#target novelisation

[the-time-lord-oracle]

Do you ever read the Doctor Who Target novelizations or the BBC New Series Adventures? If so, do they influence anything in your stories?

I've read a few of the Target novelisations. I fact, a couple of my adaptations of The Fires of Pompeii took some inspiration from the Target novelisation of that episode.

[clarasteam]

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution – Written by Una McCormack & Read by Varada Sethu (BBC Audio)

The Robot Revolution saw the start of Ncuti Gatwa’s second (and as it turned out, final) season as the Doctor. It introduced new companion,

Lovely review of Una McCormack's The Robot Revolution, which I have just finished in its audiobook version, read by Varada Sethu. Una McCormack is exactly the person you want to write this story properly, giving depth and reality to people we don't see enough of in the episode, and in some cases barely glimpse. I knew she would do something great with Sasha 55, and she does. I love what she's done with Belinda's history too.

[dwrogue]

Quotes from the novelisation

So the Target novelisation is out! Highly recommend it, an extremely good time that somehow gives us a ton of backstory on Rogue while also still leaving things very open for fic.

A selection of quotes I highlighted on my way through:

The Doctor being horrendously into Rogue

The Doctor was now walking in the gardens with Rogue beside him, his new favourite brooding stranger.

He looked back at Rogue, walking, brooding (of course), and had to remind himself that this was an interrogation, not a date.

Sure, the Doctor couldn’t deny, Rogue was incredibly handsome.

The Doctor was suddenly very conscious that their hands were almost touching.

Rogue grabbed the Doctor’s arm and moved him with ease to the middle of the small metal pieces. ‘Stand there.’ The bounty hunter’s strong, the Doctor thought. Confirmed.

The Doctor could already feel people starting to turn and whisper but his focus wasn’t on that. All he was thinking about was Rogue. Rogue’s hand on his shoulder, his chest. Rogue’s eyes locked with his as the pair of them turned and twirled across the floor.

More below the cut: some of these get very spoilery including for the very end of the book, so don't click if you don't want to know.

Rogue being horrendously into the Doctor

His gorgeous brown eyes beamed up at Rogue from the middle of the crowd. For the first time in a long time, Rogue felt that jolt of electricity when you meet that person. That next person who might be the one to change your life.

the main thing that impressed him was how stylish it all was. How well placed and how welcoming. Rogue had only known the Doctor for one night, but it was clear this ship was perfectly made for the person who travelled in it.

‘I know.’ Rogue smiled at the kind, brilliant, amazing man in front of him.

Rogue felt another jolt of that electricity as their arms almost touched.

He wondered how long he would have with this new and wonderful stranger, and then also why he was troubling himself with the thought at all.

He’d not been asking the Doctor for marriage, but for some simple commitment. A sign he should stay longer than this one adventure. To see those worlds he’d promised. At least for a little while. Now he couldn’t stop wondering how much of their connection was real and how much had been for show.

Socially anxious king

It was then that Rogue emotionally left his body and started panicking a good 50 feet above the scene playing out below.

‘So, have you known the Duchess long?’ It was here that Rogue hoped the Doctor was his bounty because his small talk game was not his best quality.

Usually, the imaginary conversations Rogue had with [Art] were when he was alone in the ship but in moments of crisis sometimes, he would imagine him, a life raft in a sea of social interaction nightmares.

‘Can’t I storm off alone?’ said Rogue. ‘I would rather not talk in front of this many people.’

I had to stop and compose myself for a minute

‘Don’t blame me! De Lacaille chose them! Great astronomer, bad with names.’ Then he smiled cheekily. ‘But if it’s romance you’re after? He also named those stars there the pump, the chisel and Norma.’ Okay, he was flirting now. Ruby would be furious with him if this silly side quest was what got him killed.

‘Not what I’m after,’ replied Rogue, his tone back to matter-of-fact but his face blushing a little.

["the pump"]

**

Rogue had met many dreamers and magicians in his travels. It was surprising how many had bounties on their heads; he immediately recalled quite a complicated winter with Houdini.

[...WHAT. Was this the winter after the Doctor's long hot summer?? What a year Houdini had.]

**

On the banks of the pond, the pair of them dragged themselves out. Rogue’s shirt was stuck to his body; the Doctor’s was the same. They were both drenched through. They looked at each other and laughed. ‘Okay, Ruby was right, this is a bit Mr Darcy.’

[I know the odds of this having been filmed are almost zero, nobody's letting Jonathan risk his voice jumping into a pond in Britain at night in May, but #releasetheherroncut]

**

[Rogue imagines a letter in which his dead love Art gives a potential new relationship his blessing] Please give him a hug from me and do not name a child or dog in my memory when you move in together. A cactus is fine, though. [Almost put this in 'Rogue is horrendously into him' but the 'WHEN you move in together' had me putting the book down for a second. Also that Rogue is contemplating what they should or should not name their future dog OR CHILD.]

Just pure romance

[on seeing the ship] Oh, Rogue, he thought. What happened, love?

**

Rogue just stared in awe, taking in the Doctor, all of them. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.

**

Rogue slowly opened his arms, and the Doctor fell into them and sobbed. ‘I’m sorry,’ Rogue said over and over.

**

Rogue looked into the Doctor’s eyes and knew that he would never stop caring. Could never stop wanting to help, to fight, to go on. That was who he was. The Doctor let go of Rogue’s hand and climbed in through the window, and Rogue did what he knew he would do for ever.

Follow him.

**

Then he stepped forward and wrapped the Doctor in his arms and kissed him. It was a soft, passionate kiss, full of promise. The moment was tender. Romantic. It was theirs.

**

As he fell, his mind had one, clear thought. Worth every second.

**

The Doctor just kept smiling, keeping his eyes on the sky. ‘At least we got to live and love together a bit. Exist.’

**

Of all the timelines they could both have inhabited, Rogue was grateful that their eyes had met on this one. What a great surprise that had been from the universe. Yes, right now, he was lonely, but time wasn’t linear, and this was his favourite thing about it. Rogue was sitting in this cave, but he was also walking with the Doctor in the garden, he was laughing with Art in the Yossarian, he was falling from a building, he was running from one memory of his life to another. All at once.

Rogue was in the Doctor’s arms, spinning around and around, for ever.

[dwrogue]

Number 1! (On Amazon UK, at least.) One week to release date, 8/8.

[dwrogue]

The Rogue novelisation chapter titles include one called "The Yossarian". From the way it's formatted that seems to be a name, and from where it falls in the story it looks like it's the name of Rogue's ship (which would mean the behind the scene subtitles calling it "the Assarian ship" could have been typos and that's not the name of Rogue's species).

That's a pretty distinctive name; Yossarian is most famously the name of the lead character in the novel Catch-22. Other than potentially being a joke about the first line ("It was love at first sight") being almost identical to a Kylie song title, I didn't really get the reference - a Catch-22 is a circular problem (like, you can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job). @blackbonnet-ruined-my-life pointed out that this is actually the exact situation at the end of the episode: Ruby is going to fall through the trap with the Chuldur, and they'll kill her. The only way to prevent that is to release the trap and let the Chuldur free... but if that happens they'll kill her (and everybody else).

Given that Rogue's seemingly not human and from possibly thousands of years in the future (the "ancient" earth tradition of cosplay), it's also another odd link to 20th/21st century Earth, like D&D and Kylie Minogue's music, which makes me wonder if his lost partner was from Earth of that era.

[dwrogue]

@eryaforsthye asked for screencaps of the Rogue novelisation preview, so here you go: prequel adventure with Rogue, featuring bonus appearance (at least over an earpiece) of his partner Art. (As in 'Artificer', I would guess, as that's of one of the chapter titles)

(that's where it cuts off) (Credit to AMadmanNotABox on X)

[goldyapper]

Well the big climactic scene in day of the dr has gallifrey experiencing natural disasters across the planet die to being moved and all the drs have to mitigate the damage and they all help and why am i crying so much?

[drhoz]

Right, the Doctor Who novelisations and original novels are sorted. Shocked to discover that I actually have a copy of The Faceless Ones, which was the only one of the original Target run I thought I still needed (not counting the ones that only got novelised or in some cases renovelised in the last decade), doubly shocked I don't have the Fourth Doctor novelisation for Androids of Tara, and Logopolis. 

A few missing New Adventures, Missing Adventures and New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, and large gaps in the original novels for the new series, but I knew about those and there's no way I'm going to find copies of Lungbarrow or Cold Fusion these days anyway.

Thank f*** the LibraryThing app for the phone scans barcodes so quickly, and the LibraryThing website lets you batch edit tags for your collection.  Now to do the same thing for the other 15+ bookshelves that are at least as crowded as that.