by Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE AUTON INVASION
First published 17 January 1974*, which puts it between Invasion of the Dinosaurs Parts One and Two (or Invasion and Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part Two, if you prefer (or is it Invasion Part One and Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part Two?))
*http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Auton_Invasion
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"Worse than a midsummer night it was. Seeley blamed it on those atom-bombs"
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion feels less richly written than the Whitaker books, with a focus on events and things happening where the earlier novelisations often skipped over action sequences altogether (do you remember Ian’s last minute escape from inside a Dalek? Never happened). Even the blurbs make the distinction clear, Doctor Who and the Crusaders promoting itself on the characters’ juxtaposition with their location (‘the Tardis returns to Earth, but not to the world Ian and Barbara know’) while Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion focuses on its main event, ‘the nightmarish invasion of the AUTONS’. Where Whitaker produced children’s versions of Greene and Boccaccio, Dicks turns to Ian Fleming for his model, establishing the style of the Target range for the 1970s and setting light to the previous model where ideas submerged in the episodic, serialised storytelling of TV got developed for the novelisations, like Strutton’s reflections on class hierarchy or Whitaker’s hatred of the ugly.
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With Spearhead from Space a story about factory automation and the eventual replacement of humanity by plastic where extraterrestrial threats hide in symbols of modernity, there’s certainly a theme to be had. Dicks does use internal monologue to make clearer how even figures of authority are bemused by the modern world, the Brigadier ‘in command’ of scientists whose utterings he finds ‘mumbo-jumbo’, Dr Henderson, unsure whether the Doctor’s medical data makes him ‘a doctor, a vet or a raving lunatic’, and Liz, called down to London for a job she dismisses as ‘science-fiction’. Others have come to simply shrug and accept anything regardless of reason or observation, as when Seeley attributes the Nestene spheres to ‘atom-bombs’, the ‘too immaculate’ Auton at the hospital, repeatedly described as ‘a waxwork come to life’, attracts nothing beyond unease and the real General Scobie can only be differentiated from the waxworks around him by an on-time wristwatch.
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But the modern world isn’t just confusing, it’s also brutal: A hospital cares so little for those entrusted to them that the likes of Beavis descend to slice ‘healthy’ patients up for no reason other than the ‘challenge’ and ‘adventure’, with passing students commenting as if it’s a common occurrence; Soldiers shoot unarmed men for being confused in the woods and we even get a glimpse of the start of a cover-up (‘Came straight at me!’) before the incredulity in his superior’s response makes clear how thin an excuse this is; And Seeley’s desire for a profit endangers his wife as he hides the Nestene sphere in his shed and then the whole world as his obtuseness nearly allows the Autons to get it before the soldiers. Dicks adjusts his hero and monsters for this harsher world. Pertwee, in Spearhead from Space, played the newly regenerated Doctor as crafty but in the book he’s rawer, genuinely panicked and confused ‘Like a hunted animal making instinctively for its lair’. Meanwhile, the Autons become more predatory, described as ‘hunting’, able to track and corner their prey, and with an ‘over-riding function […] to kill’.
None of this really adds up to much though. There might be something in the ending hinting that the Doctor is the perfect balance the modern world and more old-fashioned personability, the Brigadier recognising him thanks to both his ‘scientific results’ and his ‘uniquely, aggravating temperament’ but, like everything else above, there’s not a lot else in the book to make you sure there’s really anything in it. More significant is the Doctor’s thought about ‘looking forward to his stay on Earth’, promising at another story. The Muller novelisations may have felt more literary than this but they were firmly a collection of one-offs, cherry-picking the Doctor Whos they wanted and rewriting the stories so they could stand alone; Dicks firmly signposts the Target range firmly as a continuing series. That means that the novelisations might now suffer some of the same drawbacks of serialised storytelling that the TV series does but the constant promise of more stories is probably one the reasons why every available television story ended up getting novelised.
