June 16th, 2022 9 comments

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Doctor Who The Target Collection 2022

These books are available to order from www.amazon.co.uk and www.forbiddenplanet.com

Audio CD’s of The Fires of Pompeii and The Eaters of Light are also available from www.amazon.co.uk

Note: Peter Harness’ The Zygon Invasion has been rescheduled for 2023, where it will be part of a|new collection of Target novelisations.

BBC Books is delighted to announce that it will be expanding the Doctor Who Target range with four new titles publishing on 14th July 2022, each with newly commissioned cover artwork by Anthony Dry.

Penned by the original scriptwriter the late David Fisher and adapted from his 2011 and 2014 audio novelisations, The Stones of Blood, and The Androids of Tara are now being released as two glorious Target books for fans to add to their collections. These will be accompanied by a Target edition of The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran, as well as The Eaters of Light by Rona Munro.

For Doctor Who fans, the range of novelisations published by Target Books in the 1970s and 1980s hold a special place. There was a novel published for almost every Doctor Who serial between 1963 and 1989, with a very few (five, actually) notable exceptions. Since 2012, BBC Books has been successfully reissuing these classic paperbacks and expanding the Target range to include all-new novelisations of modern-era Doctor Who episodes.

These latest additions to the collection, all by the original writers of the TV episodes, will help Target fans
complete their classic and modern-era collections.

James Moran said: ‘I’ve been watching Doctor Who and reading the Target books for as long as I can remember. The books were an essential part of my childhood, examining the amazing cover art, and “seeing” stories that aired before I was born. I loved learning new words from them, like “capacious”, and am beyond thrilled to become part of this publishing legend!’

Rona Munro said: ‘It’s wonderful to have another chance to revisit the ideas of my last Doctor Who story,
Eaters of Light, they are ideas that have been with me for a very long time and Doctor Who, as always,proved to be the largest and most exciting world in which to realise them.’

Doctor Who: The Stones of Blood
David Fisher

• The Doctor is delighted when his quest for the Key to Time leads him to his favourite planet, Earth. But his friends are less enchanted: Romana is nearly lured to her death by a sinister apparition, and K9 is all but destroyed by a belligerent boulder with the power to move – and a thirst for blood. An ancient stone circle becomes a battleground as the Doctor must outwit the deadliest alien criminal this side of hyperspace – and her bloodthirsty silicon servants…

David Fisher was approached by script editor Anthony Read to write for Doctor Who and the result was the100th story, The Stones of Blood, which transmitted in 1978. Fisher first met Read when the latter was setting up a series called The Troubleshooters in 1965. Fisher went on to write for Orlando (1967), Dixon of Dock Green (1969), Sutherland’s Law (1973) and General Hospital (1977). As well as The Stones of Blood, Fisher also contributed The Androids of Tara, The Creature from the Pit and The Leisure Hive to Doctor Who. The first two stories were novelised by Terrance Dicks, but Fisher decided to pen the latter two himself for the Target range.

Following his work on Doctor Who, Fisher wrote for Hammer House of Horror (1980), Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984) and collaborated with Read on a number of historical books with subjects including World War Two espionage, the Nazi persecution of Jews and the Nazi/Soviet pact of the early 1940s.

Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara
David Fisher

• The Doctor and Romana’s search for the fourth segment of the all-powerful Key to Time leads them to the planet Tara, where courtly intrigue and romantic pageantry employ the most sophisticated technology. Within hours of arriving, Romana is mistaken for a powerful princess and the Doctor forced to dally with robotic royalty – and both are quickly embroiled in the scheming ambitions of the wicked Count Grendel. Finding the segment of the Key is easy enough, but escaping with it in one piece will prove an altogether more colourful affair…

Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii
James Moran

It is AD 79, and the TARDIS lands in Pompeii on the eve of the town’s destruction. Mount Vesuvius is ready to erupt and bury its surroundings in molten lava, just as history dictates. Or is it? The Doctor and Donna find that Pompeii is home to impossible things: circuits made of stone, soothsayers who read minds and fiery giants made of burning rock. From a lair deep in the volcano, these creatures plot the end of humanity – and the Doctor soon finds he has no way to win…

James Moran is a British screenwriter for television and film, who wrote the horror-comedy Severance. He works in the horror, comedy, science-fiction, historical fiction and spy thriller genres.

Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light
Rona Munro

• The Doctor takes Bill and Nardole back to 2nd century Scotland to learn the fate of the ‘lost’ Ninth Legion of the Imperial Roman Army. 5,000 soldiers vanished without explanation – how? The search for the truth leads the Doctor and his friends into a deadly mystery. Who is the Guardian of the Gate? What nightmare creature roams the wildlands, darkening the sky and destroying all in its path? A threat from another dimension has been unleashed on the Earth, and only a terrible sacrifice can put things right…

Rona Munro was born in Aberdeen and has written extensively for stage, film, radio and television. Her breakthrough play Bold Girls, won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. As the writer of ‘Survival’ and ‘The Eaters of Light’ she is the first (and only) writer of stories for both the classic 1963-1989 series of Doctor Who and the 2005 revived series.






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