This isn’t an era of Target novelisations that tends to attract much admiration. In The Target Book, Dicks himself says that he ‘added less’ (3) the more books he wrote, partly in deference to the scripts but also, it’s implied, because ‘the schedule grew more hectic’ (4), and David J Howe makes clear this was something for which fans increasingly criticised him ‘During the late '70s and early '80s’ (5). Today, that vision of the novelisations of the time seems to persist: Miles Booy, in what to be fair is not explicitly a criticism, states that the novelisations of the time ‘retold the plotlines, but added little’ (6); Jason A Miller, arguing against the view, recounts the accusations that the ‘books were too short and that they were merely transcripts of the shooting scripts, not adding anything interesting’ (7); and @archivetvmus71 describes the era as full of ‘nondescript books’ and terms it ‘the Bronze Age’ (8). Tim Roll-Pickering, who is working through the novelisations on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide (and who I’m assuming is not @archivetvmus71), picks up the term (9) and places its peak – or, I guess, nadir – in 1980 (10), a year which saw Dicks pen eleven of the twelve Doctor Who novelisations.
At the same time, ‘The Horns of Nimon’ is a story from an era on TV which seldom attracts unqualified admiration and, as discussed with ‘Underworld’, its problems are not just constrained to budgetary restrictions and production problems. This story itself was, according to Toby Hadoke’s memory, judged ‘top of the All Time Clunkers’ at the time (11) and the Running through Corridors verdict, so positive for so many stories, sees 'Horns', in Hadoke’s words, as ‘a rather shabby affair’ (12) which, in Rob Shearman’s words, is ‘dull’ (13), leaving them ‘ready for something different’ (14). Meanwhile, even the defence in About Time describes the story as containing ‘all the worst clichés [and] all the flaws of production’ of the Williams years (15) and El Sandifer, usually keen to redeem, simply declares ‘everything about this script is wrong’ (16).
So why do I like the books of 1980 so much? Well, I think it's because they're mostly adapting Williams tales. As Gareth Roberts writes in defence of this era, 'characterisation is one of the hallmarks' (17) of the Graham Williams years, specifically character who have 'backgrounds, beliefs, lives of their own' (18) on worlds which possess 'roundness and credibility' (19). This might not have always come across brilliantly on screen, but the space is definitely there for the novelisations to throw in additional details, histories, whole prologues with a regularity the range hasn't before seen.
In the same vein, Roberts also suggests that there's a greater attention 'to the character of the Doctor, his beliefs, his friendships and his motivation' (20), something that'd feed Dicks's habit of describing events from the Doctor's perspective.
The biggest factor, I suspect, is something Roberts doesn't mention. He talks a bit about the Doctor now, as he professes in 'Pyramids of Mars', being middle-aged, but the same's also true of the show. The Williams era develops a consistent self-awareness, clearest in its easy humour, that suits Dicks's love of a snarky aside down to the ground. If nothing else, stories which can happily - or not always so happily - let Tom Baker deliver flippancies direct to camera aren't going to offer any resistance to Dicks's bits of jokey interior monologue. Even were Dicks doing little more than translating scripts to prose, these scripts suit both his style and the page much better than most of the earlier fodder.
On which note, one of the most surprising transformations of the lot: Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon...
