Doctor Who and the Android Invasion (1978) by Terrance Dicks is the novelisation of the fourth serial of the thirteenth season of Doctor Who.

The Doctor and Sarah land on a planet that looks just like earth but they find a deserted village that is suddenly populated by people who are acting just a bit strange. From the title you can guess what’s happening.

Doctor Who and the Android Invasion is a reasonable Doctor Who serial. The TV version did the parts in the village better.

A simple but effective novelisation of a TV story for the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith from 1975, which also saw the last appearances of Sergeant Benton and Harry Sullivan.

It's from an era when the novelisations were clearly written with a younger audience in mind, so maybe keep that in mind when you're starting. It captures the tone of the TV original well though, even though the ending is as rushed and abrupt as it was in that version (and they took out one of my very favourite jokes in Doctor Who).

It's no masterpiece, by any means, but a genuine slice of 70s nostalgia and well worth giving a go (and soon to become more readily available via a new audiobook)

DOCTOR WHO IS A DOCTOR BUT NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR.

Functional, good for filling time in waiting rooms...

Trying to read all of my DW books in order, a few hundred of them. That means starting with the Target ones whose main plus is that they are short.

The second of my re-read of the old books. Great to jump around from doctor to doctor and enjoy the stories outside of the timeline.

Another good story if you ignore the bits that don't work or make sense and full of the fun of Baker's version of the Doctor.

Really enjoying the simple short action story of these books.

Great for a terrible year in so many other ways.

This is the latest in my following and reading along of Paul's Blog Now as I remember I enjoyed the tv version of this story. I can't really say the same for the book. It's not told with any gusto. It's like a bored person describing the events. You don't feel any sense of danger, elation, anything. This should have been a good read. There's a good story to tell here. It's the first time I've been disappointed by a Target novelisation. I'm worried it won't be the last....

a very enjoyable book, here Doctor Who uses his screwdriver for the first time to tell the androids from the humans, as the androids are exact mirror copies of other people. Thou this book was not as good as the first in the series reed, and lack some description I found it quite easy to imagine the scene of things, or it might be that I just have a very good imagination

Another fun Doctor Who book.

more fun

Another Terrance Dicks rescue mission. On television, "The Android Invasion" is one of the few shaggy dog stories in the otherwise peerless gothic/early 4th Doctor era. In prose, Mr. Dicks sews up the logic holes, strips the fat from the story, and gives it a proper conclusion. The end result is miles better than the original source material.