Shades of the NA treatment from Ben Aaronovitch here - but there's also a hard SF theme fighting for dominance. Together with the lighter tone of parts of the original story this is an uncomfortable mixture, but one which makes for an interesting read.
The events of the story are almost exactly the same. There's a prologue where the First Doctor returns to 76 Totters Lane only to hear the words 'It's Susan,' and realise that he's about to be considerably delayed. Coal Hill is in Shoreditch (rather than just being filmed there). The French Revolution book is not seen (they got the cover wrong on screen anyway). Ace watches Muffin The Mule on telly, not the Unearthly Child continuity announcement. The 'cane-cutter' scene takes place in a different cafe, down by the docks. The vapourisation of Skaro by the supernova is seen.
The real differences are in the expanded character back-stories, so I'll present them character by character:
The Doctor - is very much the omniscient Cartmel Masterplan Doctor. There are some flashbacks to conversations between Rassilon, Omega and an 'other', who we are at liberty to think is him. He also hypnotises Rachel into forgetting the deductions she makes about fibre optics and holograms from watching him at work.
Ace - three characterisations at war here. Ace of the NAs, all explosive recipes, weapons obsession and awareness of Mike looking at her breasts. 'White kids' Ace, struck by the monocultural Coal Hill School. And shouty Marmalade Atkins Ace with her baseball bat, explosive deodorant cans and attempts to cook plutonium in the TARDIS microwave. The three Aces do not sit easily together.
Rachel Jensen - constantly amazed by the Doctor's abilities and knowledge to the point that it becomes annoying. Romantically involved with Gilmore during the war when she was in the WAAF (and may get together with him again after the end of the book). Also worked with Turing. Is Jewish, and at one point has a dream of her childhood synagogue with the Doctor in the rabbi's place.
Allison - same as Rachel really. 'She's doing it again. I hate it when she does that,' she thinks when Ace makes another casual tech reference. Exactly what I began to feel about her and Rachel's POV bits.
Sgt Mike Smith - running wild as a kid in bombed-out post-war London, he met Ratcliffe and was given chocolate and a lot of warped ideas about Jews and communists. Also has memories of service in Malaya.
Not UNIT - in the Dragonfire comparison I complained about the absence of the tea-and-grumbling style of military characterisation. This makes a welcome return in this Target, so one up to BA there. But there's also some rhapsodic specification porn about the FN-FAL rifle. Get out of it, this is a DW adaptation not the Commando War Picture Library. One of the chapter epigraphs is from a History of UNIT, and states that Not UNIT were indeed the origin of that organisation.
Gp Capt Gilmore - is only referred to as Chunky once, by his men, out of his hearing. It's clearly not a nickname his friends use. Good thing too - if ever a sound DW character was weakened by a silly name, it was Gilmore on screen. He's the conscientious CO who recalls his men's biographical details when they're killed. And he's disturbed (in a serious, 'I know what war is really like' way) by Ace's enthusiasm for weaponry.
The Daleks - this is where the hard SF style I mentioned comes in. There's much Dalek POV with descriptions of their support systems and technology. They have lots of little servo robots on their ships - and the ships have names. That last point made me realise that the style in these passages is rather reminiscent of how Iain Banks would write about Daleks, if he chose to do so.
It's implied that they achieved the final extermination of the Thals (well, I reckon they escaped). They have a special name for the Doctor. None of them like the Special Weapons Dalek, or 'the Abomination' as they think of it.
Humans 'make dangerous slaves' - an astute observation, since every time we've seen the Daleks employing unhealthy coughing humanoids, it's ended in disaster.
The Time Controller is still a plasma globe.
Ratcliffe - has 'the bearing of a soldier', which is odd because he was interned throughout the war for being a fascist. He has glorious memories of Cable Street so was probably in the BUF itself. The Dalek controller just appeared one day in his office. And he impressed Mike the week before the story opened by having advance knowledge of the Kennedy assassination!
Davros - is obviously the Emperor much earlier on in the action, thanks to some fairly broad hints in the description of his thoughts.
John the cane-cutter's son - is comforted by the thought of his alternate African self.
The vicar - is named Parkinson (incorrectly referred to as Reverend Parkinson. Rev John Smith, Mr Smith but never Rev Smith). He was blinded at Verdun. Another explicit reference to the Seventh Doctor's Scottish accent in his scene.
The Hand of Omega - is semi-sentient and gets several POV scenes.
Considering this Target as an adaptation of the screen version, I don't like it at all, it's hardly DW and the Doctor, for all the hints about his cosmic importance, is seen almost entirely from other people's point of view. As an experiment in writing DW in a contemporary way, it isn't bad, it's certainly better than the actual NAs though it has enough of their faults to put me off it.
(Thanks to Zone posters for corrections/quibbling)
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