Target: Timelash

We meet the two chief rebels, the former scientists Katz and Sezom, long before Peri does. In their first scene we discover that Karfel has twin suns (Rearbus and Selynx), and that Katz is the daughter of a former Maylin. Later on an encounter with some Morlox gives Glen McCoy the chance to enlarge on the creatures' general unpleasantness. And Katz is 'still very much a woman', using her reflection in a puddle to arrange her hair.

The Doctor's description of the Eye of Orion isn't given: instead Peri remembers the many previous occasions on which he's gone on about the place.

The Timelash itself is much more impressive on the page: it gives off sparkling ringlets of incandescent flares, and contains a tunnel of concentric rings.

It's Peri who fetches the safety belts at the Doctor's request. She doesn't do the 'we've never had to use belts before' line; instead she gives him 'an old-fashioned look'. The belts are needed because the effect of the Kontron tunnel is to make her and the Doctor weightless.

The androids have black skin, not blue. (The one on the cover is a faithful representation of the TV version. The cover also has a picture of Jupiter on it for some reason, although it redeems itself by showing us the Borad in all his glory.)

Maybe Pip'n'Jane's excesses have made me over-sensitive, but the sentence 'Tekker’s lean face rotated purposefully until his stabbing gaze struck its target' gave me a mental picture that probably wasn't the one GMcC intended.

Tekker doesn't imply that the Doctor had two (or more) companions last time he came to Karfel. He's probably fed up with all the fan speculation about whether it was Mike Yates who came along for the ride.

No note is handed to the Doctor and Peri in the plant room. And the acid plants aren't mentioned until Brunner is talking to Peri in the corridor in the next scene. It is at least made clear that the android seizes her medallion because it's shiny (ie a mirror), something I'd completely failed to grasp before.

Peri doesn't do the 'resident gardener' line, and her escape from the citadel is told in summary. She gets onto the planet's surface before entering the Morlox cave. The 'Yes indeed she is' line when she's being watched is omitted.

Apparently the Doctor has a pre-programmed circuit in the TARDIS which takes him straight to Earth: he just pretends to set the controls for the benefit of his companions (!). He thinks about bringing back a unit of Earth troops to take on the Borad, but realises that would be cheating.

Tekker is already thinking of turning against the Borad when he's waiting to break into the rebel-held inner sanctum.

The kontron crystals are pentagonal, not hexagonal. Once everyone has climbed out of the Timelash again, there's no discussion about building a barricade. The Doctor last built a time-shift circuit in 'Time School'. When Herbert sees the device demonstrated, his response is 'It's science - yet fiction.'

Tekker doesn't make a speech before turning on the Borad, he just opens fire without warning.

It's a female Morlox that the Borad intends to merge Peri with. The encounter is referred to by the narrator as a 'date'.

Herbert doesn't seem to have the time viewing device when he's up in the gallery watching the Doctor confront the Borad. This leaves his hands free to pray and cross himself, unlikely actions for HG Wells at any time.

(Speaking of time and HG Wells, the novel doesn't give the year 1885 used in the screen version. He could have been 'a teacher next term' at age 13, 17 or 24; based on his appearance on screen I assume that he is 'currently' aged 24 and 'in' 1890).

The rescue of Peri involves Herbert and the Doctor going out onto Karfel's surface. The Doctor destroys another android during this. The Morlox is destroyed when the mustakozene causes it to amalgamate with a wooden stake - it gruesomely sprouts stakes all over its body and dies.

There's an extra subplot when fifty (count 'em) androids are detected marching towards the inner sanctum. The Doctor and Myrkos go off to the power vault to switch them off, discovering 24 (count 'em) clones of the Borad in a side room (a bit like when the Doctor accidentally finds the ten thousand Daleks in the fridge in Planet of the Daleks). They cut the power off just as the androids are about to kill the rebels. Phew!

Sezon goes off with his troops to meet the diplomatic party. Back in the sanctum, the Borad demands that the landing pad be mined with explosives: cut straight to Sezon and his force completing the mining task, with apparent enthusiasm. I don't understand this bit. Perhaps we're expected to assume that Myrkon agreed to the Borad's demands, but his last speech has been to say that they can't do so, even at the cost of Peri's life.

There's no humour about weddings and proposals in the Doctor/Borad standoff, and no deal about the latter getting to marry Peri if she screams.

Just as on screen, Peri asks how the Doctor avoided the missile. 'At one point it seemed that the Time Lord was going to hold back on his tale' - but here he doesn't, explaining that he time-slipped the TARDIS forwards one hour. And with that shattering anti-climax it's on to the visiting card bit and the end.

For the third time in a row I have to say that this novelisation does make the story move a bit better, and it fills in the most obvious plot holes. But a critical reader may be annoyed by the style, which is extremely odd in places.