The Fourth Doctor Novelisations: Warriors' Gate (1982, rev. 2019)

The last of my Tom Baker renovelisations—and indeed, my Tom Baker novelisations full stop—is Warriors' Gate. Stephen Gallagher, writing under the name John Lydecker, novelised his own scripts back in 1982, but apparently (I haven't read the original novelisation) producer John Nathan-Turner demanded at the eleventh hour that the novel be more like the tv version, forcing Gallagher to literally cut up his own manuscript. In 2019, however, Gallagher restored the original version for audio; in 2023, the restored version saw print along with two sequel short stories, "The Kairos Ring" (originally released on audio in 2021) and "The Little Book of Fate" (original to this volume), under the title Warriors' Gate and Beyond.

Of all the television stories in this sequence, Warriors' Gate is probably my favorite, and certainly the one I've seen the most. I was captivated by it when I saw it go out late nights on PBS in high school, and I quickly picked up the E-Space Trilogy VHS box set so I could watch it again; when the trilogy hit DVD, I purchased it again. Clever ideas, good jokes, beautiful visuals. That said, it has probably been around a decade since I last watched it!

This means that I can't be too specific about ways the novel differs from the tv story, but I can say I enjoyed the experience. Gallagher adds a prologue showing how the privateer spaceship came to be trapped in the void, but the thing I noticed the most was a thread about Romana's need to figure out what she's going to do if she's not going back to Gallifrey, to strike out on her own. There are some good jokes here about the privateer crew, particularly the captain, even if they are different than how they play out on tv. Some of the striking visuals of the tv version aren't here—but of course we are reading a book, and it will have different strengths of medium it wants to play to. It didn't really bother me. Like most Targets, it's a quick, easy read, but I also found it an absorbing one, Gallagher doing a great job capturing a mood and a tone on the page. I am sure it played very well being read by Jon Culshaw on audio.

Doctor Who: Warriors' Gate and Beyond
by Stephen Gallagher

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2019-23
Acquired: February 2025
Read: March 2025

The sequel stories aren't must-haves, but they are nice to have. I appreciated that Gallagher continued developing the trend of Romana's independence by giving us two stories about her post-Doctor life, as she travels the universe, making her own allies and forming her own organization. "The Kairos Ring" is well told, mostly focusing on the perspective of an American Civil War soldier caught up in Romana's attempt to defend the universe alongside the Tharils; "The Little Book of Fate" is very short but nice enough. I was interested enough in what was going on here that I now intend to pick up the Gallagher-penned Gods and Monsters comic focusing on the Tharils.

One change you may have picked up from my comments above is that, while on tv it seems that Romana (and K-9) stay behind in E-Space to help the Tharils, that's very much not the case in the novel, where the Tharils and the slavers both clearly come from N-Space. This means Romana and K-9 are in our universe. I don't mind this—what would be the point of these books if they were the same as the tv versions? and why should Gallagher be beholden to things Paul Cornell established about Romana in the VNAs?—but I don't really understand what it means for K-9 to be trapped on the other side of the mirrors if her can just freely jaunt around our universe?*

One last comment, or complaint rather. The cover is nice enough... but can you really publish a story called "Warriors' Gate" that's all about a gate but not put the gate on the cover!?

Every three months, I read the unread Doctor Who book I've owned the longest. Next up in sequence: Short Trips: Destination Prague

* I was interested to learn from Gallagher's web site that the fate of K-9 on tv was inspired by what happened to Mon-El in The Legion of Super-Heroes!