Books-to-read-if-you-love-Doctor-Who

Reading lists

Books to read if you love Doctor Who

Main-Hitchhikers-Guide.jpg

Features

42 reasons why The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is beyond brilliant

1st, 4th, 6th Doctor Novelisations

Doctor Who: The Renegades Collection

A collection of four classic TV novelisations featuring Time Lords who fled life on Gallifrey. 
 
In The Time Meddler, the turbulent English coastline in 1066 is the scene of a troubled encounter between the Meddling Monk and the First Doctor, Steven and Vicki. 
 
In The Deadly Assassin, the Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey and is framed for presidential murder - but his old enemy the Master is waiting in the wings. 
 
In Shada, the Fourth Doctor and Romana visit their old friend, the retired Time Lord Professor Chronotis, at Cambridge University - but an epic adventure featuring K9 soon unfolds. 
 
In The Mark of the Rani, the TARDIS lands the Sixth Doctor and Peri in the Industrial Revolution, where renegade Time Lord the Rani is conducting unethical experiments on the human brain. 
 
Peter Purves, Geoffrey Beevers, Lalla Ward, John Leeson and Nicola Bryant are the readers of this quartet of classic novelisations. 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
'Doctor Who: The Time Meddler' cover image artwork © Jeff Cummins

1st, 3rd, 4th & 6th Doctor Novelisations

Doctor Who: The Time Travel Collection

Four exciting novelisations of classic TV stories in which the Doctor and his companions traverse the Fourth Dimension. 
 
 In Doctor Who: The Space Museum, by Glyn Jones, the TARDIS jumps a time-track, allowing its occupants to witness themselves as exhibits in a glass case: a future they must avoid at all costs. 
 
 In Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks, by Terrance Dicks, a 20th Century peace conference is threatened by guerillas from the future, intent on changing the course of history. 
 
 In Doctor Who: City of Death, by Douglas Adams and James Goss, the Doctor and Romana witness dangerous fractures in time whilst on holiday in Paris, and must determine the cause. 
 
 In Doctor Who: The Two Doctors, by Robert Holmes, a set of temporal experiments concern the Time Lords enough to dispatch the Second Doctor on a mission; when it goes wrong, it seems only the Sixth Doctor can save him! 
 
 Maureen O'Brien, Richard Franklin, Lalla Ward and Colin Baker read these classic tales, originally published as Target Books paperbacks, with Nicholas Briggs as the Voice of the Daleks. 
 (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Doctor Who and The Pirate Planet (target collection)

The classic Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams, now part of the Target Collection.

Douglas Adams (Author) DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49. James Goss (Author) James Goss is a Sunday Times Bestselling author who has written several Doctor Who books, including being Douglas Adams' literal ghost writer, as well as adapting The Giggle for the Target range. He's written extensively for audio, working on projects for Audible, BBC Sounds and Big Finish. He's also written the Daleks! cartoon series for BBC Studios.

This all-new Target novelisation is based on the televised version of The Pirate Planet 
 
The hugely powerful Key to Time has been split into six segments, all of which have been disguised and hidden throughout time and space. Now the even more powerful White Guardian wants the Doctor to find the pieces. With the first segment successfully retrieved, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 trace the second segment of the Key to the planet Calufrax. But when they arrive at exactly the right point in space, they find themselves on exactly the wrong planet - Zanak. 
 
Ruled by the mysterious 'Captain', Zanak is a happy and prosperous planet. Mostly. If the mines run out of valuable minerals and gems then the Captain merely announces a New Golden Age and they fill up again. It's an economic miracle - so obviously something's very wrong... 
 
For a much expanded version based on Douglas Adams' first draft scripts, check out BBC Books' hardback edition of The Pirate Planet".

Two full-cast audio dramatisations

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Albums

Don’t Panic! Reissued for the first time in 40 years, two unique recordings of Douglas Adams's sci-fi comedy drama.

Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge. His parents divorced when he was five, and Douglas and his younger sister Susan were brought up by their mother in Essex. From 1959 to 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School, and he first thought seriously about writing when a teacher named Frank Halford gave him ten out of ten for a composition. He was the only boy ever to have been awarded full marks. 
Leaving school in December 1970, Douglas won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge. His main reason for going there was to join Footlights, although his first attempt to do so was a failure. He succeeded in joining in his second term, but found the group which ran the society a bit stand-offish. He also felt constrained by the limits of pantomimes and mid-term revues, so instead he set up his own revue group, Adams-Smith-Adams, with two friends. It was very successful. 
 