I might have been a bit harsh so far but, if I’m honest, there’s a relief to reading Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion. I was a bit down on Dicks’s adoption of James Bond as his prose-model but it is more appropriate to the TV Doctor Who of the 1970s and it makes the books blessedly pacy. This book fair whizzes by. Furthermore, the eight years that have passed since Doctor Who and the Crusaders have brought their own advantages. Firstly, Tory Who’s down to just the one line, and even that might more fairly have its attitudes attributed to the character speaking than to the story. More importantly, following Doctor Who’s first Wood/Miles-sanctioned ‘Annus Mirabilis’ and the fact that, according to David J Howe’s The Target Book, the 1973 rereleases of the first three titles have just sold out 20 000 copies, including Doctor Who hitting No 6 in the WH Smith Top Ten on 20 July that year, the series and its concepts can be taken for granted in a way that’s more akin to now than the 1960s.
That familiarity is most obvious in the Prologue, which opens with ‘In the High Court of the Time Lords’ and introduces the Doctor as one of their renegades. This is their first appearance in the books and a flashback to their first TV appearance and they receive absolutely no build-up at all. Dicks can assume his readers have heard the Doctor’s people talked about endlessly and even seen them in The Three Doctors and so that they’re about to get a scene involving the Time Lords is a bigger hook than any mysterious hints towards what or who this powerful race might be. In this way, the novelisation goes beyond the ‘in-print video’ Dicks has talked about aiming to create (and which Strutton did) and in fact reinterprets the script as a look back at how the third Doctor used to be rather than a tentative introduction to what he will be like, something the readers know better than Robert Holmes could possibly have done, hence the book is promoted as ‘the first adventure of [the Doctor’s] third `incarnation'’. Similarly, opening with the soon-to-be-dead second Doctor, launching a new series (this is technically the first Target book) in exactly the way the TV Movie failed to two decades later, makes sense if you assume that it is the glimpses into the otherwise unreachable past that is the appeal of the range. And the success of the Target range seems to prove Dicks was right in his assumption.
‘From unknown Space, the Tardis returns to Earth, but not to the world Ian and Barbara know. The little blue telephone box has wheeled sharply in the cosmos and cut back through the pattern of history to the struggle between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin […] In a dramatic climax, Ian finds himself fighting for his life in the harsh, cruel world of the twelfth century, where only the cleverest and strongest survive’
Blurb for Doctor Who and the Crusaders - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Crusaders
‘DOCTOR WHO, Liz Shaw, and the Brigadier grapple with the nightmarish invasion of the AUTONS’
Blurb for Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Auton_Invasion
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‘The Brigadier looked at Liz and the Doctor as they bent over their instruments. He sighed, recognising that he hadn't a hope of understanding what they were up to. No doubt they'd tell him when it suited them. And he was supposed to be the one in command! Not for the first time the Brigadier considered applying for a transfer back to normal regimental duties. Life had been so simple then. Parades, inspections, manoeuvres, more parades... He'd been offered the UNIT job not long after that Yeti business in the Underground. Presumably because he was the only senior British officer with experience in dealing with alien life-forms. At the time it had seemed like a rather cushy number, carrying as it did the welcome promotion from Colonel to Brigadier. If only he'd known! First that nasty affair with the Cybermen, and now this. The trouble with the scientific approach, thought the Brigadier, was that it left you at the mercy of your scientists.
‘Then he brightened. For all their scientific mumbo-jumbo it was direct military action that was going to solve the problem. The Brigadier's eyes sparkled with anticipation at the thought of tomorrow's attack on the plastics factory’
‘Then he shrugged his shoulders. Let them go to the waxworks. Let them go to the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and the London Zoo while they were at it! And much good might it do them. As usual all the real work was left to him. Like children, these scientists!’
Let’s just look at that in detail: The Brigadier, who is very much his 1974 persona here rather than his 1970 one, bemoans ‘the scientific approach’ because ‘it left you at the mercy of your scientists’, considering things beyond his field simply ‘mumbo-jumbo’ and consoling himself that ‘it was direct military action that was going to solve the problem’. He resents Liz and the Doctor’s help so much (‘No doubt they'd tell him when it suited them’) that ‘Not for the first time the Brigadier considered applying for a transfer back to normal regimental duties’ which, in his head, consists purely of different ways to about – ‘Parades, inspections, manoeuvres, more parades’ (an insult to the actual military as well as to the character). Apparently, he accepted the role at UNIT because ‘it had seemed like a rather cushy number, carrying as it did the welcome promotion from Colonel to Brigadier’ rather than his being actively involved in the formation of the unit, as I always thought The Invasion implied, because he was atypically broad-minded enough to see the need for such an organisation and clever enough to persuade others. In fact, in Dicks’s head, he’s a complete idiot, even completely missing the connection when the Doctor and Liz race to the waxworks on finding the plastics factory makes replicas for them: ‘As usual all the real work was left to him. Like children, these scientists!’
