Remembrance of the Daleks

"You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies."

Writer: Ben Aaronovitch
Format: Novel
Released: March 2013
Series: 50th Anniversary Collection 07

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Ace

Synopsis

With unfinished business to attend to, the Seventh Doctor returns to where it all began: Coal Hill School in London in 1963. Last time he was here, the Doctor left something behind - a powerful Time Lord artefact that could unlock the secrets of time travel. Can the Doctor retrieve it before two rival factions of Daleks track it down? And even if he can, how will the Doctor prevent the whole of London becoming a war zone as the Daleks meet in explosive confrontation?

Verdict

Remembrance of the Daleks was an outstanding novelisation of the televised story of the same name and as well as retelling the superb story in a different format, it added to it in wonderful ways and I think Ben Aaronovitch did a stellar job in bringing his story to life in the form of prose. Yes, that pun was intended and it was clear to us as the reader, perhaps from having watched the television serial, that the Doctor was goading Davros and the Daleks in and playing them along when it came to the possession of the Hand of Omega. That device was intriguing and I just love the idea of the Doctor having left something as powerful as this behind at Totter's Lane back in his first incarnation and has waited until six regenerations later to go and retrieve it. The little cameo we got of the First Doctor and Susan at the start of the book was excellent and I also liked the little snippets we got where Rassilon and Omega featured. That of course did not occur in the televised version and that's where the novelisation format can be fully utilised. The constant referring to an unnamed other that was with Rassilon and Omega was great as we assumed that this was the Doctor and it's just interesting to think about his past on Gallifrey and just how pivotal a role he played in the founding of Time Lord society, only to defy them and go interfering across the universe. The explanation of the two Dalek factions was brilliant and I thought the scenes where they do battle and Dalek civil war comes to Earth were absolutely sublime. They really were written tremendously well and it can be quite difficult to insert excitement into a battle in the prose format. The continuation of the previous Dalek stories spanning back to Destiny of the Daleks was excellent and I loved the abundance of past story references that occurred in the novelisation. We had the Doctor mention the events of Spearhead From Space, Terror of the Zygons and The Web of Fear and there were also magnificent references to An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Planet of the Daleks and Genesis of the Daleks. The extra detail about the Special Weapons Daleks was really intriguing and I loved how it was referred to as the Abomination. A Dalek that was self aware must have been frightening and the other Daleks certainly thought so. The characterisation of the Seventh Doctor was brilliant throughout with Sylvester McCoy's likness excellently captured. It was interesting to see Ace's character here as it was one of her first adventures and I did like the scene where the Doctor asks her for the explosive she definitely isn't carrying. The Counter Measures team were terrific and I liked how we learned a lot more about them. The moment the identity of Davros was revealed was just as good as on screen but what I really did like was the depiction of the Hand of Omega turning Skaro's sun supernova and then returning to rid the universe of Davros. Or so one might have thought. The ambiguity surrounding his demise was fantastic and I just loved the book as a whole. Overall, a wonderful novelisation of an incredible story!

Rating: 10/10