The Black Archive #82: The Daleks

Sunday, 19 April 2026 - Reported by Marcus

The Black Archive - The Daleks (Credit: Obverse Books)

The latest release in the Black Archive series from Obverse Books looks at the first Doctor story The Daleks.

After the neutronic war, our Dalek forefathers retired into the city, protected by our machines.’

The second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks (1963-64), establishes both the principle that the Doctor fights alien monsters and the most iconic of those he fights.

Oliver Wake looks at its influences, from HG Wells’ The Time Machine through Nazi eugenics to the movies of the atomic era, and at how Terry Nation’s script was translated through sound and visual design into perhaps the most important Doctor Who story of all.

The book is available from the Obverse Books website

A 10% discount is available until the end of April using the code tenyearanniversary

FILTER: - Books - First Doctor

BBC Audiobooks Celebrates Complete Run of Doctor Who TV Novelisations

Tuesday, 2 December 2025 - Reported by Marcus

Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster (Credit: BBC Audio)

BBC Audiobooks has announced the completion of the full sequence of audiobook novelisations covering every televised Doctor Who adventure from The Daleks (1964) to Rose (2005).

This landmark is celebrated with the release of Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, read by Jon Culshaw, an audio adaptation of Terrance Dicks’s 1976 novelisation of the beloved Fourth Doctor story Terror of the Zygons.

This milestone marks the culmination of over 160 unabridged audiobook titles, representing every televised Doctor Who story between the Daleks’ debut in late 1963 through to the revival of the series in 2005.

What began with Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker in 1964 - later reissued as Doctor Who and the Daleks - has grown into an extraordinary legacy of storytelling. The Target Books range has ensured that each of those adventures, from the black-and-white classics to the dawn of the modern era, has been preserved and reimagined in sound.

61 narrators have contributed their voices to this audio chronicle of the Doctor’s TV adventures, including five on-screen Doctors (Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Paul McGann).

This is in addition to numerous companions, allies and adversaries bringing each story to life, lending their talents to both narrative and dialogue.

Their readings are accompanied by key special effects and the authentic voices of Daleks, Cybermen, and K9, courtesy of Nicholas Briggs and John Leeson.

FILTER: - BBC Audiobooks

Black Archive #76: Logopolis

Wednesday, 16 April 2025 - Reported by Marcus

The latest release in the Black Archive series looks at the Fourth Doctor's swan song Logopolis.

‘Structure is the essence of matter, and the essence of structure is mathematics.’

Logopolis (1981) is a mournful epic of cosmic destruction, obsolescence, and collapse, and marked the final serial in Tom Baker’s long run as the Doctor.

With a star unsure if he really wanted to leave, and a producer keen to explore new directions, Logopolis is a story set in the centre of a transitional space. This Black Archive investigates the changes before and behind the camera, explores the story’s themes of entropy and rebirth, and places it in the context of a specific moment in the history of both computing and Doctor Who.

The book is by Jonathan Hay the author of Science Fiction and Posthumanism in the Anthropocene. They lecture at the University of Chester.

BLACK ARCHIVE #76: LOGOPOLIS is available for pre-order now in paperback at a sale price of £5.99 and electronic formats, at a price of £3.99, direct from Obverse Books and from selected online retailers.

FILTER: - Books - Forth Doctor

Black Archive #73 Under the Lake / Before the Flood

Thursday, 31 October 2024 - Reported by Marcus

Black Archive #73 (Credit: Obverse Books)

The latest publication in the Black Archive series looks at the Twelfth Doctor story Under the Lake / Before the Flood.

‘You can’t cheat time. I just tried. You can’t just go back and cut off tragedy at the root. Because you find yourself talking to someone you just saw dead on a slab. Because then you really do see ghosts.’

A base under siege, a time travel paradox, and ghosts! With these elements in place, Toby Whitehouse’s Under the Lake and Before the Flood (2015) tread familiar ground for fans of Doctor Who while also moving in bold new directions, both in terms of story-telling and character representation.

