Doctor Who: Vengeance On Varos

Thanks to the quirks of KTEH's (a bastion of Doctor Who in the U.S. back in the day) scheduling of Colin Baker's first season as the Doctor, I saw season 22 of classic Who a lot during my first decade or so as a fan. That kind of explains why it's been a hot minute since I dusted off that particular......more

By the time Philip Martin finally completed the manuscript at least two years late Target books had become a bit redundant in the VCR age. I certainly gave it a miss. The Doctor is forced to make a forced landing on Varos seeking a rare mineral to fix the Tardis. I quite enjoyed the tv version but I......more

Holy run-on sentence, Batman! Novelizations that don’t skim over important plot, character development, dialog, or “setting” generally are an automatic 3 star rating. Novelizations like that where I really enjoy the theme or story behind the plot trend upward to four stars. The problem with Varos is th......more

Couple interesting bad guys can't save this book. It's too grim and Varos feels very flat and it's too noticeable that the Doctor and Peri spend too much time locked up or running around corridors. Shame as the characterization of the Doctor and Peri is pretty strong.......more

"Vengeance on Varos" may be the best of the season of Colin Baker's first full outing as The Doctor. It has the very interesting premise of a former prison planet that has modeled its society along the prison rules, with the officers and guards becoming the elite governing class and the prisoners be......more