The Space War

BOOK DETAILS

Pages	142
ISBN	0-426-11033-1
Publication Date	23 September 1976

SYNOPSIS

1976 Target Books edition

“Doctor, ” screamed Jo.“Look at that thing. It’s coming straight at us!” A small black spaceship, about a mile away, was approaching rapidly.

It had no lights, no markings. But some instinct told Jo that the tiny craft meant danger.

The year is 2540, and two powers loom large in the Galaxy – Earth and Draconia. After years of peace, their spaceships are now being mysteriously attacked and cargoes rifled. Each suspects the other and full scale war seems unavoidable. The Doctor, accused of being a Draconian spy, is thrown into prison. And only when The MASTER appears on the scene do things really begin to move…

NOTES

CHAPTER TITLES

Link-up in Space
The Draconian Prime
Stowaways
The Mind Probe
Kidnap
Prison on the Moon
The Master
Space Walk
Frontier in Space
The Verge of War
Planet of the Ogrons
The Trap

DEVIATIONS FROM THE TELEVISED STORY

To keep the novel self-contained, the ending was re-written with The Doctor, in good health, leaving in the TARDIS. Before leaving, he tells The Master he must deal with The Daleks. The Master gathers up his belongings and says to himself “Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.”

An original sequence features The Doctor and Jo’s first interrogation by Williams.

The Doctor pleas for the President to release the political prisoners from the moon.

The novel includes and elaborates on the back story to Williams destroying a Draconian ship which was cut from the televised version. Williams, given the first name John, was a lieutenant who took command when the captain and seniorofficers were killed, and destroyed the Draconian ship by firing his retro-rockets at it and causing a chain reaction. The future President was on board as a senator’s aide; it is implied that they were in a relationship which the incident ended.

Williams is said to have supported the President’s opponent in the election and been offered his position as military advisor as a reconciliatory move.

The Master claims to come from Aldebaran Four rather than Sirius IV.

There is an earlier appearance of Brook, making a newscast calling for war prior to the report from C-982.

The Master mentions The Daleks as his employers in an aside after leaving The Doctor and Jo alone on his ship, much earlier than in the televised version.

Patel is renamed Doughty and is described as fair-haired rather than of Indian descent.

There is no explanation for what happens to Dale after The Master removes The Doctor from the airlock.

It is clarified that the Governor encourages guards to pretend to help prisoners escape and then make sure they die in the attempt.

The sequence of the Draconians attacking Williams’ ship is omitted entirely.

There is an extra scene of Jo quizzing The Master about his motives.
Gardiner instructs Earth Security not to starve The Doctor and Jo.

Jo sees a chained-up Ogron, who will be starved and then fed to the lizard for stealing food from the shrine.

The Ogron-eating monster seen on screen is replaced with a giant lizard, as originally scripted, and this is what appears to the Ogrons when The Doctor uses the hypno-sound device at the end.

The characters make frequent use of a ritual form of parting, exchanging the words “May you live a long life and may energy shine on you from a millionsuns”/”And may water, oxygen and plutonium be found in abundance wherever you land.” This does not appear in the televised version.