The Fourth Doctor has just regenerated into the Fifth, but unfortunately this regeneration doesn’t seem to be taking. He needs peace, calm, simplicity…these things can be found on the un-complex planet of Castrovalva. But the Master is not about to let the Doctor get away that easily. Will the Doctor survive, with or without the assistance of Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric?

This is a novelization of the TV story of the same name, and I think it helps to have seen the story, especially at the end. The effects get pretty trippy in the show, and it would be more of a challenge to imagine in print if you hadn’t seen it. Nyssa and Tegan get to do a fair bit in this story, and the plot may be predictable but is still good fun. The novelization is reasonably done and will tick the Doctor Who box for you if that’s what you’re after. ( )

Expands upon the TV show slightly to make it easier to understand. Tegan comes across especially well. Good regenaration story although if this is where you start reading these stories you may be confused. The Doctor is not a strong character in this story at all. Even at the end you are not sure what you are going to get. ( )

Another fairly straight-forward novelization of the television story by writer Christopher H. Bidmead, though he does try to explain a few things in a bit more detail.

In the end, it's simply a retelling of the script though unlike the audio version of "Logopolis," "Castrovalva" is helped immensely better. A lot of that comes from the fact that it's Peter Davison reading the book and his impressions of various characters is a bit more on the money than that of Christopher H. Bidmead.

As with most good "Doctor Who" novelizations, I found myself wanting to go back to the source material and view them again. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1054675.html#cutid1

This is rather good: Bidmead has a convincing intensity as he takes us through the narrative, and while it would be going too far to say that it all makes sense, it does at least hang together: there is a feeling that this is the beginning of a new era. The story is very much about the Doctor's regeneration, and somehow this comes over better on the printed page. An impressive start for the Fifth Doctor novelisations. ( )

Like all Doctor Who novelizations, Castrovalva is a fairly slight book, but unlike most, it's interesting even if you've seen the television serial. The written word captures Bidmead's ideas much better than a BBC budget ever could, and is all the better for it. The regulars are all well-written (unsurprising, as he created most of them!), and the ideas (the TARDIS caught in Event One, the recursive occlusion, block transfer computation) shine. (originally written December 2007)