Death to the Daleks

"Well, well, well! Daleks - without the power to kill. How does it feel?"

Writer: Terrance Dicks

Format: Novel

Released: July 1978

Series: Target 22

Featuring: Third Doctor, Sarah

Synopsis 

A mysterious power-loss strands the TARDIS on Exxilon, a sinister fog-shrouded alien planet. Forced to brave the dangers of the planet, the Doctor meets the survivors of a beleaguered expedition from Earth searching for a precious mineral that can save the galaxy from a terrible space-plague. Sarah finds a mysterious super-City and becomes a captive of the savage Exxilons, and, worst of all, the Doctor's greatest enemies, the dreaded Daleks, arrive on a secret mission of their own.

What terrifying power makes captives of all who come to the planet? What is the secret of the mysterious deserted City with its great flashing beacon? And what sinister plan has brought the Daleks to Exxilon? The Doctor and Sarah must risk their lives time and again in a desperate attempt to foil the Daleks and save millions of humans from the horrific plague. 

Verdict 

Death to the Daleks was an outstanding novel and has immediately become one of my all time favourite novelisations of a televised Doctor Who story. I absolutely blitzed through it in less than three hours and considering I was reading on a train journey that started at 8.26am this morning (which is tremendously early for a university student like myself who was still awake at 2am earlier in the morning) I was extremely impressed with myself. It's not like it was a short one either at 125 pages but it was just marvellous. I've only ever seen the televised story once before and that was over three and a half years ago when I was running through every story in 260 days, but reading this novel definitely brought back some of my dormant memories of this story. It just had all the ingredients of an instant classic and that's what we got. A mysterious and enigmatic planet, the Daleks as the enemy and a wonderful TARDIS pairing in the Third Doctor and Sarah. They really did shine together in prose which was a real treat and it definitely reminded me of the only other novel I've done with this pairing which was the very good Island of Death. I thought things started very well with an efficient prologue immediately setting the tone for the story that lay ahead and then we had some trouble for the Doctor and Sarah. After being promised a holiday after the recent events of The Time Warrior and Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which were nicely referenced, a holiday is not what Sarah got. Instead the TARDIS landed on a barren world and all power was drained from the police box spaceship. The TARDIS was rendered immobile and was as good as dead. So, quite a problem to kick things off and it just set things up wonderfully. The planet was revealed to be Exxilon and the natives were from friendly! They'd captured the Doctor and offered Sarah for sacrifice before we had even reached the halfway point of the story which just showed what threat they carried - and they weren't even the primary enemies! The arrival of the Daleks was fantastic and I loved how the allies the Doctor had quickly made in his search of Sarah soon turned from hope to despair. They were hoping for the rescue ship and instead they got the Daleks! The description of their reactions was very good and I must say I thought the colonists from Earth who were on a mission to solve the space-plague were great characters. Jill was probably my favourite of the lot and I loved how well she got along with Sarah. The pair fooling the Daleks towards the end was marvellous with them filling bags of sand and putting them in place of the valuable parrinium. Exxilon being home to the cure of the space-plague was a good backdrop and I loved the revelation that the Daleks had actually arrived on the planet to take the parrinium for themselves so either the humans would give themselves up to the Daleks or would simply cease to exist. They'd win either way. Galloway was a pretty ruthless character and his dealings with the Daleks were questionable to say the least but I thought it was good how he went out in heroic fashion by blowing the Dalek ship up on its escape and sacrificing himself in doing so. Hamilton was also a good character but the highlight for me was the Doctor. Terrance Dicks captured Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor incredibly well and it was just a joy to read. Overall, a story with an excellent plot and just brilliance throughout really. I can't recall a dull moment and I just loved it from start to finish. 

Rating: 10/10