Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment

"Man traps... on an uninhabited planet?"

Writer: Ian Marter
Format: Novel
Released: December 1978
Series: Target 56

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Sarah, Harry

Synopsis 

Landing on Earth, now a barren, desolate planet, Sarah, Harry and the Doctor are unaware of the large, watching robot. The robot is the work of Styre, a Sontaran warrior, who uses all humans landing here for his experimental programmes.

What has happened to the other space explorers who have come here? Why is the Sontaran scout so interested in Earth and in brutally torturing humans, including Sarah Jane? Will the Doctor be able to prevent an invasion and certain disaster, and save both Earth and his companions?

Verdict 

Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment was an excellent novelisation! I thoroughly enjoyed the book from start to finish and I was quite impressed by the fact that although the televised story was only two parts long, Ian Marter did a superb job of extending things so that it felt just like a normal Target novelisation of a televised story. I liked that there were quite a few deviations from the original adventure that was shown on screen and it was actually quite necessary to see things reach the 120+ page count. However, despite the extensions the novel didn't at all feel like it was being drawn out which was a big positive and the story wasn't suffering from any effects in the slightest. The Sontarans are a favoured enemy of mine and this is a story I know well having watched it on three different occasions so I was confident going in prior to reading that this would be good. I most definitely wasn't disappointed. Although Sontaran is in the story title, we didn't see Styr appear until a third of the way through the novelisation but the first forty odd pages prior to that reveal, that didn't actually reveal much at all now I come to think of it, were fantastic in setting the scene for the rest of the story to come. I thought this would be a good choice of story to read as I recently watched The Ark in Space and this adventure immediately follows it. The references to that story were good, although I'm not sure why Space Station Nerva was constantly referred to as Terror Nova. I'll have to read the novelisation of that story, which I do own, at some point to see if things are consistent in the books. Speaking of consistency, a comment by the Doctor regarding the activity of the Sontarans not being recorded since the Middle Ages would seem to conflict The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky but given the time between stories, I'm sure I can let things pass. Sarah's reaction to seeing the Sontaran for the first time was brilliant and I liked how she referenced The Time Warrior in thinking that it was actually Linx. That would obviously take some doing given what happened to him in the aforementioned story and how far this story is set into the future. I thought the Scavenger robot was utilised much more effectively in this novel than it was on television and I guess that's down to the beauty of having no budget restrictions when writing a novelisation. The characterisation of the Fourth Doctor was magnificent with Tom Baker's likeness effortlessly captured. The relationship between Sarah and Harry was also beautifully presented with the latter constantly referring to the former as 'old girl'. She didn't like that very much. The expansion on some of Styr's experiments were very good and I thought the difference in the ending was also great. The Sontaran Controller was told of Styr's failure by the Doctor and their hopes for galactic conquest were severely damaged. Styr was dealt with in a quite horrific way. Overall, a brilliant novelisation! 

Rating: 9/10