Terrance Dicks has passed away. https://scifibulletin.com/2019/09/0..._Ui62x3XMre0hNYpKppNeD4SVYh3kOq9gBbUtpEVzSQrQ
Yeah, just read about this on BBC News... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49555763 Very influential in classic Who, and like the article mentioned, I too had over a dozen of the Target novelizations he wrote. Sad news indeed. Condolences to his family and friends.
Damn, that's terrible news. Doctor Who without Terrance Dicks doesn’t bear thinking about. Rest in peace, Uncle Terrance. Edited to add: The tributes are pouring in (plus Neil Gaiman's which is conspicuously absent from that article).
Very sad to hear. One of the good things about the DVD releases over the last two decades was the extensive amount of extras that included interviews and commentaries with people like him. Leaves an everlasting legacy alongside the original work.
In the pre-VCR days, Terrance Dicks' novelizations of Doctor Who episodes were simply addictive for me. Don't know why, but his writing was just sort of like comfort food, straight to the point, no bull, but also still satisfying. He'll always be a part of my childhood. RIP and thank you, sir.
As a teenager I read and derived great pleasure from many of his Who novelisations, wherein the TARDIS usually arrived with a “wheezing, groaning sound.” The only Who DVD I’ve ever owned is The War Games, a very entertaining and fun romp that he co-wrote with Malcolm Hulke. For better or worse, he also gave us The Five Doctors. By all accounts a skilled raconteur and a much-loved soul. The franchise isn’t the same without him.
Easily my most read author. Has there been any other author who has written over a hundred novels, and you've read all of them? Comic books are not novels.
Damn. Terrance Dicks is a very important part of what made Doctor Who what it's become. So much came from him, even the TARDIS noise described as a "wheezing, groaning sound" used frequently in the novels, and even in the show itself in Day of the Doctor came from him. In his novelizations he popularized the term "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" to the point it's now considered Pertwee's catchphrase, despite the fact Pertwee only spoke it onscreen two or three times. I know most everyone considers the Tom Baker era to be the definitive era of Classic Who (if not Who in general), but in all honesty, I actually consider the Pertwee era the height of the Classic Era, and Terrance Dicks was one of the driving forces behind that era. I am of an age where TV shows are readily available through reruns, videos, DVDs, and now streaming. But I have read a few of the Who novelizations Dicks wrote and they were worth checking out, even if I'd already seen the story they were adapting. And the guy always gave great interviews on the DVDs. And he had The Best attitude towards continuity in Doctor Who. "Continuity is only whatever I can remember." RIP
In the fall of 1982, I met a guy in college who was a Whovian, but not a Trekker. He persuaded me to watch "just one" Doctor Who story (they were being shown one episode at a time on weeknights on PBS at the time; this was before the station started also showing them in full on Saturday nights). My first story, therefore, was "The Pirate Planet." That's NOT a good introduction to the series, if you're unfamiliar with Douglas Adams' brand of humor. I nearly stopped 15 minutes in, but reminded myself that I'd promised. So I stuck out that first story, and tried the next. Fortunately, "Stones of Blood" is a very good story - my favorite of the Key to Time arc. And then, as happened with Star Trek, I got hooked. And then I remembered that I'd seen Doctor Who novels in the bookstores, so I promptly scoured every new and second-hand bookstore in town for those Target novelizations. They are what got me through the time when catching up with the show itself happened one half-hour/weekday at a time. I think I have all of Dicks' novelizations now (thank goodness for eBay and sellers in the UK who were willing to ship to Canada). I haven't read all of them, but I've read most. The rest will come eventually. Not that I personally have read all of them, but Andre Norton's output of novels might be in that ballpark. Last time I actually counted my books, I had several dozen of her novels.
Bye Uncle Terry. Might ask Mum to bring all the Target novels up when she visits this week. I'll forgive him Warmonger. Peri was indeed ample.
RIP, You were a very important part of Doctor Who's development. The guy was a writing machine! Is it safe to say he has written the most amount of Target books?