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The Review

Remembrance of the Daleks

by Ben Aaronovitch

Remembrance of the Daleks

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Remembrance of the Daleks is Ben Aaronovitch novelizing his own 1988 Doctor Who script, which was the season opener and which set the tone for what came to be called the Cartmel Masterplan. The premise is a Dalek civil war fought over a hidden Time Lord device in 1963 London, with the Seventh Doctor and Ace right in the middle of it.

What Aaronovitch does in the novelization that the TV episodes could not is fill out the texture. Coal Hill School, the smith girls, the gangsters in Totters Lane junkyard, the very specific November-1963 London atmosphere all expand into things the broadcast only sketched. The Seventh Doctor in particular gets the kind of long, careful character work the series was just starting to grant him before cancellation.

Four stars. Excellent on its own terms, and probably the most readable of all the Doctor Who novelizations from this era. Recommended even if you have never watched the original episodes.

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