Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks

"I am their creator. The Daleks need me!"

Writer: Terrance Dicks
Format: Novel
Released: November 1979
Series: Target 21

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II

Synopsis

Landing on an apparently devastated planet, the Doctor and Romana make a horrifying discovery.

The planet is Skaro, home-world of the Daleks.

The Daleks are excavating in order to find and revive Davros, the mad, crippled, scientific genius who first created them. They hope that he will give them the scientific superiority to break the deadlock with their Movellan enemies.

Faced once more with the deadly and seemingly indestructible Daleks, the Doctor's wits and strength are stretched to their very limits...

Verdict

Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks was a lovely little read! I was quite surprised that the page count was so low at just 110, but that allowed for a very fast-moving story and the pace definitely made things exciting. It took a little while for the Daleks to actually arrive, something that I always find amusing when their involvement is nearly always given away in a story's title, but with the Doctor and Romana scenes in the TARDIS keeping things on track, there was absolutely no issue there. The follow on from The Armageddon Factor was great with Romana trying on different bodies but eventually settling on that of Princess Adastra, much to the Doctor's annoyance. I loved how quickly things developed though and we had that infamous chemistry between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward permeating on the page. Their relationship throughout was just wonderful and one of my favourite moments was one that may actually go unnoticed. It was where the Doctor saw a burial mound and believed that Romana was beneath, but of course she quickly surprised him from behind much to his delight and that momentary thought of horror was forgotten. It was a little window into the seriousness of the Fourth Doctor which can often be overlooked thanks to that boyish humour and huge smile. I was a big fan of that. The hunt for Davros was an intriguing objective in the novel and having the Daleks and the Movellans at a stalemate was a superb dynamic. I loved that idea and it was good that it wasn't so obvious initially because we didn't know the Movellans were robots despite numerous hints. When Davros was revived, thanks to some questionable tidying up of his death in Genesis of the Daleks, the anger shown by the Doctor was very interesting. He still seemed to be regretting his actions in that adventure in not wiping out the Daleks, but he was also sick of Davros making large claims about ruling the universe and Dalek superiority. He had been asleep for a long time and the Doctor knew all about the Daleks over that period and he knew they didn't need him long term. They just needed to break the stalemate. One thing that struck me about this story in a prose format was just how much the story is about Davros rather than the Daleks. That was brilliant though as he's such a brilliant character and I really do think he works best alongside the Fourth Doctor. The image in my head of him wheeling the Dalek creator around was just fantastic. The Movellans were very good throughout and I liked how they were now enlisting the Doctor as their man to break through the logical impasse. The Doctor proclaiming this to be the perfect remedy for peace was a terrific little statement as well. The Doctor actually going ahead and pressing the switch that he intended to detonate Davros with was quite a shock for me and it really sold me on how much he regrets his actions on Skaro back when the Daleks were created. The moment the Doctor realised he had returned to that planet was terrific and it was nice to have some foreshadowing earlier when they had exited the TARDIS. Romana also feeling it was a nice addition. Back to the conclusion though and it was pacy and logical if I do say so. I thought the image of the Daleks adorned with bombs may have been more impactful, the action figure of that is one of my very favourites, but as a whole it was good. Overall, a terrific little read!

Rating: 8/10