the-pirate-planetBy James Goss

BBC Books, out now

The Doctor, Romana and K9 search for the second piece of the Key to Time…

James Goss’ adaptation of a Douglas Adams script is as much, if not more, fun than his version of City of Death. Once again, he has been given access to material from Adams’ early iterations of the scripts, which means that this isn’t just a straightforward translation of the script of The Pirate Planet as seen on TV, but is a very different beast indeed. Yes, the core beats are still there; you’re not going to miss the moments that you remember from the TV show. But there is more – oh, there is so much more! It’s not just the odd scene here or there that got changed along the way bringing this to the screen…

I don’t intend to spoil the “new” material that Goss has put into the book, but he has very cleverly found ways of incorporating this within the framework of the broadcast story. We get some fascinating insights into the Doctor, Romana, K9, and even Mr Fibuli’s thought processes, and some of Adams’ more outlandish suggestions regarding the whole Key to Time season wend their way in.

Goss has retained the four part structure of the story but gives each what feels like the same word count as an entire serial might have got had this been adapted alongside the other Key to Time stories. In much the same way as Gareth Roberts’ version of Shada, and Goss’s City of Death did, this could easily come to be regarded as the definitive version of the story… That is, of course, if there ever is a definitive version of any Douglas Adams story!

Verdict: A wonderful reminder of all that Douglas Adams brought to Doctor Who brilliantly brought to life by James Goss. 10/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk

The Pirate Planet is also available as an audiobook, read by Jon Culshaw.