Douglas left Cambridge in the summer of 1974 and took occasional office jobs before joining forces with Monty Python team member Graham Chapman. They collaborated on a number of projects; unfortunately, very few of them were ever broadcast. A while later he was invited to Cambridge to direct the 1976 Footlights revue, but even this turned out to be a disappointment. At the end of the year, broke and feeling like a failure, Douglas moved back home with his mother. 
In 1977 his luck changed. Through his former flatmate John Lloyd, Douglas met BBC Radio 4 producer Simon Brett. He felt that Douglas' style of humour should have its own show, rather than being crammed into existing formats. Having been inspired by a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, Douglas came up with a draft for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After several delays the first six-episode series was broadcast, with a second rapidly following. The worldwide phenomenon they spawned includes five novels, a book of scripts, two LPs, a television series, a computer game and two stage plays. 
In addition to Hitchhiker, Douglas' work included two Dirk Gently detective novels and two humorous place-name 'dictionaries', The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both co-written with John Lloyd) as well as Last Chance to See, an account of a global search for rare and endangered species which he co-wrote with Mark Carwardine. 
 
In 1999 Douglas moved to Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter to work on a proposed Hitchhiker film. Always a keen advocate of new technology, his last series for Radio 4 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, a look at the advances mankind was likely to make in future years.He died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 49, in May 2001. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film was produced in 2005, whilst both Stephen Mangan and Samuel Barnett have portrayed Dirk Gently on television in recent years.

Don’t Panic! Reissued for the first time in 40 years, two unique recordings of Douglas Adams's sci-fi comedy drama. 
 
When Earthman Arthur Dent learns that first his house and then his planet are about to be bulldozed, it’s the beginning of an interplanetary adventure for him and his friend, Ford Prefect. After fleeing Earth they hitch a lift with hoopy frood Zaphod Beeblebrox, who hurtles from one improbability to another - literally. With Trillian and Marvin the Paranoid Android in tow, the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is soon revealed: 42. But what was the question…? 
 
Following the success of the BBC radio series, Douglas Adams adapted his scripts for these two full-cast albums, with incidental radiophonic music provided by Paddy Kingsland. First released by Original Records in 1980, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe star Peter Jones as The Book, Simon Jones as Arthur Dent, Geoffrey McGivern as Ford Prefect and Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox. 
 
 Produced by Geoffrey Perkins and Tim Souster, the cast also includes Cindy Oswin, Stephen Moore, Richard Vernon, Valentine Dyall, David Tate, Jim Broadbent, Bill Wallis, Roy Hudd, Frank Middlemass, Stephen Greif and others. 
 
Hang onto your towel – it’s going to be the ride of a lifetime.

Douglas Adams and the digital world

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future

Two radio documentaries exploring Douglas Adams’ vision of the digital future, plus Did Douglas Get it Right?, presented by Mitch Benn

Technology affects almost everything we do, and its possibilities can be both exhilarating and daunting. This collection features two radio documentaries exploring Douglas Adams’ vision of the digital future, plus Did Douglas Get it Right?, presented by Mitch Benn. 
 
Douglas Adams was a passionate technology enthusiast. His bestselling The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is full of futuristic tech, and in 1990 he predicted something very like the World Wide Web in the BBC2 film Hyperland. So in 1999, he was the natural choice to present Radio 4’s The Internet: The Last 20th Century Battleground. In it, he looked at the explosion in online communication, the evolution of cyberspace, and the risks and opportunities of the new virtual world. 
 
A year later, he hosted The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future, in which he and his guests discussed how music, publishing, broadcasting, and society in general would be transformed in the 21st century. Sadly, this was Adams’ last BBC project: his death in 2001 meant he would never see if his visions came true. 
 
However, in 2015, Mitch Benn dipped into the archives for a follow-up programme, Did Douglas Get it Right?, revisiting Adams’ predictions to discover how prescient (or otherwise) they turned out to be... 
 