This two-part story sees Peter Capaldi’s 12th doctor break the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience. His lecture on “the bootstrap paradox” serves to set up the central puzzle of these episodes while insisting that it remain unsolved. Meanwhile, actress Sophie Stone’s portrayal of Cass challenges traditional representational tropes surrounding disabled people. Simultaneously, this character asks us to think further about how we understand disability in, and through, science fiction.

The book is written by Ryan C. Parrey, PhD is Senior Lecturer in Disability Studies and director of the Disability Studies program at Eastern Washington University near Spokane, Washington, USA. and Kevin S. Decker, PhD is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University.

Under the Lake / Before the Flood is available now in paperback and electronic formats, direct from Obverse Books and from selected online retailers.

FILTER: - Books - Twelfth Doctor

Doctor Who: Print the Legend

Friday, 14 June 2024 - Reported by Marcus

The latest special from Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who: Print the Legend, is now available.

This lavish, 116-page bookazine from the makers of Doctor Who Magazine is the essential guide to novelisations – hardback, paperback and audio adaptations of television stories.

Highlights include profiles of leading authors, a section on collecting rarities, a look at the recording of the audiobooks and a tribute to illustrator Chris Achilléos.

Exclusives include a previously unpublished extract from The Enemy of the World, the book that legendary Doctor Who writer David Whitaker was working on before his death in 1980.

Editor Marcus Hearn says

The first of these books was published in 1964, and there have been 223 to date,
This special issue includes details on every single one, with cover illustrations, information about reprints, foreign-language editions and much more.

Each issue of Print the Legend comes with a free CD audiobook, randomly selected from the BBCAudiobooks Doctor Who range.

Doctor Who: Print the Legend is on sale now from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £11.99 (UK).

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £10.99.

FILTER: - DWM - Books

New Book by Bonnie Langford

Thursday, 9 May 2024 - Reported by Marcus

BBC Books is to publish a Doctor Who murder mystery written by Bonnie Langford

A band of killers. Survivors with a secret. A death-defying murder mystery in space.

When young Mel’s business partner, Sabalom Glitz embarks on yet another “get rich quick” scheme, it marks the start of an epic, death-defying murder-mystery in space.

After barely escaping the snares of a murderous galactic cult, Mel searches for fellow survivors in a nearby spaceship graveyard – while Glitz looks to fill his pockets. But the discovery of a spaceship with its crew in suspended animation and incredible secrets on board leaves the duo stranded with no way off.

Mel revives the crew – and then the murders start. Murders that cannot possibly have been committed by any of the crewmembers. In fact, there are only two realistic suspects – Glitz and Mel themselves…

The audiobook of Doctor Who: Death in the Stars, written and narrated by Bonnie Langford, is out on 22nd August 2024.

FILTER: - BBC Books

Ice Hot

Friday, 26 April 2024 - Reported by Marcus

A new anthology of short stories set in Doctor Who’s Paradise Towers has been announced by Obverse books

In 1987, Andrew Cartmel took over as Script Editor of Doctor Who, and immediately began to plan how to revitalise a TV series which some in the higher echelons of the BBC thought of as moribund and ripe for a final cancellation.

With one script already commissioned before he replaced Eric Saward in the role, the very first televised adventure in Cartmel’s now legendary Masterplan was Paradise Towers, written by newcomer Stephen Wyatt.

At various times, Paradise Towers has been described at the story which introduced camp into the show, the source of swimming pool phobia, and the first step back from the brink for the series in terms of quality story telling.

Sadly, it wasn’t able to prevent the 1989 cancellation, but since then it’s returned in comic book format, has been critically analysed at book length, and is now the setting for a second anthology from Obverse Books.

