The supporting characters are well drawn out as well.
DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS EXODUS TV
Otherwise Dicks gives on the best novel sketches of a TV TARDIS team. My only real qualm with the characterization is that given the Doctor's comment about Hitler in The Curse of Fenric it seems odd to see him socializing and becoming chummy to a degree with some of the Nazis he becomes involved with in the course of the novel. Then there's the final chapter before the epilogue as well which, to my mind at least, perfectly captures the relationship between the Doctor and Ace. There's a moment in chapter seven of the first part of the novel (or pages 61-63 to be more precise) that stands out as a moment where Dicks perfectly captured the personality and (quite possibly) the inner workings of the seventh Doctor. From their first appearance in chapter one all the way to the epilogue I never once got the feeling I was reading anyone but the Doctor and ace I have come to enjoy so much from the TV and audio stories. That was exactly what I got and more.įor starters Dicks has a much better grasp on the characterization of the seventh Doctor and Ace then John Peel did.
Having been disappointed by Genesys I was hoping for a much better novel this time around.
Having read my way through the wooden beginning that was Timewyrm Genesys I turned my attentions to this novel, the second in the opening Timewyrm arc of the New Adventures and the first New Adventure by Terrence Dicks.
DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS EXODUS SERIES
The Goliath series was Dicks' largest amounting to eighteen books. These were followed by the "Sally Ann" series about a determined ragdoll, "Magnificent Max" about a cat and "The Adventures of Goliath" about a golden retriever. Bear", amounting to a further seven books. In 1981, Dicks also began a series of six children's horror novels with "Cry Vampire".ġ987 saw Dicks start a new series of books for very young children called "T. These were followed in 1979–1983 by another Target trilogy "Star Quest", which were later reprinted by Big Finish Productions.Starting in 1978, Dicks began a series called "The Baker Street Irregulars" which eventually ran to ten books, the last being published in 1987. In 1976, Dicks wrote a trilogy of books published by Target Books called "The Mounties" about a recruit in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was through his work on Doctor Who books that he became a writer of children's fiction, penning many successful titles during the 1970s and 80s. His last piece of Who work is a short story in 2019's The Target Storybook. He wrote the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, The Eight Doctors, which was for a time the best-selling original Doctor Who novel. During the 1990s, Dicks contributed to Virgin Publishing's line of full-length, officially-licensed original Doctor Who novels, the New Adventures, which carried on the story of the series following its cancellation as an ongoing television programme in 1989. In this role, he would attempt to enlist the original teleplay author to write the books whenever possible, but if they could not or would not, then Dicks would often end up writing the books himself (although he also enlisted other writers including one-time Doctor Who actor Ian Marter and former series producer Philip Hinchcliffe). After his departure, Dicks continued to be associated with the programme, writing four more scripts: Robot (1975, the opening story of Tom Baker's era as the Fourth Doctor), The Brain of Morbius (1976), Horror of Fang Rock (1977), State of Decay (1981) and the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983).ĭicks also contributed heavily to Target Books' range of novelisations of Doctor Who television stories, writing more than sixty of the titles published by the company. Dicks went on to become the main script editor on the programme the following year, and earned his first writing credit on the show when he and Hulke co-wrote the epic ten-part story The War Games which closed the sixth season and the era of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton.ĭicks went on to form a highly productive working relationship with incoming Doctor Who producer Barry Letts, working as the script editor on each of Letts' five seasons in charge of the programme from 1970 to 1974. In 1968 he was employed as the assistant script editor on the BBC's popular science-fiction series Doctor Who.
He also wrote for the popular ATV soap opera Crossroads. His break in television came when his friend Malcolm Hulke asked for his help with the writing of an episode of the popular ABC (ITV) action-adventure series The Avengers, on which Dicks received a co-writer's credit on the broadcast. Terrance Dicks was an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s.