Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation

by Ian Marter

Book Overview

Reluctantly cancelling his well-earned holiday, the Doctor sets off in the TARDIS to trace and re-assemble the six segments of the Key to Time on which the stability of the entire Universe depends.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0426200926
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Target Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The epic begins and a top supporting cast

This one kicks off the Key to Time saga, a year of Doctor Who shows that covered the Doctor's quest to retrieve the Key to Time for the White Guardian. He is assigned a new assistant, Romana, to help him in his quest. He also has his faithful robot dog K9 with him. Together they seek out the first part of the key. This novelization has slightly more character development in it then most, particularly with respect to Romana and her relationship with the Doctor. For a change the Doctor does not save the world, or even a portion of a world. Instead his mission is to retrieve the first of six pieces that make of the Key to Time. The key is needed to restore an imbalance in the universe that threatens everything in it. What do you think, can he do it ? :) Enjoy!

Start of the Key to Time and intro Romana

The first story in the Key to Time season, this book adapts a number of important events: the meeting between the White Guardian and the Doctor, which commences the sequence, and the arrival of new companion, Romanadvoratrelundar (or Romana for short, even though she's rather be called Fred...).Adapted by Ian Marter from a great script by Robert Holmes, the attention to detail is good and the reader is treated to something other than a bare-bones adaptation, as is so often the case with these novelisations.While perhaps the simplest story in the Key to Time sequence, I don't see this as a fault. Indeed, it allows the reader to relax into the more complex ideas introduced at the start of the book and get to know Romana, without bombarding us with some of the more convoluted story lines that later became normal for this season.(Incidentally, the second story in this sequence, 'The Pirate Planet', was never turned into a novel.)