"Doctor Who" and the Time Warrior (Classic Novels) [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

To those who find this range questionable, here is an excellent example of an audio reading.

Jeremy Bulloch emulates all the television characters with such perfection that it is almost like a hybrid between a standard text reading of description and the original audio. At times, you forget that it is not the original actors themselves. My hat goes off to Bulloch for taking the time to rewatch the DVD and no doubt spend some time rehearsing the voices in his own time, to bring us such an excellent product.

Terrance Dick's expansion on Holmes' excellent script is engaging. The music and effects are good.

I recommend The Time Warrior and The Daemons as both a decent audio product and something that builds on what we already have in terms of DVD etc.

I really hope that Bulloch is approached to do more stories.

One of the last Doctor Who serials to feature Jon Pertwee, this story is also notable for introducing one of the Time Lords' most popular companions - feisty journalist Sarah-Jane Smith, as well as the potato-headed militaristic clone race The Sontarans.

I've always loved the cover image on the original Target novelisation, which thankfully the BBC have kept for the audio version. The Time Warrior continues the excellent range of talking books, and with its fascinating extended prologue the book reminds me of Malcolm Hulkes' lovingly embellished efforts for the range.

The story is a great romp, and narrator Jeremy Bulloch who appeared as 'Hal the archer' in the original TV story does an effortlessly impressive job of bringing to mind both David Daker's storming interpretation of Medieval lunkhead Irongron, and Sontaran warrior Linx's guttural bark.

Overall I would say this a great audio adaptation of one of the show's most watchable serials, and despite some occasionally over-zealous and intrusive music this package represents four discs of absorbing entertainment: money well spent.

I bought this book along with the 4-disc audiobook CD, and thoroughly enjoyed reading it whilst listening to Jeremy Bulloch's narration in the background.

Jeremy Bulloch who plays Hal the Archer in `The Time Warrior' (and best known to Star Wars fans as Boba Fett), reads the novelisation of this story with tremendous enthusiasm. His performances of the many characters in this story are very convincing, like Irongron, Bloodaxe, Professor Rubeish and Commander Linx. The way Bulloch portrays them sounds exactly like the actors who portrayed them in the TV story. The Jon Pertwee Doctor sounds noble and grand when he plays him.

In terms of the story, I was very surprised by how much detail Robert Holmes has put into his `Prologue' for the story. There's so much detail about how Linx got to Earth when he was escaping from a Rutan battle fleet and the detail in which he experiences the battle is very compelling and absorbing. My favourite line from the `prologue' is where it's described how `a Sontaran rarely smiles, except at the death throes of an enemy'.

Of course, Holmes was originally commission to write the novelisation of `The Time Warrior', but unfortunately he got waylaid with other assignments and couldn't get round to working on it. So therefore he wrote two pages of the story which ended up being the `prologue' and posted them to his friend and colleague Terrance Dicks with a note saying `Finish it!' Dicks mentioned that Holmes finds it hard to write `prose' as it's like `digging trenches'. I also think he would have found it hard writing a lot of detail about the historical setting and the castle for the rest of the story, find Holmes doesn't like writing historical stories all that much.

Terrance Dicks manages to pick up where Holmes writes the story pretty well. As Dicks was so involved in the process of bringing `The Time Warrior' scripts come to life, it's fair to say he was able to add more detail to the characters and their stories, especially with Sarah Jane's character as it's developed from her suspicions of the Doctor to her eventual trust of him. Also I liked how Linx was handled, as the story goes through how he was able to maintain his composure when making trades with Irongron by giving them weapons. There was also some new scenes in the story which took me by surprise, including Hal's canoodling with the serving wrench at Sir Edward's castle and the horse ride sequence of Sir Edward's squire Ben before he gets captured by Bloodaxe and his gang.

Most of what's in `The Time Warrior' TV story is pretty much in the novelisation. But having read it with the audiobook in the background has made me enjoy it once again. The incidental music and the sound effects from the audiobook adds an extra dimension to the story, and it's very catchy when it hearing over and over again.

So therefore `Doctor Who and the Time Warrior' is a very good novelisation of the TV story, and listening to Jeremy Bulloch's narration and performances of the story makes it even better.