3. ‘as time went on I added less and tried to put everything that was in the script into the book’
Terrance Dicks quoted in David J Howe, The Target Book; p.49
4. ‘as the schedule grew more hectic and picked up pace, and it got to the stage where I was doing roughly one book a month, it became more of a technical exercise in taking a script and turning it into a book’
Terrance Dicks quoted in David J Howe, The Target Book; p.48
5. ‘Although Dicks's intentions were honourable, it was this principle that attracted the most criticism from fan readers. During the late '70s and early '80s, there seems to have been a shift in the fan base from wanting the novelisations to adhere strictly to the televised stories […] to them openly embracing those novels […] that extrapolated from or presented a different slant on the source material’
David J Howe, The Target Book, p.49
6. ‘The books of the late 1970s efficiently retold the plotlines, but added little, and they were readable by eight year olds’
Miles Booy, Love and Monsters; p.19
7 ‘For decades, the rap against Terrance Dicks' novelizations was that his books were too short and that they were merely transcripts of the shooting scripts, not adding anything interesting -- purely juvenile fare, and not worthy of the lofty heights of other writers in the Target stable’
[review of Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon]
Jason A. Miller, ‘Never Bet Against Terrance’, pagefillers.com/dwrg/frames.htm
8. ‘For me, there’s three clear ages of Target – the first is the Golden Age, with Terrance Dicks, Malcolm Hulke, Brian Hayles and Gerry Davis all crafting some of the best novelisations in the range. The late 70’s and early 80’s is the Bronze Age alas, as Terrance ended up as pretty much the last man standing, churning out some fairly nondescript books month after month. The Silver Age runs from the mid 80’s onwards and is particularly enjoyable thanks to the contribution of many Hartnell and Troughton era scriptwriters who, some two decades on, returned to pen novelisations of their original scripts’
@archivetvmus71, ‘Doctor Who – Target Books. A personal appreciation’, archivetvmusings.blog/tag/target-books
[Bronze Age may derive from an ‘informal name for a period in the history of American superhero comic books usually said to run from 1970 to 1984’ (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_of_Comic_Books)]
9 ‘the book is a product of the so-called "Bronze Age" of Target novelisations’
Tim Roll-Pickering, ‘A weak story adapted in a weak era’ (reviewing Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood), pagefillers.com/dwrg/frames.htm
10. ‘It is a sign of the general problems with Target that reached their height in 1980, a year when Terrance Dicks wrote no less than nine out of the ten novelisations released, with the result that many feel lightweight. […] what we get is a straightforward retelling of the televised story’
Tim Roll-Pickering, ‘A missed opportunity’ (reviewing Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time), pagefillers.com/dwrg/frames.htm
11. ‘I happened upon a copy of DWB at a Doctor Who convention, where it listed a poll of the All Time Classics and All Time Clunkers […] There it was, in all its glory, at the top of the All Time Clunkers, as voted by their readers... The Horns of Nimon’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman, Running through Corridors 2; pp.389-90
12. ‘it’s just a rather shabby affair – neither the grand folly of legend nor the misunderstood comic tour-de-force of modern reinvention. It’s a slightly drab adventure with some misjudged comedy, limp supporting performances and questionable design’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman, Running through Corridors 2; p.388
13. ‘With no mystery to the episode – and there isn’t any, there really isn’t – it all becomes rather dull’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman, Running through Corridors 2; p.384
14. ‘Enough of this. I don’t know about you, but I’m just about ready for something different’
Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman, Running through Corridors 2; p.389
15. ‘And so all the worst clichés, all the flaws of production […] are flung on the bonfire to make sure no-one ever submits a script like this again’
Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood, About Time 4, p.312
16. ‘Absolutely everything about this script is wrong’
Elizabeth Sandifer, Tardis Eruditorum, eruditorumpress.com/blog/through-an-endless-shifting-maze-the-horns-of-nimon
17. 'Good characterisation is one of the hallmarks of the Williams era'
Gareth Roberts, 'Tom the Second', dwb no.121 (Winter Special) ;p.10
18. 'Characters as diverse as the Pirate Captain, Professor Rumford and Binro have backgrounds, beliefs, lives of their own'
Gareth Roberts, 'Tom the Second', dwb no.121 (Winter Special) ;p.10
19. 'The attention paid to detail is most pleasing, giving the fictional worlds portrayed roundness and credibility'
Gareth Roberts, 'Tom the Second', dwb no.121 (Winter Special) ;p.10
20. 'a high level of attention was given during this period, by production team and actor, to the character of the Doctor, his beliefs, his friendships and his motivation'
Gareth Roberts, 'Tom the Second', dwb no.121 (Winter Special) ;p.11
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