going to get some help, and Romana the unpronounceable quickly appears, settling on being called Romana. Luckily, he still has K9 to protect him from the woman who at the times seems to be wavering a little towards the harridan end of the personality spectrum.

This one kicks off the Key to Time saga, a year of Doctor Who shows that covered the Doctor's quest to retrieve the Key to Time for the White Guardian. He is assigned a new assistant, Romana, to help him in his quest. He also has his faithful robot dog K9 with him. Together they seek out the first part of the key. This novelization has slightly more character development in it then most, particularly with respect to Romana and her relationship with the Doctor.

For a change the Doctor does not save the world, or even a portion of a world. Instead his mission is to retrieve the first of six pieces that make of the Key to Time. The key is needed to restore an imbalance in the universe that threatens everything in it. What do you think, can he do it ? :)

Enjoy!

The first story in the Key to Time season, this book adapts a number of important events: the meeting between the White Guardian and the Doctor, which commences the sequence, and the arrival of new companion, Romanadvoratrelundar (or Romana for short, even though she's rather be called Fred...).

Adapted by Ian Marter from a great script by Robert Holmes, the attention to detail is good and the reader is treated to something other than a bare-bones adaptation, as is so often the case with these novelisations.

While perhaps the simplest story in the Key to Time sequence, I don't see this as a fault. Indeed, it allows the reader to relax into the more complex ideas introduced at the start of the book and get to know Romana, without bombarding us with some of the more convoluted story lines that later became normal for this season.

(Incidentally, the second story in this sequence, 'The Pirate Planet', was never turned into a novel.)