Publication Information
Author: Gerry Davis
Cover artist: Chris Achilleos / Alister Pearson (1993)
Publishing date: February 1976 Episode Information
TV serial: The Tenth Planet
Writer: Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler
Transmission dates: 8th - 29th October 1966 (4 episodes) Fact and Findings
Although the TV serial was set in December 1986, the book adventure occurs in the year 2000.
From 1983 the book was numbered 62 in the Doctor Who library.
First edition cover price - 40p
The novel includes a prologue entitled The Creation of the Cybermen in which we are told the Cybermen evolved on Telos and later took refuge on Mondas. This is similar to the potted history contained in Chapter One of Doctor Who and the Cybermen.
So as not to end on a cliff-hanger, the book goes a little further than the TV serial and has the newly regenerated second Doctor on his feet and commenting to Ben and Polly: The man took the mirror and held it up. He examined his face. 'Yes,' he said. 'Pretty fair, all told!' He nodded and smiled pleasantly. 'I think I'm going to rather like it.'
Davis alters the original script again when, in chapter 7, Ben is trapped in the Projection Room and watches a film of Roger Moore as James Bond, realising 'Cripes! I saw that film just a few weeks ago!' He shook his head and thought again. 'Twenty years or so by their time.' As Ben pushed his way in to the TARDIS in 1966 and Roger Moore only took over as Bond in 1973 this would seem difficult. The original TV show (made in 1966) had him watching an unnamed black and white Western. The novel however was written and published while Moore was still fresh in the Bond role.
Classic chapter title: Resistance in the Radiation Room
Number of chapters ending in an exclamation mark: 3 / 12
The February 1976 release was promoted within the January 1976 edition of Target Books, a promotional leaflet / booklet sent to book sellers to promote interest in forthcoming titles.
The original edition was published by Tandem (ISBN 0 426 11068 4). Reprinted in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984 and 1985, the final edition of the book (retitled Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet) was released by Virgin Publishing, under their Target label, on the 18th February 1993.
A hardback edition was also released in February 1976, published by Allan Wingate Ltd. Cover Data
The front cover also includes the exclamation THE FIRST CYBERMEN ADVENTURE! While the back cover lets the cat out of the bag by proclaiming the book to be the last thrilling adventure of the first DOCTOR WHO.
The book includes illustrations by Achilleos on the back cover, showing the face of William Hartnell and a dramatic pose of a Cyberman blasting some poor unfortunate. This version was finally replaced in March 1993 by an Alister Pearson painting.
This was the first cover not to use a likeness of the Doctor on the front cover.
Although not repainted until 1993, the original Chris Achilleos cover underwent small changes so that by 1985 the blue of the logo had changed hue, the font colour had changed, the background above the planets had been replaced, and the library number appeared on the spine. Spot the difference by looking at the 1985 cover. The Hartnell / Cyberman illustration did not appear on the back cover.
Alister Pearson's wonderful cover artwork for the 1993 reprint was released as a postcard, free with 'Doctor Who Magazine' (number 203), September 1993. Reviews
"On the whole the book is well written and keeps to the script closely. However, the writer, Gerry Davis, seems to have had a brainstorm while writing parts of it... In The Moonbase he said that that occasion was the first time the Cybermen had thought of invading the Earth, so what happened to the stories The Invasion and Tenth Planet which on TV were set earlier in time than The Moonbase?... Gerry Davis says that the Cybermen replaced their brains by computers, yet later on in the story the Cybermen say: "Our brains are just like yours, except that certain weaknesses have been removed."... A few pages later we learn that before arriving at the South Pole the TARDIS landed on a planet and the Doctor took some samples. Of course we don't always know what happens between adventures, but if I remember correctly we were with the TARDIS crew all the time from the end of the story before Tenth Planet... On page 41 Mr Davis calls the Cybermen robots, while on page 48, Polly calls the Cybermen robots and they disagree. Who is right?... In the process of the story, Ben is locked up in a film room. Investigating the room he turns on a projector which shows a film and he says: "I saw that 20 years ago," which is what he did say on TV. All you early fans of Doctor Who will know that Ben left Earth in 1966 so at least Ben knows that the year should be 1986, even if Gerry Davis doesn't... The next incredible blunder is on page 134, where on seeing Mondas' destruction, Dr Barclay says that Mondas "turned into a Super Nova, and in half an hour it will disperse to the far corners of the Universe." What an incredible load of rubbish! All you scientists out there will know that if Mondas did turn into Super Nova (which, incidentally is impossible for a planet to do) the whole Solar System would be destroyed... Now I come to the worst part of the book: the end. I'm sure that most of you who watched Doctor Who in 1966 will remember the incredible scene where the Doctor changed his appearance. Well, if you expect to find this scene in the book then you're in for a shock, because it's not there! In fact it is completely different... "Why?" you all ask (I hope) did Gerry Davis change the end, and the other parts of the book? They didn't improve the story in any way, and in some cases harmed the story."
