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 | Reviews for Remembrance of the Daleks |
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There are 3 reviews so far. To add a review of your own for this item, visit the voting page.
| By: | Phillip Barlow, London, UK |
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| Date: | Tuesday 14 January 2003 |
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| Rating: |   9 |
This is quite simply the best novelisation of a Doctor Who story. Writing for the Daleks is hard, as I've seen in other Dalek stories. So, instead of trying to turn them into more human characters, Aaronovitch goes the other way towards making them even more machine like, which is completely the way to go, and I'm sure influenced the way John Peel did Power of the Daleks and Evil of the Daleks. Fantastic!
| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Monday 23 June 2014 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
Why oh why haven't read this before ? ROTD is my second favourite (after Fenric) 7th Doctor story and this wonderful novelisation adds depth and interesting background (Chunky & Rachel had a shag on the beach !) to an already wonderful story. I read the 50th anniversary reissue with a nice intro by Ben Arronovitch. Highly reccomended.
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| One of the Better Novelizations |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 14 February 2021 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Ben Aaronovitch took the time to make his adaptation of his first Doctor Who script into a real novel. It has descriptions, interior monologue, additional information, all of which makes this one a very enjoyable read. Aaronovitch took the WWII connections that Terry Nation worked up with the Daleks, and went better than Nation by getting to the heart of the issue rather than staying on superficial similarities. Aaronovitch takes on racism, the concept of racial purity, the resentments of working class men that leads them to embrace racism, and weaves them together quite well. Thus, while we have parallel stories - the Dalek race war and the Mike Smith and Ratcliffe work for the "Association" to bring fascism back to British politics and Ace's memories of her Pakistani friend whose house is burnt down by racists - the stories are parallel in theme rather than parallel in plot. To enhance the theme, he very firmly establishes Rachel Jensen as Jewish and explores a bit of her and Ian Gilmore's memories of World War II. This is also the story that introduces us to Doctor VIII the schemer, the one with complicated plans in motion and personal secrets. While the novel has many strengths, there are few little problem areas. It is hard to keep track of the two Dalek factions. I was never convinced by the idea of a girl who can shoot blue lightning from her hands. There are even larger hints that The Doctor was around at the time of Rassilon and Omega than there were in the TV episode. It is an idea I do not like. The Doctor is clearly established as from a much later time. Ultimately, though, this is a novelization well worth reading.