Fascinating, funny and insightful, these three programmes are a wonderful tribute to Douglas Adams, and a treat for fans and futurists alike. 
 
 
Produced by Mark Rickards.

Last Chance To See

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine lead us on an unforgettable journey in search of the world's most endangered species.

Descriptive writing of a high order ... this is an extremely intelligent book

In every case, the presence and personality of the endangered animals rise off the page - even when the authors don't manage to find them.  The writing may be witty, but this book is a sobering reminder of what a very great deal we have to lose

This is life or death stuff, but Adams is a writer who chooses not to shake his finger at the reader. He fails completely in the self-righteous-piety department. Instead he invites us to enter a conspiracy of laughter and caring

It is a book one reads in a rush, always looking forward to the next perverse paragraph, wise insight or felicitous phrase

Last Chance to See brings out the best in Adams' writing ... constantly springing on the reader the kind of dizzying shift in perspective that was the stock in trade of Hitchhiker'

Who would have thought that a book in the field of "ecology/nature" ... could be as lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written and even funny as this one? ... ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain

If the measure of a book's worth is the strength of the urge to 'get out and do something' that it gives you, then LAST CHANCE... is way up there with the best of them.

Douglas Adams (Author) DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49. Mark Carwardine (Author) Zoologist MARK CARWARDINE is an active and outspoken conservationist, award-winning writer, TV- and radio - presenter, widely published photographer, magazine columnist and consultant. He presented the weekly programme Nature on BBC Radio 4 for many years and is co-presenter, with Stephen Fry, of the BBC-TV series Last Chance to See. The author of more than 50 books, including several bestsellers, he has been Chairman of prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition since 2005.

‘Descriptive writing of a high order… this is an extremely intelligent book’ The Times 
 
Join Douglas Adams, bestselling and beloved author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and zoologist Mark Carwardine on an adventure in search of the world’s most endangered and exotic creatures. 
 
In this book, Adams’ self-proclaimed favourite of his own works, the pair encounter animals in imminent peril: the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the lovable kakapo of New Zealand, the blind river dolphins of China, the white rhinos of Zaire, the rare birds of Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean and the alien-like aye-aye of Madagascar. Inimitably witty and poignant, Last Chance to See is both a celebration of our most extraordinary creatures and a warning about what we have to lose if we do not act soon. 
 
Featuring a fantastic new foreword by the authors' long-time friend Stephen Fry, and an afterword from Mark Carwardine that considers what has changed since the book was first published, Last Chance to See feels more urgent than ever before. 
 
‘Douglas Adams’ genius was in using comedy to make serious points about the world’ Independent

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Dirk Gently: Two BBC Radio full-cast dramas

The complete BBC Radio collection bringing together two full-cast dramatisations of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently novels.

The complete BBC Radio collection bringing together two full-cast dramatisations of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently novels. 
 
In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Dirk Gently has an unshakeable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but his Holistic Detective Agency mainly succeeds in tracking down missing cats for old ladies. Then Dirk stumbles upon an old friend behaving bizarrely - and he's drawn into a four-billion-year-old mystery that must be solved if the human race is to avoid immediate extinction. 
 
In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul Harry Enfield exuberantly returns as Dirk Gently, who, fallen on hard times and dressed as a gypsy woman, is using his irritatingly accurate clairvoyant powers to read palms. He is saved when a frantic client turns up with a ludicrous story about being stalked by a goblin waving a contract accompanied by a hairy, green-eyed, scythe-wielding monster. When Detective Superintendent Gilks decides a headless body found in a sealed room is the result of a particularly irritating suicide, Dirk is plunged into a mystery where the interconnectedness of all things is tested to the limit... 
 
