Doctor Who Target Novelisations

Lol! Thx! I’m on my way! :+1:

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Hi all!

Just started “Unearthly Child” last night (on a suggestion from you all and your assistance).

I am enjoying it and as mentioned, these books seem a lot shorter than the EDW’s that I was focusing on prior…

It’s cool learning in this one that Susan is the Doctor’s granddaughter (I had read of this in one of the eighth books as well, but this is a cool “tie it together” moment for me".

I love some of the devices that they refer to in the book like the “yearometer”, which I would assume tells the year! :rofl:

So far pretty fun!

Thanks @DontBlink for getting me pointed in the right direction with the reading order that I’m following!

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Do you have any thoughts on the First Doctor yet?

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Very different!

Possibly a bit more “crunchy” or grumpy/less zany? Even though he is old he is “surprisingly strong”, so that makes him still a force to be reckoned with. :sunglasses:

Initially I was disappointed, until I changed my thinking a bit.

I’m enjoying this Doctor, just had to “reframe” and change my expectations a bit.

Thanks for asking!

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Something that’s very nice about the First Doctor is the journey his character goes on, he really softens over time

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Very cool, thank you for this insight, I’m actually half tempted to just keep going through the Targets until I get to the EDW books (are there books “in-between”?) that I was previously working through…

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Well, there’s a little thing called the VNAs…

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Okay, first off, thank you in advance for my education that you are helping me with…! :+1:

So: Targets then VNAs and then EWAs in that order? (I won’t worry about anything more modern for now!) :rofl: :exploding_head:

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Some Targets come after the VNAs and EDAs…

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And then he passed out… :scream:

LOL! JK! And thanks again for your wisdom here!

Okay cool, I guess getting and exact reading order is kind of tough…

Well, I’ll start with the Targets for now, there are quite a few, should take me a bit! :rofl:

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The are six main ranges of Doctor Who books: the Target novelizations (which novelize all the Classic TV stories featuring the First through Eighth Doctors[1]) and some of the Modern Series (Ninth through Fifteenth Doctors), the Virgin New Adventures (which give the continuing adventures of the Seventh Doctor after the end of the TV series), the Virgin Missing Adventures (which feature the First through Sixth Doctors in “missing” adventures designed to slot in between TV stories), the BBC Past Doctor Adventures (First through Seventh Doctors), the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (which you started with), and the BBC New Series Adventures (the current range featuring the Ninth through Fifteenth Doctors).

There are of course other books and small mini-ranges scattered about, but these are the main ones with lots of titles. The Targets have been a thing since 1973[2], the Virgin stuff ran from 1991-1996 with the license moving to BBC books after the 1996 TV Movie.


  1. since Eight’s primary TV appearance got a Target ↩︎

  2. with a couple Hartnell stories published earlier ↩︎

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Wow! Just WOW!

Okay, well cool, LOTS to read! :grin:

Thank you for that breakdown, I will save it for future reference! Very handy.

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Okay, basically, you’ve got the Targets as novelisations for the Classic series (this is the one that was on TV from 1963 to 1989), the VNAs follow after this point with the Seventh Doctor. Then there was the TV movie which introduced the Eighth Doctor, who is then the main character in the EDAs. There’s also the Virgin Missing Adventures and the BBC Past Doctor Adventures which take place between the TV adventures of doctors one to seven. There’s then also Target novelisations for the Modern Doctors (Ninth Doctor onward from 2005) as well as the New Series Adventures which take place between the TV adventures for modern doctors

Edit: @DarthGallifrey was quicker but oh well

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Yeah, there are tons of Who novels (not to mention Short Story collections). The biggest problem is finding a copy of all of them. The bulk were published between 1991 and 2005 and are thus out of print.

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I should also add that the Modern Series Targets have not adapted all the Modern episodes.

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@JohnnyRockets if you want to join in conversations on individual books, we have the Television > TV Club where you can post your thoughts on the individual Target novels (we’re currently in Troughton’s first season) and the Books > Book Club where we’re alternating going through the Virgin New Adventures and the BBC New Series Adventures.

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Reading them digitally is your friend?

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Thank you!

I guess the Television-TV Club didn’t seem very “bookish”…

I will check these out, thx!

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The Television > TV Club is where we go through each TV story. We’ve been alternating between the Modern and Classic series with a story each week. Because the Target novelizations are direct adaptations of the Classic era TV stories[1], it’s perfectly acceptable if you want to hop in to those threads as you read and chat about the story with us and/or ask story-specific questions.


  1. sometimes word for word to its detriment ↩︎

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This here is the classic DW fan experience, getting a new Doctor for the first time, going 'I don’t like them I want the old one back >:( ’ and then ten minutes later being ‘yayyy the new Doctor I love youuuu’ haha

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