The Master vs. the Doctor and UNIT. The Master has living plastic (later seen in the very first episode of New Who), but the Doctor is irrepressible. ( )

Het televisiescript in boekvorm gegoten door Terrance Dicks terwijl de oorspronkelijke schrijver Robert Holmes was. De zeer soepele schrijfstijl maakt het een boekje waarvan de bladzijden worden omgeslagen zonder dat de lezer het doorheeft.

In dit avontuur van de derde Doctor zijn oude vijanden (de Autons) aan zet en worden nieuwe hoofdpersonages (The Master, Jo Grant) geïntroduceerd waarbij de geschiedenis zal leren dat het ook oude vertrouwde figuren in het Doctor Who universum gaan worden.

Dit voor mij bekende televisieverhaal was verfrissend om te lezen. Het is geschreven in een heldere stijl zonder poespas. Zo kan op het televisiescherm het nog wel eens wat langdradig worden, in boekvorm is dat het zeker niet.
De bekende hoofdrolspelers zijn herkenbaar zonder dat ze bij naam genoemd worden en de eerste ontmoeting tussen de Doctor en Jo Grant nog eens meemaken een cadeautje.
Als Doctor Who fan ben ik natuurlijk schandalig bevooroordeeld maar als je nog wat luchtigs leuks wil lezen, trek dan deze pocket uit de stapel tweedehandsboeken overal verkrijgbaar. ( )

The Master, a renegade Time Lord and the Doctor's nemesis, is acting as a sort of Fifth Column element to allow a nefarious alien species called the Nestene to invade the Earth. Their favoured medium is plastic, through which they transmit energy and attack their enemies, particularly as the ruthless Autons. The Doctor repelled a previous Auton invasion, but can he do the same again?

This is a Third Doctor story that introduces one of his assistants, Jo Grant, who may not be the qualified scientist he asked for but who is determined to help the Doctor any way she can, even if it means putting her life in danger. It also features the always-entertaining personality clash between the Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The story itself is quite breathlessly thrilling (especially when the Brig and the UNIT soldiers have to blow up the Autons real good!) and very easy to imagine. It was difficult to restrain myself from cheering and groaning aloud as the Doctor's fortunes rose and fell throughout the story, which I read in basically a single day's worth of bus travel. I was cracking through those pages so fast it made the Autons' energy beams seem like peashooters.

One thing I did kind of object to was the fact that Jo seemed to require a lot of consoling hugs from the Doctor, which probably works okay on screen but for some reason looks silly in print, as if the story were written by a girl imagining herself as Jo and nursing a small crush on the Doctor. And to be honest that is a fairly small quibble, considering I would probably go to pieces just as much as she did if I were in that situation. But the rest of the narration was very good, fleshed-out enough to make the book more than the shooting script with some narration stuffed in between the dialogue. I would definitely recommend this if you like Doctor Who and haven't tried out one of the earlier stories (i.e. pre-Ninth Doctor) yet. And don't be surprised if you find yourself giving phone cords a suspicious eye for a while afterward. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1033342.html?#cutid1

This is one of Dicks' better efforts - introducing three new regular characters (Jo Grant and the Master both get good introductions here, Mike Yates rather less so) and bringing back the Autons. The Doctor is an inveterate name-dropper, and basically more fun than the character as actually played by Pertwee. It is a very rare case of Dicks actually improving on a Robert Holmes script - certainly when I eventually saw the original TV version I was disappointed that the 'orrible squamous Nestene Consciousness does not actually materialise in sight of the viewer. And it is a taproot text for much else in the later Doctor/Master stories - the radio telescope in Logopolis, the phone call in Last of the Time Lords. A good one. ( )