Starring Harry Enfield as Dirk Gently along with Billy Boyd, Olivia Coleman, Andrew Sachs and Jim Carter. Guest stars include Peter Davison (Doctor Who), Jan Ravens (Dead Ringers), Philip Jackson (Poirot), John Fortune (Bremner, Bird &amp; Fortune), Morwenna Banks (Absolutely) and Stephen Moore (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Radio Series

A brand new luxury box set comprising the complete Hitchhiker’s Guide series, featuring brand new bonus material

Don't panic! This brand new collector's edition box set contains the only audiobooks you'll ever need on your galactic travels - the complete BBC radio productions of Douglas Adams's legendary saga. Included are: 
 
The two original series, the Primary and Secondary Phases, remastered by Dirk Maggs with vibrant sound and music and including a 55-minute feature programme, Douglas Adams's Guide tothe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and a fascinating 50-minute interview with Douglas Adams 
 
Extended editions of the Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases, directed by Dirk Maggs and featuring over 1½ hours of material not heard on BBC Radio 4 
 
The concluding Hexagonal Phase, with a further 50 minutes of extra unbroadcast content 
 
A special bonus disc featuring Douglas Adams's appearance on BBC Radio 4's Bookclub, in which he talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about comedy, sci-fi, the creation of his characters and his influences 
 
Grab your towel, pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and get set for over 20 hours of unmissable radio adventure! 
 
Audio updated in 2020.

Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

A lost Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams, based on recently discovered material in the Adams archive - now in paperback

A funny and thoroughly entertaining chunk of pure British silliness – the very meaning of life. 
 
*****

Rediscover the lost Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams. 
 
Intergalactic war? That’s just not cricket … or is it? 
 
The Doctor promised Romana the end of the universe, so she’s less than impressed when what she gets is a cricket match. But then the award ceremony is interrupted by eleven figures in white uniforms and peaked skull helmets, wielding bat-shaped weapons that fire lethal bolts of light into the screaming crowd. The Krikkitmen are back. 
 
Millions of years ago, the people of Krikkit learned they were not alone in the universe, and promptly launched a xenophobic crusade to wipe out all other life-forms. After a long and bloody conflict, the Time Lords imprisoned Krikkit within an envelope of Slow Time, a prison that could only be opened with the Wicket Gate key, a device that resembles – to human eyes, at least – an oversized set of cricket stumps… 
 
From Earth to Gallifrey, from Bethselamin to Devalin, from Krikkit to Mareeve II to the far edge of infinity, the Doctor and Romana are tugged into a pan-galactic conga with fate as they rush to stop the Krikkitmen gaining all five pieces of the key. If they fail, the entire cosmos faces a fiery retribution that will leave nothing but ashes…

And Another Thing...

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase

The long-awaited sixth series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the wittiest and most epic adventure yet!

Douglas Adams (Author) 
Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge. On leaving school, he won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge, where he joined the Footlights and later set up his own successful revue group, Adams-Smith-Adams. 
 
In 1977 Douglas met BBC Radio 4 producer Simon Brett, who felt that Douglas' style of humour should have its own show. Having been inspired by a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, Douglas came up with a draft for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The worldwide phenomenon spawned by the radio series includes five novels, a book of scripts, two LPs, a television series, a computer game and two stage plays. 
 
In addition to Hitchhiker's, Douglas' work included two Dirk Gently detective novels and two humorous place-name 'dictionaries', The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both co-written with John Lloyd) as well as Last Chance to See, an account of a global search for rare and endangered species which he co-wrote with Mark Carwardine. 
 
His last series for Radio 4 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, a look at the advances mankind was likely to make in future years. He died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 49, in May 2001. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film was produced in 2005, whilst both Stephen Mangan and Samuel Barnett have portrayed Dirk Gently on television in recent years.

The brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast series based on And Another Thing… the sixth book in the famous Hitchhiker’s Guide “trilogy”. 
 
Winner of the 2019 Audie Award for Science Fiction. 
 
Forty years on from the first ever radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent and friends return in six brand new episodes, in which they are thrown back into the Whole General Mish Mash in a rattling adventure involving Viking Gods and Irish Confidence Tricksters, with our first glimpse of Eccentrica Gallumbits and a brief but memorable moment with The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal. 
 
Starring John Lloyd as The Book, with Simon Jones as Arthur, Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Sandra Dickinson and Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Jim Broadbent as Marvin the Paranoid Android and Jane Horrocks as Fenchurch, the cast also includes Samantha Béart, Toby Longworth, Andy Secombe, Ed Byrne, Lenny Henry, Philip Pope, Mitch Benn, Jon Culshaw and Professor Stephen Hawking. 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018, the series is written and directed by Dirk Maggs and based on And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams. This edition also includes over 50 minutes of unbroadcast bonus material. 
 
