I've seen almost none of the Jon Pertwee episodes of 'Doctor Who,' including 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs,' although I've been told it was a good story. As the next best thing, I've bought and read Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion by Malcolm Hulke. The novelization includes an introduction from the late science fiction great, Harlan Ellison.

There's a brief page about dinosaurs before chapter one opens. We get to meet a layabout named Shugie MacPherson who traveled to London with some friends. He got so drunk that he couldn't be roused enough to get up when one of them, Donald Ewing, tries to get him to understand that London is being evacuated. Another, Jamie, warns Shugie how much time he has to get in the van before he'll be left to die. (They and Ian couldn't drag him to the van?)

Shugie spends four days in a house with the electricity and water turned off. He eats tinned corned beef and drinks whisky. When they run out, he leaves. At least he finds out why London was evacuated. It goes about as well for him as one may expect from a prologue character.

The TARDIS appears with the Doctor and reporter Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah Jane notices things are strange. The Doctor dismisses her concerns. Foolish Doctor. They're soon in trouble. Which is going to be the bigger trouble: dinosaurs or army soldiers mistaking them for something bad?

General Finch is a big pain to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart . (Think Colonel Breen in the 'Quatermass and the Pit' / 'Five Million Years to Earth' movie.) The Doctor makes some interesting deductions, not that Finch believes him.

NOTES:

Chapter 1:

a. Here is where the Doctor speaks in favor of the Vandals. He had met some, of course.

b. The Doctor serves pills for meals. Sarah Jane is not impressed.

c. In British slang, 'I'm whacked' means some one is exhausted, not murdered.

d. A 'jimmy' is a short crowbar.
Mentions: Woolworth's, Wimpy's, and the Marie Celeste mystery

Chapter 2:

a. We meet a jerk named General Finch who wants Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to order his men to shoot to kill looters.

b. Sarah Jane is 23.

c. A looter named Lodge fills the Doctor and Sarah Jane in about the dinosaurs.

d. The Doctor uses the Venusian karate hold.

e. Richard I went to fight in the Holy Land in 1191.

Chapter 3:

a. The reptile men in Derbyshire battle were in 'Doctor Who in the Silurians,' which Mr. Hulke novelized as Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters.

b. The giant maggots in a disused mine in Wales happened in 'The Green Death,' which Mr. Hulke novelized as Doctor Who and the Green Death.

c. The Doctor explains time eddies.

d. See here for which color flag stands for which kind of dinosaur on U.N.I.T.'s map of London.

Chapter 4:

a. We meet the smug Professor Whitaker, inventor of the Timescoop and a creepy man named Butler.

b. We also meet Sir Charles Grover, Minister with Special Powers. The Doctor knows of him.

c.. Captain Yates saves the Doctor.
Mentions: King Henry VIII, Oscar Wilde, Noël Coward

Chapter 5:

a. The Doctor tells Sarah about the Blinovitch Limitation Effect and time travel.

b. The 'STD' that Sarah Jane is talking about is 'subscriber trunk dialing,' an old British term for long-distance phone calls.

c. General Finch might be referring to John Stonehouse, who tried to fake his death in 1974, two years before the copyright of this novelization.

d. The Doctor saves Sarah Jane, who has been locked in.

e. Sarah Jane has a good idea that she investigates on her own because the men have been dismissive already.

Chapter 6:

a. Sarah Jane meets three persons who aren't using their real names and tell her something she doesn't believe.

b. The Doctor sees some interesting signs on a wall.

Chapter 7: Mentions: Disraeli, Gladstone, Churchill, President Kennedy

Chapter 8: Mention: Oliver Cromwell

Chapter 9:

a. We learn how Butler got his scar.

b. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's final authority is the Supreme Headquarters of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce at Geneva, Switzerland.

Chapter 10 Mention: Foyles bookstore, The Bible's Book of Ezekiel

This is a good adventure, although Operation Golden Age had an insufficient gene pool and were quite wrong about humans being the only species to pray on its own species. The dinosaurs were a good menace. There were plenty of surprises for the characters and good clues before the big revelation. It makes me wish I'd seen the episodes. ( )

This does pretty much what it says on the tin. Central London is devoid of people but populated with dinosaurs. Why? How? The Doctor (#3) and Sarah Jane Smith must find out.

The tone of this book is a bit weird. The first chapter starts off with a drunk guy who is abandoned by his friends in dinosaur-infested London, which is not really what I'd expect in a Dr Who novel, although I did find it amusing in a grownup way. It was just a strange thing to have coexisting with patches of patronizing explanations of terms such as "copper's nark" and "stool pigeon" when these are used by one of the characters.

The story itself is fine, although the dinosaurs probably better in the reader's imagination; since this came long before Jurassic Park, the special effects in the TV version are probably somewhat unintentionally amusing. It might also be a bit predictable, but perhaps seeing it in multiple episodes instead of reading it as a book in one sitting would help break up the flow. One thing that did grate, though, was how many times Sarah Jane kept getting captured and telling the wrong people what she knew. Perhaps it was only twice, but you'd think she would have learned the first time. That was not the best use of Sarah Jane, narrative-wise.

If you're in the mood for some very light entertainment, this might hit the spot, but otherwise you can probably give it a miss. ( )

Great classic Dr Who! ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1038662.html#cutid2

I am not sure if this is the best of the Season 11 novels, as Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders clearly takes that trophy, but it is certainly the most interesting. It starts with a lovely vignette of a Scot in London for the football who becomes a victim of the dinosaurs; there are other little bits of depth added as well, Professor Whitaker becoming very camp, and a couple of odd extra details - the Doctor is described as having "a mop of curly hair" (shurely shome mishtake?) and he talks about the Mary Celeste again as he did in Doctor Who and the Sea Devils. Also, of course, the book loses the appalling visual effects of the original programme - these dinosaurs are flesh and blood, not rubber!

Yet at the same time it is a bit too over-earnest, not quite as mature as Hulke's better novels (Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters and Doctor Who and the Green Death), so it doesn't quite get its fourth star from me.

It is interesting that both this and the previous story are about the bad guys shunting people (and in this case dinosaurs) between the present and the past.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/invasion-of-the-dinosaurs-by-jon-arnold-and-malc...

One other detail added by Hulke for the novelisation is that Butler, the character played by Martin Jarvis, has a large facial scar, and is also made more complex, doubting the wisdom of the grand plan at an earlier stage. ( )