Doctor Who: Scratchman
by Tom Baker with James Goss (BBC Books, 2019)
A novelisation of the film script that Tom Baker and Ian Marter wrote back in the 1970s. The content is dark verging on horror, yet the tone is very much Baker’s latter-day staple of bemused, gently deadpanned, Doctor as lost man-child comedy.
Doctor Who: The Ribos Operation
by Ian Marter (Target, 1979); audiobook read by John Leeson (Chivers, 2011)
As a TV serial ‘The Ribos Operation’ is respected for its production values, script and performances. As a novelisation it becomes saggy and tedious. Wholehearted writer Ian Marter assiduously seizes every conceivable opportunity to unerringly inject knee-hammer adjectives and slavishly conceived adverbs.