Listeners are reminded that the relaxed attitude to danger provided by Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses is no substitute for running around, screaming. 
 
Music by Philip Pope 
Production research by Kevin Jon Davies 
Written and directed by Dirk Maggs 
Based on the novel And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer, with additional material by Douglas Adams 
Recorded at The Soundhouse Ltd. by Gerry O'Riordan 
Sound Design by Dirk Maggs 
Produced by Dirk Maggs, Helen Chattwell and David Morley 
A Perfectly Normal Production for BBC Radio 4

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet

The classic Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams, novelised at last

Douglas Adams (Author) 
 DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49. 
 
James Goss (Author) 
 James Goss is the author of the novelisation of Douglas Adams’ City of Death, as well as several other Doctor Who books. While at the BBC James produced an adaptation of Shada, an unfinished Douglas Adams Doctor Who story, and Dirk is his award-winning stage adaptation of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. He won Best Audiobook 2010 for Dead Air and his books Dead of Winter and First Born were both nominated for the 2012 British Fantasy Society Awards. His novel Haterz has been optioned as a movie.

The hugely powerful Key to Time has been split into six segments, all of which have been disguised and hidden throughout time and space. Now the even more powerful White Guardian wants the Doctor to find the pieces. 
 
With the first segment successfully retrieved, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 trace the second segment of the Key to the planet Calufrax. But when they arrive at exactly the right point in space, they find themselves on exactly the wrong planet – Zanak. 
 
Ruled by the mysterious ‘Captain’, Zanak is a happy and prosperous planet. Mostly. If the mines run out of valuable minerals and gems then the Captain merely announces a New Golden Age and they fill up again. It’s an economic miracle – so obviously something’s very wrong...

4th Doctor Novel

An unabridged reading of the brand new novel featuring the Fourth Doctor, based on an untelevised storyline by Douglas Adams.

Dan Starkey reads this brand new novel based on a storyline by Douglas Adams. 
 
The Doctor promised Romana the end of the universe, so she’s less than impressed when what she gets is a cricket match. But then the award ceremony is interrupted by eleven figures in white uniforms and peaked skull helmets, wielding bat-shaped weapons that fire lethal bolts of light into the screaming crowd. The Krikkitmen are back. 
 
Millions of years ago, the people of Krikkit learned they were not alone in the universe, and promptly launched a xenophobic crusade to wipe out all other life-forms. After a long and bloody conflict, the Time Lords imprisoned Krikkit within an envelope of Slow Time, a prison that could only be opened with the Wicket Gate key, a device that resembles – to human eyes, at least – an oversized set of cricket stumps… 
 
From Earth to Gallifrey, from Bethselamin to Devalin, from Krikkit to Mareeve II to the far edge of infinity, the Doctor and Romana are tugged into a pan-galactic conga with fate as they rush to stop the Krikkitmen gaining all five pieces of the key. If they fail, the entire cosmos faces a fiery retribution that will leave nothing but ashes…

Seven full-cast BBC TV soundtracks

Doctor Who: Classic TV Adventures Collection One

Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker star as the Doctor in these seven narrated full-cast TV soundtracks of classic Doctor Who TV serials.

Kit Pedler (1927-1981) wrote three scripts for Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet (with Gerry Davis), The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen. He also submitted the story outlines that became The War Machines, The Wheel in Space and The Invasion. He formed a writing partnership with Gerry Davis and together they created the Cybermen. Gerry Davis (1930-1991) was a British television writer, best known for his contributions to the science-fiction genre. He also wrote for the soap operas Coronation Street and United! In the mid-1960s he was story editor for Doctor Who.

Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker star as the Doctor in these seven narrated full-cast TV soundtracks of classic Doctor Who TV serials. The stories are The Tomb of the Cybermen (narrated by Frazer Hines); Doctor Who and the Silurians (narrated by Caroline John); The Sea Devils (narrated by Katy Manning); The Curse of Peladon (narrated by Katy Manning); The Monster of Peladon (narrated by Elisabeth Sladen); The Pirate Planet (narrated by John Leeson) and Destiny of the Daleks (narrated by Lalla Ward). Also includes bonus interviews with the narrators in which they each recall their time as the Doctor's companion in the BBC TV series. Duration: 14 hours approx.

