Doctor Who's Putrid Ham
A quest through the Dr Who novelisations
"The excellent ham of Doctor Who is more than a little off"
1974 Times Literary Supplement review of Doctor Who and the Crusaders (quoted from David J Howe's The Target Book)
Well, it is a Doctor Who blog...
Doctor Who and Warriors' Gate - almost doesn't feel like an adaptation
Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock - almost flawless
Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters - it's just grand, innit?
Doctor Who - if it weren't for the weird disgust for the Daleks' natural form and ogling of the Thals...
Doctor Who and the Green Death - Hulke treats the actual story as a bit of an inconvenience
Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon - Jo is unforgivably treated
Doctor Who and the Crusaders - preachy yet morally flawed
Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks - Dicks does Hulke
Doctor Who and the Space War - Hulke does Dicks
Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive - perhaps unsurprisingly, even better than Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit
Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit - overflowing with joyful exuberance
Logopolis - strangely effective as a culmination of all Tom Who
Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters - Dicks shows exactly when it's best to change nothing
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space - Marter immediately establishes a niche
Doctor Who and the Daemons - less than the sum of its parts
Doctor Who and the Cybermen - much more than the sum of its parts, but those parts...
Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion - what's his bloody problem with Whitaker?
Doctor Who and the Time Warrior - Dicks leaves well alone again, and that prologue's worth a couple of extra places
Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils - lovely but it all feels a bit incidental
Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth - epic in a way weirdly immune to plot or prose details
Doctor Who and the Face of Evil - like finding a Williams-era story a season early
Full Circle - feels fresh but muddled
Doctor Who and the Robots of Death - slight, but with more substance than on TV
Doctor Who and the War Games - an impossible task that still shines on occasion
Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon - Dicks loves a tawdry rip-off of a classical myth (see next)
Doctor Who and the Underworld - maybe it's just the shock talking, but this is good
Doctor Who and the Sunmakers - the story deserves even better; Dicks keeps most of the fun but defangs it horribly
Doctor Who and the Web of Fear - unbelievably smoothly written, if a bit empty
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen - more impressive than you remember
Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet - a disappointing missed opportunity but enjoyably bonkers
Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation - might leave a sour taste, but it's mostly very enjoyable
Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden - and Dicks doesn't even change that much
Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos - Dicks does Colin Baker seven years early
Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon - not as odd as on TV
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion - pacy but empty
Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child - accepting I enjoy the story more than most, this is unremarkably decent
Doctor Who and the Mutants - turns out piercing clarity is less enticing than messy excess
The Revenge of the Cybermen - does Dicks actively resent what they're making of Sarah on TV?
Doctor Who and the Invisible Enemy - Dicks somehow ekes some sense out of it all
Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time - a nearly valiant attempt
Doctor Who and the Power of Kroll - some nice touches achieve a surprising amount
Meglos - slightly fun
Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara - it's alright
Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood - it's alright
Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken - it's alright
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars - Dicks really does all he can for this one
Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors - I could tell you little about this bar what I contrived for it to say
The Three Doctors - he really writes Troughton well!
Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus - bizarre and fun but in competing ways
Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang - these Hinchcliffe/Holmes adaptations are clustering, aren't they?
Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin - might be about as televisual as Doctor Who ever got
Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius - a lack of Philip Madoc does inevitable damage
Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World - a pale shadow of its TV self
The Planet of Evil - just required too much fixing
Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment - interestingly flawed
Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen - starts alright but goes dramatically downhill
Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom - brutal
Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks - astonishing
Doctor Who and the Giant Robot - sometimes funny
Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons - this is what he wanted Jo to be??
Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor - even more underwhelming than you'd expect
Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks - weirdly, too jolly WWII film for something so concerned with Nazism
Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl - petty
Doctor Who and the State of Decay - bland
Doctor Who and the Visitation - hard work
Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear - um...
Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon - tight, yes, but still a bit shitty
Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders - what's the point?
Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster - why?
Doctor Who and the Zarbi - I'll be amazed if this isn't still bottom at the end of all this
Junior Doctor Who and the Giant Robot - disjointed
Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora - putrid
Doctor Who and the Android Invasion - a waste
Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks - being rushed is the least of its problems
Death to the Daleks - exhausted
Junior Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius - pointless
Time-Flight - pointless and/or confused and/or vile