I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/6550303 ( )

The cod Shakespearean intrigue of this particular story has never gripped me in any form, although Whitaker's fantastic prose make this better than most. ( )

Quite a good novel in it's own right, although it would of course help to have previous knowledge of Doctor Who. Good characterisation, and depth of plot. ( )

This was always one of my very favourite of the novelisations of Doctor Who TV stories. Originally penned in 1965 by its TV author, also the very first script editor on the programme, it was reissued in paperback as one of the first Target novelisations in 1973. It is a beautifully and lyrically written enhancement of the TV script; sections of the book have imprinted themselves in my memory ever since I first read it at the age of 10, and still come across as fresh and compelling now 36 years later. The dialogue and action are Shakespearean in their feel and intensity, and quite horrific and chilling in places. The story is really a great piece of literature in its own right, not just as a Doctor Who novel. The Doctor himself comes across as much more calm and wise and less irascible than his TV persona, while Ian and Barbara are deeply in love with one another. There is a great prologue, written from scratch for the novelisation, where the Doctor and his companions discuss the nature of their attempted interventions in history. Great stuff from start to finish. 5/5 ( )

Doctor Who and the Crusaders is the novelization of the Hartnell story, The Crusade, a story which is partially missing. This is the last of the original three pre-Target novelizations which also included Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (later renamed to Doctor Who and the Daleks) and Doctor Who and the Zarbi .

I fairly recently watched the serial The Crusade, so I was able to compare it somewhat with this novelization, which was written by David Whitaker who also wrote the novelization Doctor Who and the Daleks and they share many similarities. Both were intended to be standalone novels before it was decided to do a whole series of novelizations. Both novelizations also had a romantic interest between Ian and Barbara. While Doctor Who and the Daleks is completely standalone and even offers another origin story for how Ian and Barbara started travelling with the Doctor, Doctor Who and the Crusaders at least acknowledges the rest of the series and mentions several other televised adventures both in the prologue and also when Barbara is talking to Saladin (as she does in the serial). Interestingly enough, this serial takes place immediately after The Web Planet, and the novelizations were released in the same order as the serials, which is rare for the Doctor Who novelizations.

Compared to the serial on which it was based, the story is essentially the same, but many of the events are rearranged: for instance, Ian doesn't get staked out in the sand until much later in the story. There are also a number of events which occur differently in the book and in the serial: for instance, Ian never meets Saladin in the serial. The book is also much more philosophical: there is a whole discussion in the prologue about how the Doctor can change history on some planets, but not on Earth (they're really referring to our version of recorded history). Ian also has a discussion with Saladin about Christianity versus Islam versus Buddhism, etc. Some of the events in the book are probably more graphic than what would have been allowed on TV: Barbara actually gets whipped (to the point of needing salve on her wounds) in the book while she's in El Akir's harem.

This book is one of several that have been reprinted recently by BBC Books. In these, they add a celebrity introduction and a section called "Between the Lines" which compares and contrasts the serial with the book. These make interesting reading as well, although the celebrity introduction in this one was not as good as the one in Doctor Who and the Daleks: the author admits he's never read any of the novelizations.

In all, an enjoyable book. These three pre-Target novelizations were reprinted as the first of Target's line of novelizations in 1973, after which they started producing new novelizations in 1974 which continued until 1994 and they novelized almost all of the original stories. A dozen of these have been reprinted by BBC Books recently (6 last year and 6 this year), and I believe they have plans to reprint more. I certainly hope so as I'm enjoying them and buying them all as ebooks. ( )