4th Doctor Novelisation

An unabridged reading of the classic Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams', novelised at last.

BBC Audio's team gives these releases a hallmark of quality

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) is a world famous author whose work includes five novels in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, two Dirk Gently novels, and three Doctor Who TV serials. He was script editor of Doctor Who in 1978/9, during which time he wrote City of Death based on a story by David Fisher. James Goss has written several Torchwood and Doctor Who novels, two radio plays, and is the co-author, with Steve Tribe of The Dalek Handbook and Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects. His Doctor Who audiobook Dead Air won Best Audiobook 2010 and his books Dead of Winter and First Born were both nominated for the 2012 British Fantasy Society Awards. He also novelised Douglas Adams's TV scripts for Doctor Who: City of Death.

Jon Culshaw reads the brand new novelisation of a classic Doctor Who adventure by Douglas Adams. The hugely powerful Key to Time has been split into six segments, all of which have been disguised and hidden throughout time and space. Now the even more powerful White Guardian wants the Doctor to find the pieces. 
 
With the first segment successfully retrieved, the Doctor, Romana and K9 trace the second segment of the Key to the planet Calufrax. But when they arrive at exactly the right point in space, they find themselves on exactly the wrong planet – Zanak. 
 
Ruled by the mysterious ‘Captain’, Zanak is a happy and prosperous planet. Mostly. If the mines run out of valuable minerals and gems then the Captain merely announces a New Golden Age and they fill up again. It’s an economic miracle – so obviously something’s very wrong... Duration: 10 hours approx.

Doctor Who: City of Death

The classic adventure by Douglas Adams, novelized at last by James Goss

The Doctor takes Romana for a holiday in Paris – a city which, like a fine wine, has a bouquet all its own. Especially if you visit during one of the vintage years. But the TARDIS takes them to 1979, a table-wine year, a year whose vintage is soured by cracks – not in their wine glasses but in the very fabric of time itself. 
 
 Soon the Time Lords are embroiled in an audacious alien scheme which encompasses home-made time machines, the theft of the Mona Lisa, the resurrection of the much-feared Jagaroth race, and the beginning (and quite possibly the end) of all life on Earth. 
 
 Aided by British private detective Duggan, whose speciality is thumping people, the Doctor and Romana must thwart the machinations of the suave, mysterious Count Scarlioni – all twelve of him – if the human race has any chance of survival. 
 
 But then, the Doctor’s holidays tend to turn out a bit like this. 
 
 Featuring the Fourth Doctor as played by Tom Baker, City of Death is a novel by James Goss based on the 1979 Doctor Who story written by Douglas Adams under the pen-name David Agnew. City of Death is one of the best-loved serials in the show’s 50-year history and was watched by over 16 million viewers when first broadcast.

A 4th Doctor novelisation

An unabridged reading of the brand new novelisation of a classic Fourth Doctor TV story by Douglas Adams.

An unabridged reading of the brand new novelisation of a classic Fourth Doctor TV story by Douglas Adams 
 
The Doctor takes Romana for a holiday in Paris - a city which, like a fine wine, has a bouquet all its own. But the TARDIS arrives in 1979, a table-wine year, whose vintage is soured by cracks in the very fabric of time itself. Soon the Time Lords are embroiled in an audacious alien scheme which encompasses home-made time machines, the theft of the Mona Lisa, the resurrection of the much-feared Jagaroth race, and the beginning (and quite possibly the end) of all life on Earth. 
 
Aided by British private detective Duggan, the Doctor and Romana must thwart the machinations of the suave, mysterious Count Scarlioni - all twelve of him - if the human race has any chance of survival.

A Trilogy in Five Parts

The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

The 'nearly-definitive' omnibus edition of 'the greatest sci-fi novel of all time'

Indispensable reading for mental hitchhikers who want to thumb a lift out of the ruts of orthodox thought

One of the world’s sanest, smartest, kindest, funniest voices

DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952 and died unexpectedly in May 2001. He is best known as the creator of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He has sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49.

__________________________________ 
THE COMPLETE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SERIES 
 
Don't panic. 
 
