A story featuring the further adventures of the time traveller Dr Who, as he journeys through time and space with a variety of companions. This work is based on the television series of the same title, first screened in 1966 and featuring William Hartnell as the first Doctor.

2008-03-09 An improvement on the TV version

Ian Stuart Black played around a bit here with the plot of The War Machines, and it is generally to the book's benefit. Whereas in the TV version, the Doctor rather incongruously walks straight into the heart of the British scientific establishment and is accepted immediately, here he engages in a combination of forging letters of introduction and invoking Ian Chesterton, now, we are told, a senior scientist (he must have achieved that pretty quickly in the year since the end of The Chase, but let that pass). Also the War Machines themselves, liberated from the clunky restrictions of television production, come across as distinctly more menacing. One feels that this is what Black really wanted the TV show to be like, and since in most cases he sticks fairly close to the script (including the Doctor's closing rant).