The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Gather round, my friends, while I tell you a story of the Olden Days – the days before DVDs, before VCRs, multiplexes and computer games. With no way to watch a favourite television series again at home there were two main ways open to fans to enjoy Doctor Who when it wasn’t on for its 25-minute slot on a Saturday evening on the Beeb. One was the various comics strips which appeared over the years, the other a collection of slim paperback novels from Target publishers. Right now I imagine a lot of Who fans of a certain age are sighing nostalgically as they remember those books – short novels based on the original television stories, they were our only chance to relive favourite episodes (okay, there was the Genesis of the Daleks LP and occasional other audio piece, but they were rare).

More than that, in the days before VCRs and DVDs and 24-hour cable channels mining archive programmes these were the only way for younger fans to learn of the stories of earlier incarnations of the Doctor which had aired before we were born, a chance to enjoy adventures of William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton’s days. Seems hard to believe now when classic programmes are big business on cable and in DVD sales, but those simply didn’t exist for us then and so we’d try to read our Target novels of the show while avoiding listening to the Bay City Rollers blaring out of other family member’s stereos.

(cover to The Target Book by David J Howe, published by Telos, artwork by Alister Pearson. I get a huge nostalgia rush just looking at this cover.)

Well, good news, my fellow geeks, for noted Who expert David J Howe has been very busy researching The Target Book which is coming out from Telos this autumn. David has not only been examining the history of Target, he’s been talking to many of those involved in the books over the years to get a more personal, inside story – he’s even got an introduction from Terrance Dicks, former script editor for Doctor Who and probably the author with more Who novels under his belt than anyone else. And naturally there is plenty of artwork on display – I loved some of the covers artists like Chris Achilleos came up with back then – including some rare material and some previously unseen sketches.

(cover art for Doctor Who and the Daleks by the great Chris Achilleos for the Target novel)

If you’re over the age of 35 and a Who fan the chances are you had a number of these books. Go on, admit it, you’ll feel better – I’ll admit it, I had shelves of them (still tucked away somewhere in a box to this day, hard to part with) and I still have happy memories of being about 8 or 9 and getting some of those books signed by Tom Baker at an event, as well as being given some jellybabies and a Target badge which I happily wore for years. I had no idea that many years later I’d host Tom for a reading and signing session of his autobiography. What can I say, I’m a geek and it is a show that gets into your blood, you never really grow out of it – which is why I suspect there are a number of my fellow geeks out there who will quite fancy a look at the Target Book.