Fully licensed from, and with a new story by, Paradise Towers creator, Stephen Wyatt, ICE HOT is edited by Kara Dennison (Crunchyroll, Iris Wildthyme) and features new Who fiction from Mags L Halliday (History 101, Faction Paradox: Warring States), Finn Clark (Times Mosaic), Paul Driscoll (Seasons of War: Gallifrey), Tim Gambrell (UNIT, Lethbridge-Stewart) and many others.

Available for pre-order now. Publication date: 20 May 2024

FILTER: - Books

Three Fifteenth Doctor Doctor Who Novels Coming

Thursday, 18 April 2024 - Reported by Marcus

Doctor Who - Eden Rebellion (Credit: BBC Books)

Doctor Who - Ruby Red (Credit: BBC Books)

BBC Books has announced that three new Doctor Who novels will be published this year, featuring Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. Each book is an original, stand-alone adventure and will be published simultaneously in hardback and audiobook. The books are:

Ruby Red by Georgia Cook

April, 1242: the Doctor and Ruby answer a distress call sent from medieval Russia. The signal’s sender? Ranavere, an alien girl forced to take part in a barbaric conflict between the armies of Estonia and Novgorod on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus. Ranavere wants to escape, but her distress call has summoned her warmongering sisters, intent on preserving family tradition whatever the cost. And as human battle begins, the Doctor and Ruby must face a more devastating threat – a monstrous entity with plans of conquest, growing stronger beneath the icy lake…

Georgia Cook is an illustrator and writer from London. She has written for several sets in the Big Finish Doctor Who Audio range, including The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, Gallifrey: War Room, and the Interludes. She has also contributed short stories to publications such as Baffling Magazine and Flame Tree Press, and is a frequent contributor to various horror anthology podcasts as a writer and voice over artist.

The audiobook edition of Doctor Who: Ruby Red will be narrated by Millie Gibson, who plays companion Ruby Sunday in the TV series

Caged by Una McCormack

Are aliens ever abducted by aliens? And if they were, would anyone believe their story? When the Doctor and Ruby arrive on Cavia, they meet a gentle local who is certain that she has been taken for study by creatures from the stars. The Doctor is concerned to find mysterious meteors appearing in the sky, while strange robotic creatures crowd the forests, watching everything and waiting for…what? Who is interested in Cavia, and why? What is the sinister truth of the abductions? The Doctor and Ruby must discover the secrets of this mysterious world – and those who would seek to destroy it…

Una McCormack is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She has written many Doctor Who articles, scripts and novels, including The King's Dragon, The Way Through the Woods, Royal Blood, Molten Heart and Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh is Grass, all from BBC Books.

Eden Rebellion by Abi Falase

On the crystalline planet of Yewa, the Gardens of Kubuntu are a true Eden, said to be the most peaceful destination in the universe. At least, until the Doctor and Ruby arrive. Ancient rivalries between Yewa and its more prosperous sister world of Bia are being stirred by forces unknown, threatening to plunge its people into anarchy. With Ruby swept up in the fire of the Yewan rebellion, the Doctor finds dark secrets buried deep in the planet’s ancient history – and his hopes for a lasting peace hanging by a thread. For sinister guardians stalk the Gardens of Kubuntu, while an implacable enemy plots in the shadows – and in plain sight…

Abi Falase is a Black British writer and director, reimagining fundamental societal concepts in inventive new worlds. Creating what they like to call “feel-good social realism”, wrapping big discussions about everything from race and gender to capitalism in little pockets of humour – because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

Ruby Red by Georgia Cook (BBC Books, £14.99) is out in hardback and audiobook on 13th June

Caged by Una McCormack (BBC Books, £14.99) is out in hardback and audiobook on 27th June

Eden Rebellion by Abi Falase (BBC Books, £14.99) is out in hardback and audiobook on 24th November

FILTER: - Fifteenth Doctor - Books

UNIT: The Vaughn Identity

Sunday, 21 January 2024 - Reported by Chuck Foster

The Vaughn Identity (Credit: Candy Jar Books)

2024 will see the launch of Candy Jar’s UNIT range with a series of original novels.This new series of books now squarely focuses on UNIT and explores the fall-out from The Invasion, both on a personal and national level, and how the story would have been spun by the government and the press.

