Delta and the Bannermen

"I spit on justice!"

Writer: Malcolm Kohll
Format: Novel
Released: January 1989
Series: Target 153

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Mel

Synopsis

'You are the last survivor,' hissed Gavrok. 'But not for long . . .'

As the ten billionth customers at a space tollport the Doctor and Mel win the Grand Prize - a place on the Fabulous Fifties Coach Tour to Disneyland, Planet Earth. But knocked off course by a wayward satellite, the coach party arrives instead at Shangri-la, a remote Welsh holiday camp.

The peace and quiet of the countryside are soon shattered by the arrival of an army of marauding Bannermen soldiers, led by the ruthless Gavrok. They are tracking down Delta, the Chimeron Queen, with only one thought in mind.

Her destruction.

Verdict

Delta and the Bannermen was a great little read! I definitely enjoyed it more than the televised version of the story and that's sometimes the beauty of the Target novelisations. You can often appreciate a story more in prose as they can work better on the page rather than on the screen. I've actually surprised myself a little bit with my rating for this book because I thought the writing style was actually quite poor. Well, it is rather a weird one. The writing of the story was actually excellent but I don't think Malcolm Kohll knew how to structure a paragraph or a chapter. The chapters were horrendously short and averaged just a mere four pages which is ridiculously small. It's absolutely fine to have a small chapter here and there but consistently quick chapters meant the pace was absolutely frantic and it didn't allow much room for character development. Some of the typing errors in this book were also abysmal and considering I was reading a reprinted version, I would have thought that they would have been picked up on and edited out. It did get laughable sometimes. Now, onto the story though and I actually really liked it. I'll admit that I can't remember much at all about the televised story so reading here was like a new story for me. I thought the characterisation of the Seventh Doctor was brilliant and I also thought the writing of Mel was terrific too. The relationship between the pairing was wonderful throughout. I thought the idea of a tollport was pretty good and I found it humorous that the Doctor was rummaging around desperately for some credits to pay. I thought Delta was a fantastic character and her being the Queen of the Chimeron made her the perfect sole survivor. Her relationship with Billy throughout the book was lovely to see but it was also quite saddening to what effect that had on Ray. Her abrupt arrival onto the Nostalgia Tours coach was good and I thought Murray was a superb character as the driver. His conversations with both the Doctor and Mel were great. The Bannermen were really good enemies as they were completely ruthless and they really didn't have any mercy. Gavrok was a brilliant leader and he would stop at nothing to kill Delta and wipe out the Chimerons for good. The sonic cone preventing the Doctor from returning to the TARDIS was dastardly but I liked the irony in that it would bring about the defeat of the Bannermen. Delta and her baby were protected and Billy took it upon himself to turn into a Chimeron and hope to rebuild the species from the brood planet. Once he had taken the Bannermen to trial, of course. Goronwy and his bees were quite funny and I loved the Welsh setting. I did take umbrage at the comment of 'Wales, England' though. I strongly disapprove of that! Overall though, a more than decent novelisation that could have been even higher with a better writing structure.

Rating: 8/10