Doctor Who and the Daleks (BBC Radio Collection: Sci-fi and Fantasy) [Audiobook] [MP3 Audio] [Unabridged] (Audio Cassette)

Both he and the girl he tries to help, Barbara Wright, are transported to a distant planet named Skaro by a mysterious old man known to them as the Doctor. With his granddaughter Susan, the Doctor sets them down in a world all but destroyed by atomic warfare, the only survivors being a peace-loving and cultured people called the Thals and their bitter enemies the Daleks, horribly mutated both in mind and body.

Thrust into constant danger, his courage and determination tested almost beyond endurance, Ian is forced to struggle against alien creatures and superior enemies with no other weapons than surprise and ingenuity.

The rewards of victory are life for Ian and his new friends... but life where? Can the Doctor return him and Barbara to Earth again?

So went the back blurb to the Frederick Muller Hardback edition of Doctor Who (in an exciting adventure with The Daleks)when first printed in 1964. This is truly a special MP-3 audiobook release. Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks is probably the greatest novelisation of a Doctor Who TV story in part because it is not just a presentation of just what was onscreen.

It starts with a totally new meeting between the Doctor (already accompanied by grand-daughter Susan as on TV) and his first TV companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Instead on meeting in a junkyard in Totter's lane and going back to 100,000 B.C. they meet on a foggy night on Barnes Common and go to Skaro - The Planet of the Daleks!

From the first Target Novelisation backblurb:

This is Doctor Who's first exciting adventure - with the Daleks! Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright travel with the mysterious Doctor Who and his grand-daughter, Susan, to the planet of Skaro in the space-time machine, Tardis. There they strive to save the peace-loving Thals from the evil intentions of the hideous Daleks. Can they succeed? And what is more important, will they ever again see their native Earth?

It's fascinating to see a version of Doctor Who's beginnings that is at once different but so familiar. If this was the beginning on TV Doctor Who still would have run 26 years regardless.

The major attraction of this release besides the story itself being complete and unabridged on MP-3 CD is to actually hear William Russell (who played Ian Chesterton on the series) read the story which is doubly satisfying because the story itself is written in the first-person as narrated by Ian. At first this would seem to be a severe restriction to be able to tell the story but Whitaker masterfully is able to make it the book's greatest strength.

If I had to recommend to someone unfamiliar with Doctor Who one book to read to get the flavour of the series this would be the one.

Kudos to BBC Audio for making this release, which had been suggested for years, finally happen.