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More Target reprints coming

2

23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
I was just checking the TARDIS Library site, which tracks merchandising releases, and I see on May 10 a second batch of Target reprints is coming out in the UK. According to the site the new editions are:

The Ark in Space
Day of the Daleks
Ice Warriors
The Loch Ness Monster (aka Terror of the Zygons)
The Tenth Planet
The Three Doctors

http://www.timelash.com/tardis/items.asp?books

No word as to who will be writing the introductions to these, though I'd assume Steven Moffat for Day of the Daleks since that's the book he's photographed reading in that often-reprinted pic of him as a kid.

Alex
 
Cool I some of the originals (about 50 in total) stored away since the 80's .
 
Tom said:
Cool I some of the originals (about 50 in total) stored away since the 80's .
Click to expand...

I have a bunch too, some of which I've seen for sale in collector's stores for some pretty hefty cash. It's great to see the books, some of which have been out of print for 20 years or more, coming back to life. I doubt we'll see all 156 reprinted, though!

Alex
 
I don't have any of these in my collection, but I have very fond memories of reading them as a kid in the 70s. I might some up when they are out.
 
WillsBauble said:
I don't have any of these in my collection, but I have very fond memories of reading them as a kid in the 70s. I might some up when they are out.
Click to expand...

The first set that came out last summer were quite well done, so if you want to test drive a few, you don't have to wait till May.

Alex
 
Target novelisations...takes me back to the 1980s when I read everything I could in that series. Good, happy memories.
 
Cool. I got to say, I found myself enjoying the Target novelizations more than I expected to when the first batch of reprints was released last fall. The Cave Monsters (The Silurians) was especially cool.
 
The Target books I don't think get the respect they deserve. They're often discounted as "children's literature" - I remember one used bookstore insisted on sticking them in the kids' books alongside Barney & Friends and the like, and the guy wondered why he wasn't selling any. I kept saying they should go in the SF or TV books sections, but he never got the picture. I'm so glad the reprints are being promoted as they should be - straight SF, to be filed alongside the Doctor Who and Torchwood novels. (I'll concede the Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations were kid-lit, however.)

I think the unabridged readings BBC Audio and AudioGO have put out have done a lot to impress people that many of these books are good stories independent of the original TV versions and stand up quite well, even if the writers had a 128-page cap most of the time. The books even sparked some controversy as I recall - I believe it was Ian Marter's novelisation of The Enemy of the World (and for anyone who didn't know, yes that's the actor - after he left Doctor Who he wrote a number of Target novelisations, several of which were published posthumously) that drew fire because - gasp! - some characters swore! And the British Empire trembled! ;)

The Wormhole said:
The Cave Monsters (The Silurians) was especially cool.
Click to expand...

That was the first DW novelisation I ever read, and it made me a fan of both the Targets and of Jon Pertwee, who I never actually saw properly on screen (The Five Doctors notwithstanding) until several years after I read the book.

Alex
 
I have a very vivid memory of reading a Target Who as a kid on holiday. We were sitting on a cliff somewhere, having a picnic and I had my head stuck in a book. I'm almost sure it was The Cave Monsters.
 
The first Dr Who book I ever read all on my own was The Android Invasion, but it was a Pinnacle, which was an american reprint version of the original Target adaptation.
 
Yes, I'm resurrecting this thread. I was looking through Amazon and discovered they updated their info on the next batch of Target reprints and have included who will be writing the introductions for the books. They are as follows:

The Tenth Planet - Tom MacRae
The Ice Warriors - Mark Gatiss
Day of the Daleks - Gary Russell
The Three Doctors - Alastair Reynolds
The Ark in Space - Steven Moffat
The Loch Ness Monster - Michael Moorcock
 
Wow, that brings back memories. For many years all the Doctor Who we got was Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I knew about the other Doctors but had never seen them, so reading these was the only exposure I got until PBS started broadcasting the Pertwee episodes here.
 
Tom said:
Cool I some of the originals (about 50 in total) stored away since the 80's .
Click to expand...

I used to have a complete collection of all the Target Who novelizations. (Well, complete in the sense that it included every novelization they'd published, i.e. everything except the Douglas Adams serials and some of the later Dalek serials.) But when I needed money and shelf space, I sold off a fair number of them, mainly adaptations of serials I wasn't fond of -- or books that were just dreadfully written in their own right, like Doctor Who and the Zarbi or Time and the Rani. I still have the majority of the novelizations, though, including all the novelizations of erased stories (since at the time I didn't expect there'd ever be another way of experiencing those). Recently, when I rented the Lost in Time collections of incomplete Hartnell and Troughton stories, I re-read the relevant chapters of the books to fill in the gaps between surviving episodes, or in the case of "The Moonbase" where they had surviving audio, I read along while I listened so I could get a better sense of what was going on in some scenes. (I tried the same with "The Crusade," but the novelization was so heavily changed from the script that it was impossible to follow along.)
 
When I last checked, this second set was to be released in North America on June 26. Now Amazon says January 8, 2013.

:(
 
I too recentally received an e-mail informing me the re-prints have been postponed to January 2013 (since I pre-ordered them).

I wouldn't worry, however. This is standard fare for BBC Books in North America. Take for example in 2011, when the release dates approached for the NSAs and the Torchwood Miracle Day novels they were suddenly postponed until January 2012 only to eventually be released two weeks to a month later than their original release date. Also, when the original release date for the first batch of Target re-prints was approaching (August 23) they got postponed to September 6 (which was when they were released). Curiously enough, The Silent Stars Go By actually had its release date moved two weeks earlier than originally reported.

Already this year, we've had something similar with the Shada novelization orignally scheduled for March release and is instead being released this week. I wouldn't worry about these Target re-prints. They could very well be released within the month. We certainly won't have to wait until January.
 
An update, Amazon is now showing a July 31 release date for the reprints of The Tenth Planet and The Ark in Space, four weeks exactly after their original release date. They're still showing the January 8 date for the other four re-prints, but I suspect that will change in the coming weeks and they too will be released on July 31.
 
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