Dr Henderson accepts the nature of his patient quite easily in the end – it just requires two pieces of evidence even though each is clearly questionable as they’re only solitary samples: ‘Now I don't know whether that makes me a doctor, a vet or a raving lunatic, but as far as I'm concerned those are the facts’
‘He's cracking up, she thought wildly. Over-work probably. Been reading too much science-fiction […] She wondered if she ought to start heading towards the door, before the Brigadier suddenly decided she was a Martian spy’ - the Brigadier is head of a successfully secret (allegedly) military unit commissioned by the UN and Liz knows this so how dangerously mad exactly does she think it’s likely he can be?
I have no idea on Earth what this is supposed to suggest: ‘Worse than a midsummer night it was. Seeley blamed it on those atom-bombs’. Does he think the Nestene baubles are atom bombs? If so, does he have absolutely no concept of what an atom bomb is beyond that they’re rare and usually delivered from the sky? And why is he not worried and attempting to put as many miles as possible between himself and multiple (MULTIPLE!) atom bombs he believes are landing? I suppose the first question might answer the second. Does Terry have no idea what an atom bomb is or is he trying to suggest that Seeley's an idiot?
‘middle-aged, immaculately dressed, with regular, handsome features […] The clothes were too immaculate, the handsome features too calm and regular. He looks like a wax dummy, thought the reporter uneasily. Like a waxwork come to life’ - maybe he passes as one of these modern professionals with his crisp suit and plastic hair?
‘Would you also go to the trouble of winding the watch up and setting it to show the correct time and date?'
‘Doctor, when you were talking about the watch—did you mean that's the real General Scobie?’
‘a brief exploratory operation. Open him up, take a poke around, see what's what’
‘he seems to be a very healthy one. I don't see that an operation...’
'“Where's your sense of adventure?' asked Beavis. 'Haven't had a really interesting operation for years. It'd be a challenge”'
‘He's probably finished off poor old Henderson's patient for him already’
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The Doctor gets shot by a soldier: ‘As he burst from the bushes surrounding the clearing, he saw to his horror the soldier with his rifle aimed straight at him. The Doctor tried to shout but the tape was still over his mouth. There was the crack of the rifle shot, a searing pain in his head and then blackness. The Doctor spun round and crumpled to the ground’
‘“I had to shoot, Corp,” babbled the sentry. “He attacked me. Came straight at me!” Forbes looked at the still figure of the Doctor. “Attacked you, did he? An unarmed man, in a hospital nightshirt?”’
‘The wonderful find that was going to bring him fame and fortune —once those idiots of soldiers realised that it took a man like Sam Seeley to find things in the woods’
'Worth a pound or two, you are, me beauty. I'll just hang on to you till they all get a bit keener' - and his deliberate evasiveness when he finally does go to the soldiers: 'I reckon it'd be worth a fair bit of money—if anyone did happen to know where he could put his hand on one?'
‘By making off with that meteorite, Mr. Seeley, you brought all of this upon yourself, and gravely hampered my investigations. As for a reward—you and your wife are both still alive and relatively unharmed. Isn't that reward enough?'
