The novella “Revenge of the Judoon” by Terrance Dicks was published for the first time in 2008.
The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones arrive at Balmoral, in 1902. There they meet Captain Carruthers, who’s in the service of King Edward VII. Together they go to the castle but when they arrive they find that it’s disappeared. From the traces left in the ground, the Doctor and Martha immediately understand that it’s the Judoon’s doing.
Talking to Carruthers, the Doctor finds a track and, before going in search of the castle, he brings the Captain and Martha to London, where they go to talk with Arthur Conan Doyle to discover the origin of a mysterious sphere that appears to be a powerful energy source.
Terrance Dicks started working to the classic “Doctor Who” series at the end of the ’60s. Over the decades, he had various roles and the most prolific is to write novels related to the series, both novelizations of TV serials and original stories. The consequence is that Dicks could write a novella such as “Revenge of the Judoon” even in sleep.
The story of “Revenge of the Judoon” is set during the third season of the new “Doctor Who” series and contains some references to episodes of that series. Given the presence of the Judoon, it’s inevitable that there are some paragraphs about the third season episode “Smith and Jones” in which those aliens appear for the first time. In the story, the Doctor tells Martha that he met Queen Victoria: this happened in the second season episode “Tooth and Claw”.
Despite its reduced length, “Revenge of the Judoon” has a pretty complex plot, so much that the central part is divided into two subplots one of which follows the Doctor while the other follows Martha and Captain Carruthers. This is an action story with a very high pace, as is typical of many episodes of the new series.
Inevitably, there’s not much space for character development. It’s assumed that the reader is familiar with the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones and it helps to know the historical period in which the story is set, especially King Edward VII and writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who however have minor roles.
Despite the title, the Judoon appear in a limited way because the Doctor must be able to find Balmoral Castle before confronting them to understand why they moved it. As a result, only at the end of the story you can understand the meaning of the title.
Despite the limitations imposed by the length, I think “Revenge of the Judoon” is a good novella because it can reproduce at least in part the style of the television show with a brilliant Tenth Doctor. Reading the dialogues, I can hear David Tennant’s voice saying his lines and that sounds convincing, which is one of the things you ask from a “Doctor Who” novel.
“Revenge of the Judoon” is part of the “Quick Reads” series, consisting of very cheap books around 100 pages each. Buying those books connected to “Doctor Who” makes sense for fans who want to have anything related to the saga, for those who want to try to go beyond the television episodes and for those who want to just try to read a book that’s not too challenging.
