BOOK DETAILS

SYNOPSIS

Following a skirmish in deep space, two alien spacecraft have crash landed on a barren planet in Galaxy Four.

The Drahvins are a race of beautiful females, led by the imperious Maaga. The Rills are hideous tusked monstrosities, accompanied by their robotic servants, the Chumblies.

When the First Doctor arrives, he discovers that the planet will explode in two day’ time. The Drahvins desperately ask for his help in escaping the planet and the belligerent Rills.

But things are not always as they seem…

NOTES

CHAPTER TITLES

1. Four Hundred Dawns
   
2. Trap of Steel
   
3. Airlock
   
4. The Exploding Planet

DEVIATIONS FROM THE TELEVISED STORY

• On their way back the Drahvin spaceship, The Doctor and Steven fall into a pit and only escape by pulling a Chumblie along with them. By standing on it, they manage to climb out.
  
• The Doctor hints that he is not in his first incarnation by stating that “[…] it is hard to find a good body.” This contradicts later televised stories and novelisations which explicitly identify this incarnation as his first, however it is equally possible that this discrepancy can be explained away as a general adage held among his people.
  
• He also mentions his second heart, something else not introduced until Spearhead from Space. In the story The Edge of Destruction, Ian checks the First Doctor’s pulse and doesn’t notice a second heart, implying he has only one. Other stories would suggest that The Doctor grew his second heart after regenerating for the first time. (The Man in the Velvet Mask) However, other novels do imply the presence of a second heart during his first body. (Salvation)
  
• The lead-in to the following televised story, Mission to the Unknown, has been omitted.