THE DOCTOR WHO RATINGS GUIDE: BY FANS, FOR FANS

Spearhead from Space 		Target novelisation
Doctor Who and the Dominators

Author Ian Marter Cover image
Published 1984
ISBN 0 426 19553 1
First Edition Cover Andrew Skilleter

Back cover blurb: The Doctor remembers Dulkis from a previous visit as a civilised and peaceful place. But times have changed, and his second trip is not quite the holiday he was expecting. The Dulcians themselves are more reluctant than ever before to engage in acts of violence. The so-called Island of Death, once used as an atomic test site, has served as a dire warning to generations of Dulcians of the horrifying consequences of warfare. But an alien race prepares to take advantage of their pacifism... The whole planet and its passive inhabitants are threatened with complete annihilation - and no one, it seems, is going to lift a finger to stop the evil Dominators and their unquestioning robot slaves.

Reviews

Good Book, Bad Story by Andrew Feryok 9/10/07

"Quarks! Destroy!"
- Toba ordering the destruction of just about everything in this book, page 74, Chapter 6
I'm a fan of Patrick Troughton's Doctor and always will be, but even I have to admit that The Dominators is one of his very worst stories. This is made even more worse by the fact that there could be so many other better Troughton stories to have survived the junking than this one. Granted, it is not as visually embarassing as The Underwater Menace, but the plot is so one-dimensional and goes on far too long for its episode length. The book is no better and was a struggle to read through not because it was badly written, but that the story drags on and on.

Ian Marter's talents are clearly being wasted with this book. This is the sort of adventure that should have been left to Terrance Dicks (no offense to him). In fact, Marter's prose is almost indistinguishable from Dicks' style in this story and he has made no attempt to add to the story as he has done with others I have read of his. This is simply a straight script-to-book adaptation with no deviations whatsoever. In its favor, the prose is rather good and flows nicely, but the story itself is just dreadful.

One of the biggest things that drags the story down is the Dulciens. Thankfully there are no Dulciens on the cover of the book and descriptions of their costumes are kept to a minimal so that we are not reminded of the horrible curtain costumes they wear on screen. The Dulciens are a truly pathetic race. They've taken pacifism to the point were they are incapable of any rational action. At one point in the story, the Dulciens state they pride themselves in believing in pure logic. They prove this by stating that the Doctor and his companions must be aliens as they say since there is no proof to the contrary. And yet moments later they continually deny that the radiation has disappeared from the island and that hostile alien lifeforms could possibly exist. If they are so quick to believe the Doctor and his companions as aliens, then why are they in such a state of denial over everything else? It is also sickening to watch how quickly the Dulciens leap to the idea of slavery under the Dominators rather than stand up for themselves. It reaches a point were you really don't care about the Dulciens or their fate and are actively wishing the Dominators would wipe them out, which is entirely the wrong feeling this story should be producing.

The Dominators are one-dimensional villains whose only saving grace are the constant arguments between Toga and Rago over Toga's constant wasting of the Quark's power through fruitless and pointless destruction. I like the detailed artwork of a Quark on the cover, but the story simply uses them as walking weapons for the Dominators, and Toga and Rago's dependence on the Quarks for virtually everything makes them seem even less threatening. Take away their Quarks and they are a pretty weak civilization!

The regulars are competently written in the story. The Doctor is humorous and clever, and Jamie gets to flex his muscles and even shows a bit of cleverness himself. Zoe is the only one who seems left out, but this is mostly due to the fact that she is a new companion. But still, with five episodes to play with, you would think that they would find something for her do. One of the few saving points of the story was the Doctor and Jamie's humor which is all recreated in this book by Marter. In particular, one of the standout humor moments is when the Doctor and Jamie pretend to be stupid in order to deliberately fail the Dominators' intelligence tasks and make themselves useless to them. It's an absolutely masterpiece.

Overall, the story is pretty bad and is only saved by the fact that the book itself is competently written. With unsympathetic aliens, one-dimensional villains and a slow pacing, this is not a story I would rush back to read and not one of Marter's better novelisations; although this is no fault of Marter himself but the fault of the original story by Norman Ashby. Overall, I would rank this as an average or slightly below average Troughton and Doctor Who novel. 5/10