First a legendary radio series, then a sequence of bestselling books, a television series, a computer game, a little-known Belgian progressive rock opera, a blockbuster movie, and finally this handsome hardback edition – primarily intended as a blunt object with which to bludgeon one's enemies – The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the greatest fictional enterprises of the twentieth century. 
 
Telling the long, circuitous and often inexplicable story of Arthur Dent, left homeless and rather annoyed after the Earth is destroyed in order to build a hyperspace expressway, this edition collects all five parts of the trilogy: 
 
· The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy 
· The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 
· Life, the Universe and Everything 
· So Long and Thanks For All the Fish 
· Mostly Harmless 
 
along with a wealth of extra material prefaced and contextualised by Jem Roberts, the official biographer of Douglas Adams, to complete the canon. 
 
Introduced by Richard Dawkins and Nick Harkaway

Doctor Who: Shada

From the unique mind of Douglas Adams, the legendary 'lost' Doctor Who story - now in paperback!

A delight

There are moments of glorious Adamsian whimsy here

Surprising, page-turning, fulfilling, satisfying and faithful to the spirit of that wonderfully gifted author who left us far too young

Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor is brought fabulously to life, scarf flapping, eyes and teeth flashing as he clowns around making flippant remarks while saving the universe

Something of a Holy Grail for a Doctor Who fan

Roberts… brings back the enchanting, not-really-for-grown-ups feel of late 1970s Doctor Who

Douglas Adams (Author) DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49. Gareth Roberts (Author) Date: 2013-08-06 
Gareth Roberts was born in Chesham, Buckinghamshire in 1968. His scripts for Doctor Who on television include 'The Shakespeare Code' (2007), 'The Unicorn And The Wasp' (2008), 'The Lodger' (2010) and 'Closing Time' (2011), and he has also written many scripts for the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as scripts for programmes as diverse as Emmerdale and Randall &amp; Hopkirk (Deceased). He has written nine original Doctor Who novels, and lives in West London.

The legendary lost Doctor Who story from the unique mind of Douglas Adams 
 
Inside this book is another book – the strangest, most important and most dangerous book in the entire universe. 
 
The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey is one of the Artefacts, dating from dark days of Rassilon. It wields enormous power, and it must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. 
 
Skagra – who believes he should be God and permits himself only two smiles per day – most definitely has the wrong hands. 
 
Beware Skagra. Beware the Sphere. Beware Shada.

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet (TV Soundtrack)

Tom Baker stars as the Fourth Doctor in this TV soundtrack adventure by Douglas Adams, with linking narration by John Leeson.

the quality of the soundtrack used here is faultless, with supplementary narration provided with aplomb by K9 actor Leeson

The TARDIS materialises on a planet where the age of prosperity comes often, and precious jewels line the streets like litter. Overseeing the citizens is the bombastic Captain, half human and half machine. Lurking in shadows are the Mentiads, mysterious cowled figures who set their sights on certain individuals and claim them for their own. 
 
As the Doctor, Romana and K9 become entangled in local events they are caught between the apparently insane Captain and apparently sinister Mentiads. But then the Doctor makes a terrible discovery beneath the surface of the planet, and realises the true nature of the Captain's operations. 
 
Soon yet another planet comes under threat from the Captain, one which the Doctor knows well: Earth. Can he manage to save it from a terrible fate? 
 
John Leeson narrates this classic full-cast TV adventure, written by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and in a special bonus interview he recalls his time as the Voice of K9 in the BBC TV series.

From the unique mind of Douglas Adams, the legendary ‘lost’ Doctor Who story completed at last by Gareth Roberts and read by Lalla Ward.

Lalla Ward... proves to be an agile voice artist, and her characterizations are informed by her insider knowledge. John Leeson, the voice of the Doctor’s robot dog, K-9... reprises his role to good effect. This BBC production also features background music and numerous audio effects from the series. Shada is a must for Doctor Who fans, but it’s also produced in a way that will entice new listeners to the series.

Shada, as an audiobook, filters Douglas Adams' style and voice rather wonderfully, evoking the sounds of the Hitchhikers' Guide.

Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge. His parents divorced when he was five, and Douglas and his younger sister Susan were brought up by their mother in Essex. From 1959 to 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School, and he first thought seriously about writing when a teacher named Frank Halford gave him ten out of ten for a composition. He was the only boy ever to have been awarded full marks. 
 
