Revisit The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Books by Theresa Gauthier

I’ve been revisiting The Doctor Who 50^th Anniversary Collection—a Series of 11 books released in 2013 when Doctor Who hit its 50^th Anniversary. The books weren’t new. All had been released before. There’s a long history of Doctor Who novels. Eleven of them, however, had been chosen to be rereleased with updated covers in celebration of the 50^th Anniversary of the show. Over the next few months, I’ll be talking about each of them.

Ten Little Aliens by Stephen Cole was the First Doctor’s Adventure. There’s a delightful introduction in which the author explains how the story came about, and even more delightfully explores its origins in connection to murder mystery writer Agatha Christie. Doctor Who Fans will relish the details of the tale and enjoy Cole’s imaginings of Agatha Christie watching Doctor Who in the early days of the First Doctor as well as her never imagining that she would one day appear as a character in the show. (The Tenth Doctor’s “The Unicorn and the Wasp”)

Ten Little Aliens takes its name from the original title to Christie’s And Then There Were None—the original title was Ten Little Indians. It was changed for obvious reasons. 

The story revolves around ten alien terrorists frozen in time at the moment of death. The Doctor and his companions, Ben and Polly, arrive and soon they become enmeshed in the history of these ten terrorists and the soldiers who oppose them who are beginning to disappear. 

The book is well executed, and it’s nice to see Ben and Polly featured as there aren’t that many books that include them.  

The Second Doctor’s story, Dreams of Empire by Justin Richards, was first published in 1999 and features companions Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield. 

I do love stories featuring Jamie McCrimmon, and so was pleased to find him featured here. The story revolves around the Haddon Empire, a man in a mask whose chess games may be affecting life and death in a prison, and mysterious knights in armor.

There’s a lot going on here, and the Second Doctor is on top of it all.

Last of the Gaderene by Mark Gatiss is our third tale.

There’s a lot for classic Doctor Who fans to love in this one. This is the Third Doctor (as played by Jon Pertwee) with Jo Grant (as played by Katy Manning) along with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sergeant Benton and Captain Mike Yates, and the Master.

The Doctor and Jo are asked to investigate Culverton Aerodrome having been closed and troops of guards threaten locals. Later, the kidnapped locals begin to return—but there’s an unusual alien situation here and these people are not acting like themselves. 

The ending isn’t one the Doctor is happy about—much like he wasn’t pleased when the Brigadier destroyed the Silurians in Pertwee’s first season.

The story is well done, and is quite a page-turner. I do love Pertwee’s Doctor and Jo Grant, and this one is a great story.

Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris is the Fourth book in the 50^th Anniversary Collection features the Fourth

Doctor (as played by Tom Baker) with companions Romana (played by Lalla Ward) and K9. Notably, this book won a reader’s poll in Doctor Who Magazine as Best Past Doctor Adventure of 2000.

Fans of New Who might consider this a very “Timey-Wimey” story, and it is delightful in its use of time travel as the Doctor arrives and is thanked for saving everyone—which he hasn’t done yet.

This was great fun to read, and I found myself rereading passages not because I was confused, but rather because I enjoyed them so much. I thought I’d find it irritating, but in actuality, I really enjoyed the ride. 

These four books were great choices to include in the 50^th Anniversary Collection. Each one shone a light into the each of the Doctor’s lives in a perfect little capsule—a brilliant little glimpse at each of these first four of the Doctor’s personalities. 

That’s the thing about Doctor Who. More than any other show it embraced change as a constant ensuring it could easily remain part of our lives in perpetuity.

Next month, I’ll take a look at the next four titles.