It feels like, despite the effort to publish the Key to Time stories (those they could anyway) in order and, excepting Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation, consecutively, the realisation that they could be treated as a series within the series came late.
Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation sets things up well on its back cover, blaring out how 'the Doctor sets off in the TARDIS to trace and re-assemble the six segments of the Key to Time' and bigging up the fact that 'the stability of the entire Universe depends' on his success.
It even throws the arc at the story, asking if Garron and the Graff Vynda Ka are 'both really agents of the Black Guardian, intent upon seizing the precious Key in order to throw the Universe into eternal chaos?'
Come Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood, however, no mention is made of the Key at all. Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara then sets the format, stating that 'THE ANDROIDS OF TARA is a novel in the Key to Time Sequence' and promoting the other available novelisations: 'Read THE RIBOS OPERATION and THE STONES OF BLOOD available now'.
The two subsequent books then do exactly the same, adding the previous release to the list each time, and Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor re-engages with bigging up the arc within the blurb itself. It summarises the set-up - 'Some time ago, the White Guardian, one of the most powerful beings in the Cosmos, had set the Doctor an urgent task – to find and reassemble the six segments of the Key to Time' (though I have questions about the clash between 'Some time ago' and 'an urgent task') - and doubles down on the book's own insistence that the sixth segment is 'the last, most vital piece'.
For the sake of completeness, I'll just point out that The Pirate Planet, published so much later, actually does a rather nice job of following in the footsteps of Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation and Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor: 'The hugely powerful Key to Time has been split into six segments, all of which have been disguised and hidden throughout time and space. Now the even more powerful White Guardian wants the Doctor to find the pieces'.
Other oddities to mention in passing:
It's very odd that, of all the novelisations, Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara, the story in which the Key is at its most incidental, is the only cover to feature a segment.
Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation, despite not being the first book to feature Romana, decides to introduce her as Romanadvoratrelundar, and describes both her and K9 unflatteringly: 'the argumentative Romanadvoratrelundar and K9'.
Actually, K9 gets a very odd time of it when it comes to adjectives, being 'argumentative ', 'faithful' and 'invaluable'.
Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara specifically references Ruritania.
And Doctor Who and the Power of Kroll gets a really good write-up that echoes the sharpening of its anti-colonial teeth - 'To the native swamp-warriors, Kroll was an angry, mythical god. To the money-grabbing alien technicians, Kroll was a threat to a profit-making scheme' - plus, as if that wasn't transparent enough, it also references 'the suspicion of the Lagoon dwellers [and] the stupidity of the technicians'.
Yes, the Peter Haining book is irrelevant.
On to Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor...
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