Leaving school in December 1970, Douglas won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge. His main reason for going there was to join Footlights, although his first attempt to do so was a failure. He succeeded in joining in his second term, but found the group which ran the society a bit stand-offish. He also felt constrained by the limits of pantomimes and mid-term revues, so instead he set up his own revue group, Adams-Smith-Adams, with two friends. It was very successful. 
Douglas left Cambridge in the summer of 1974 and took occasional office jobs before joining forces with Monty Python team member Graham Chapman. They collaborated on a number of projects; unfortunately, very few of them were ever broadcast. A while later he was invited to Cambridge to direct the 1976 Footlights revue, but even this turned out to be a disappointment. At the end of the year, broke and feeling like a failure, Douglas moved back home with his mother. 
 
In 1977 his luck changed. Through his former flatmate John Lloyd, Douglas met BBC Radio 4 producer Simon Brett. He felt that Douglas' style of humour should have its own show, rather than being crammed into existing formats. Having been inspired by a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, Douglas came up with a draft for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After several delays the first six-episode series was broadcast, with a second rapidly following. The worldwide phenomenon they spawned includes five novels, a book of scripts, two LPs, a television series, a computer game and two stage plays. 
 
In addition to Hitchhiker, Douglas' work included two Dirk Gently detective novels and two humorous place-name 'dictionaries', The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both co-written with John Lloyd) as well as Last Chance to See, an account of a global search for rare and endangered species which he co-wrote with Mark Carwardine. 
 
In 1999 Douglas moved to Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter to work on a proposed Hitchhiker film. Always a keen advocate of new technology, his last series for Radio 4 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, a look at the advances mankind was likely to make in future years.He died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 49, in May 2001. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film was produced in 2005, whilst both Stephen Mangan and Samuel Barnett have portrayed Dirk Gently on television in recent years.

The Doctor’s old friend and fellow Time Lord Professor Chronotis has retired to Cambridge University – where nobody will notice if he lives for centuries. But now he needs help from the Doctor, Romana and K-9. When he left Gallifrey he took with him a few little souvenirs – most of them are harmless. But one of them is extremely dangerous. The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey isn’t a book for Time Tots. It is one of the Artefacts, dating from the dark days of Rassilon. It must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. The sinister Skagra most definitely has the wrong hands. He wants the book. He wants to discover the truth behind Shada. And he wants the Doctor’s mind... Based on the scripts for the original television series by the legendary Douglas Adams, Shada retells an adventure that never made it to the screen.

Gerry Davis

Ian Marter

Douglas Adams

James Goss

Jenny T Colgan

Anneke Wills

Michael Troughton

Jon Culshaw

Camille Coduri

Nicholas Briggs

1st, 2nd, 4th, 10th Doctor Novelisations

Four classic TV novelisations in which the Doctor and friends are witnesses to alien invasion. 
 
In Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet, by Gerry Davis, the First Doctor, Ben and Polly help the crew of an Antarctic tracking station as they resist invasion by the Cybermen, intent on enslaving humanity for their own needs. 
 
In The Dominators, by Ian Marter, the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find the peaceful planet Dulkis threatened with subjugation by brutal aliens and their robotic Quarks. 
 
In The Pirate Planet, by Douglas Adams and James Goss, the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 encounter the tyrannical Captain of Zanak, whose pillaging of other planets apparently knows no bounds. 
 
In The Christmas Invasion, by Jenny T Colgan, a newly regenerated Tenth Doctor must rely on Rose Tyler to help save Earth from the deadly invading Sycorax. 
 
Anneke Wills, Michael Troughton, Jon Culshaw and Camille Coduri read these thrilling tales, with Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Cybermen. 
 
Duration: 20 hours 20 mins approx. 
 
? 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd © 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. 'Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet' cover image artwork © House of Achilleos

Douglas Adams

Books by Douglas Adams

Series by Douglas Adams

Doctor Who Target Novels – Classic Era20 Books

Hitchhiker's Guide (radio plays)7 Books

Articles featuring Douglas Adams

Books to read if you love Doctor Who

42 reasons why The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is beyond brilliant

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter