Target: The Daemons

One of my favourite Targets - it's a real shame Barry Letts didn't write more of them, his style is quite different from Terrance Dicks' and Malcolm Hulke's. It's almost lyrical at times, he makes the story feel like an arcadian pastoral idyll (with occasional walk-ons by Satan - like a mystery play perhaps?). When a drugged-up Jo staggers into the churchyard and collapses in the long grass, she's 'dreaming of childhood holidays in the springtime.'

BL's particularly good at what my English teacher used to call 'delineating some particular entity', so for example one of the earthquakes is described not by saying 'The room was shaking' but 'The line of little pot animals on the mantlepiece fell one by one into the grate'.

And there are some great descriptions of the Master in hypno-mode, with his eyes appearing purple 'and could they be flecked with gold?'

Principal plot additions: Bessie is left at the dig over the first night. Mike Yates and Miss Hawthorne go (on bikes) to see the Squire the next morning, and she uses 'magic' to cure the latter's hangover. We see the coven action through the eyes of young Stan Wilkins (nephew of the dead helicopter thief).

There's some extra bits in the UNIT/Bok confrontation: Bok gets blown apart with a bazooka, but reassembles. Then he goes airborne when Mike tries to create a diversion. And Miss Hawthorne attempts to destroy Bok by reflecting his magic back on him with a pentangle (with her and Benton inside) - we never find out whether it works, because Azal dies just in time. (Always found that intriguing and frustrating as a kid).

Something missing from the book is the distant explosion from the barrow at the end, the explanation being that the spaceship has blown up. Not being used to this, I find it a bit intrusive, a sort of obvious way of tying up a loose end.

There's an extra punchline too: after the 'I see. The Doctor was frozen solid at the barrow, then revived by a freak heatwave. Benton was beaten up by invisible forces, and the local white witch claims she's seen the Devil.' the Brigadier adds ' Apart from that it's been a quiet night. Over.' As a kid I used to get stuck reading that to myself because I found it so funny.

So in short, one of my very favourite Targets.