‘Totally confused by the sudden flurry of events, there was only one thought in his mind. Like a hunted animal making instinctively for its lair, he wanted desperately to reach the safety of the TARDIS’
Autons are not just dumb plastic grunts: ‘Channing said softly: "I have some control over them. But they also have a life of their own. Their over-riding function is to kill"'. And Ransome observes that they show tactical awareness: ‘the hunting Auton. He realised that the creature must have some kind of intelligence. It consistently managed to block his way to the exit. All the time it was edging closer and closer, confining him to one corner of the factory’
‘“Two things combined to convince me, actually.” “Oh, yes?” said the Doctor curiously. “The brilliance of your scientific results was one,” said the Brigadier. “And the other?” said the Doctor, with a modest smile. “Your uniquely, aggravating temperament,” the Brigadier said crisply. “There couldn't be two like you anywhere, Doctor. Your face may have changed, but not your character!”’ - Interesting that that’s still the view of regeneration
‘All in all he was quite looking forward to his stay on Earth’
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Tat Wood: About Time 3 (expanded 2nd edition) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/About-Time-Unauthorized-Doctor-Seasons-ebook/dp/B00EZB7BX4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1479384783&sr=8-6&keywords=about+time+wood
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‘In the High Court of the Time Lords a trial was coming to its end. The accused, a renegade Time Lord known as the Doctor, had already been found guilty’
‘Dicks also points out that when he started writing the books, there was virtually no commercial video and few repeats […] ‘My intention was to do an in-print video’’
David J Howe: The Target Book; p.49
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‘the first adventure of his third `incarnation'’ – setting up the idea of ‘incarnations’ and so ‘regeneration’ (as opposed to The Power of the Daleks’s ‘renewal’ ahead of Planet of the Spiders.
Blurb for Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion - http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Auton_Invasion
‘he was quite a small man. He wore an ancient black coat and a pair of check trousers. He had a gentle, rather comical face and a shock of untidy black hair. But there was strength in that face, too, and keen intelligence in the blue eyes’
Destined to Play Worzel Gummidge
Dicks clearly saw it in Pertwee from the start:
'Coat and trousers were both far too small, leaving bony wrists and ankles stretching out in a scarecrow fashion’
‘he wouldn't get far looking like a scarecrow’
The Brigadier ‘deciding not for the first time
that he would never understand the ways of
women’. REALLY??
Height Attack!!
The Doctor is a 'tall thin man'
The Brigadier is a 'tall army officer'
And there's 'the tall figure of the Auton stalking towards him along the pavement'
Are You Sitting Comfortably..?
The odd Doctor Who novelisation narrative voice raises its head once more: ‘As yet, the Doctor had no idea of the significance of the meteorite shower that had accompanied his arrival on the planet Earth’ - it's the hint forwards inherent in 'as yet'.
And, in a whole new twist, Terry has a go at providing the blurb in the book: ‘Soon a normal, bustling London day would be in full swing. But this day, in London, and in cities all over the country, was to be like no other. This was the morning of the Auton invasion’
Dicksisms
We even get a glimpse inside the Time Lords’ minds and it's fiercely banal: ‘The President of the Court sighed. They were letting the fellow off lightly. He ought to be humble and grateful, not kick up all this fuss’ - so you can hardly collar The Deadly Assassin as the moment they were hauled down from Godhood
Now you know Uncle Tel’s in town: ‘a strange wheezing and groaning filled the air’
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A nurse considers the Third Doctor's appearance: ‘It was a strange face. Sometimes it seemed handsome and dignified, sometimes quizzical, almost comic. The seams and wrinkles, the shock of almost white hair should have made it an old face, yet somehow there was a strong impression of energy and youth’ - the double ‘sometimes’ does make you wonder how long the nurse actually spends studying the Doctor’s face despite being mid-conversation with Dr Henderson
Terry appears to believe the Doctor lives in an episode of The Avengers: ‘General Scobie heaved an exasperated sigh. He'd been looking forward to a quiet evening with his collection of regimental memoirs’
Even in the books, lining up the effects with parts of the body proves challenging
Miscellania
Welcome to the double entendre: ‘The nurse trembled. Like all the other nurses in the hospital, she was terrified of Henderson and his sharp tongue’
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Bit of history: ‘a sheet of the wife's new-fangled kitchen foil’
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Even the Brigadier thinks UNIT’s cover’s rubbish: ‘As the leader of a supposedly secret organisation’
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Hibbert made Channing: ‘He remembered finding the green pulsating globe in the woods, the night of the first meteor shower. He remembered taking the globe back to the factory. He remembered staring as if hypnotised into its flashing green depths’
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Um…: ‘No question of telling them his real name, of course. Time Lord names have an almost mystic importance, and are usually kept closely guarded secrets. Anyway, they'd never be able to pronounce it’
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