Just finished rereading the Dalek novelisation and my thoughts have remained unchanged: incredible prose that’s hurt by being a kinda standard adaptation filled with multiple (well-written!) short story backstories that don’t actually inform the overall narrative and just feel like Shearman wanted to write something different. 9 and Rose get sidelined and barely feel important, let alone the main characters due to how long these backstory sections can be and it’s just distracting and frustrating. Shame because the book itself is a good read, I just think it’s not a great adaptation because it bloats the original instead of enhancing it. 2.5/5
Will say the Dalek backstory was absolutely stellar though