- Jan Vincent-Rudzki, 'Tardis' (number 6), May 1976
"Gerry Davis does a fine job of adapting this adventure which he co-wrote for television - capturing what must have been a furious pace on screen."
- Patrick Daniel O'Neill, 'Doctor Who' (Vol. 1, No. 13),
October 1985UK Editions
| YEAR | DATE | PUBLISHER | COVER ARTIST | LOGO | SPINE COLOUR | SPINE NUMBER | TARGET LOGO | ISBN | PRICE | NOTES | OWNED |
|---|
| 1976 | 19th February | Tandem | Achilleos | blue curve | white | none | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | 40p | first edition, illus. on back cover | Y |
| 1978 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | none | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | 60p | "second impression" | Y |
| 1978 | 17th August | W. H. Allen | Achilleos | blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | 65p | - | - |
| 1979 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | none | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | 75p | "second impression", Wyndham W on back | Y |
| 1980 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | 85p | - | - |
| 1982 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | - | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | - | - | - |
| 1984 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | 62 | colour | 0 426 11068 4 | £1.35 | - | Y |
| 1984 | - | W. H. Allen | - | - | - | - | - | 0 426 11068 4 | £1.50 | - | - |
| 1985 | - | W. H. Allen | Achilleos (revised) | light blue curve | white | 62 | outline | 0 426 11068 4 | £1.50 | - | Y |
| 1993 | 18th February | Virgin | Pearson | McCoy banner | dark blue | 62 | outline | 0 426 11068 4 | £3.50 | retitled Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet | Y |
Miscellaneous
Author
GERRY DAVIS
Gerry Davis has engaged in almost every branch of show business, from English provincial repertory theatre to writing (and making) documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada.
During seven years at the B.B.C., he wrote and edited a variety of television drama shows, including 'Softly, Softly', 'Doomwatch' and, of course, 'Doctor Who', for which he and scientist Kit Pedler created the famous Cybermen.
The author is now a full-time writer. He lives in Sussex and lists his hobbies as music, walking, sailing and tennis.
Gerry Davis served as script editor on Doctor Who from The Celestial Toymaker to The Evil of the Daleks, overseeing the critical transformation of the First Doctor into the Second. His first script was The Highlanders (from an idea by Elwyn Jones), he then teamed up with Kit Pedler to create the Cybermen. He adapted a number of stories that he had worked on as both writer and script editor for publication by Target between 1975 and 1986.
Doctor Who and the Cybermen
Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet
Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen
Doctor Who - The Highlanders
Doctor Who - The Celestial Toymaker (written with Alison Bingeman)
Also in the sixties, Davis worked on the soap operas Coronation Street, 199 Park Lane and United! Working largely in the United States from the mid-seventies on, Davis contributed to the film The Final Countdown and TV shows such as The Bionic Woman, Vegas, and Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
In the late sixties he and Kit Pedler teamed up with producer Terence Dudley (later a Doctor Who director/writer) to create the show Doomwatch (broadcast from 1970 to 1972). In 1971 Davis co-wrote (with Pedler) Mutant 59: The Plastic-Eater based loosely on a Doomwatch script. In 1974, the two teamed up again to extrapolate their Doomwatch ideas for the novel Brainrack. In 1975, Davis joined up with Pedler again to write The Dynostar Menace, in which the end of the 20th century's fuel problems are solved by building a giant nuclear reactor in space.
(Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater cover scan courtesy of Jon Preddle)
None of Davis' Doctor Who novelisations were translated into Dutch, but one of his Doomwatch novelisations was translated as Mutant 59: De Plasticvreter and was published by Zwarte Beertjes 1500 in the Netherlands in 1972. Translated by Kees van den Broe, it cost 3 guilders and 50 cents.
He suggested another Who script to editor Eric Saward in the early eighties, entitled Genesis of the Cybermen (the outline for which can be found in David Banks' book Doctor Who - Cybermen). When the BBC stopped making Doctor Who in 1989, Davis teamed up with Terry Nation and approached the BBC with a view to relaunching the show.
Gerry Davis died on the 31st of August, 1991.