As the title suggests, the first book, The Vaughn Identity, looks into the background of Tobias Vaughn, picks up where the TV story The Invasion left off. It is written by the range editor, Tim Gambrell, who said:

There’s a lot left open at the end of The Invasion. Tobias Vaughn’s story – and the whole International Electromatics set-up – is very layered and detailed. We see repeatedly in Doctor Who that once the main threat is dealt with the Doctor is quick to leave.

As a character, he was in a class of his own – due very much to Kevin Stoney’s bravura performance, but also because of Derrick Sherwin’s script and Douglas Camfield’s direction. We know Vaughn was killed at the end of The Invasion, and left hanging over the railings. I wanted to find a way to get more from the character without pretending that he hadn’t really died on screen, which would have felt like a cop-out. I also wanted to work purely within the situations and concepts that Derrick Sherwin had created, to give my story the sense that it was finishing off, or tidying up any strands left hanging loose after the TV story had concluded.

But as well as looking back to The Invasion, The Vaughn Identity also looks forward to the series of books that will follow. Tim continued:

We’ve got a wider cast of UNIT regulars to take our books forward. Readers have already been introduced to many of them in the two UNIT Files short story collections (Operation Wildcat, 2022, and Operation Fall-Out, 2023) but The Vaughn Identity allows us to see how they were impacted by the events of The Invasion, making it more of a shared experience. As the first novel of the range, it’s important to introduce and involve new regular characters in the action and the storyline and not simply as an info-dump roll call.

There are a few minor nods to the Lethbridge-Stewart range, but nothing that would faze new readers. We want this to be a jumping-on point, a fresh start whilst also quietly acknowledging the achievement of the previous range.

There will be another short Benton Files book, free with the hardback of The Vaughn Identity. More details of that will be available nearer the time.

The Vaughn Identity can be pre-ordered from the Candy Jar website.

FILTER: - Books - Candy Jar - UNIT

The Church on Ruby Road on DVD and BBC Books

Friday, 15 December 2023 - Reported by Marcus

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) (Credit: BBC Studios)

Doctor Who Christmas special, The Church on Ruby Road, is now available to pre-order on DVD and Blu-ray and as a TARGET novelisation.

The Church on Ruby Road will see the Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa take control of the TARDIS and meet a new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson.

Long ago on Christmas Eve, a baby was abandoned in the snow. Today, Ruby Sunday meets the Doctor, stolen babies, goblins and perhaps the secret of her birth...

Little is known about Ruby Sunday as she was abandoned on Christmas Eve as a baby. Now living with her mum, Carla and grandmother, Cherry, her world is about to be turned upside down when she encounters the Doctor and the two set off on their first adventure together.

Alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson is Davina McCall who will be playing herself as she joins the cast alongside Michelle Greenidge as Ruby’s mum Carla, Angela Wynter as Ruby’s grandmother Cherry and Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood.

Doctor Who’s Christmas special, The Church on Ruby Road, airs December 25th at 5.55pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, and streams on Disney+ globally outside of the UK and Ireland.

Fans can pre-order the DVD and Blu-ray here

As well as the DVD and Blu-ray, BBC Books will be publishing a novelisation of The Church on Ruby Road under the TARGET imprint. Russell T Davies' original script has been novelised by up-and-coming literary talent Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson.

Jikiemi-Pearson is a science-fantasy author and co-founder of the organisation Impact of Omission, as featured in the Guardian, Huffpost, and the Channel 4 Documentary "Where's My History?" with footballer and anti-racism campaigner Troy Deeney.

An audio version of the novel will be available read by Angela Wynter

The Church on Ruby Road (BBC Books, £14.99) is out in hardback on 25th January 2024. Pre-order here

FILTER: - Books - Blu-ray/DVD

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