The Edge Of Destruction - Nigel Robinson

I first read The Edge of Destruction a long time ago. One of my Dad's Target's and long before I had the chance to watch the serial which I only saw recently on DVD. At the time it became one of my favourite stories, so it must have had something right.

It's a strange story, being set fully inside the Tardis, and yet one that is integral to the show, more so perhaps than even the Daleks, they are an outside influence, a Monster, albeit the most popular. The Tardis however, is part of the very basis of the Doctor's character. As Ian states in the very first episode, he doesn't expect to find the answer to the mysteries of Time and Space in a junkyard. The Doctor has changed faces many times, the Tardis however, has never changed, at least, not permanently.

Verity Lambert reveals in the DVD commentaries that the Tardis Designer wasn't particularly enthusiastic about working on the show and delayed the designs, only coming up with something at the last minute. Nevertheless, this last minute design became probably the most singular iconic image on television. For the first two stories, the Tardis is just a machine, but in Edge, it suddenly becomes so much more than that. This is the first inkling we are given that the Tardis is sentient. Something that even the Doctor at this stage seems unaware of. Of course, this idea has been built on subsequently until we get to humanoid Tardises in the EDA's, but in the 1960's, this was revolutionary. Without this story, we would not have the symbiotic relationship between the Doctor and his battered old Type 40, where one cannot be imagined without the other.

Perhaps this is why the story hit me so much when I first read it as a kid, because of the three opening stories, the first one defines the characters, the second defines the monsters, but this one defines the whole show.

I am probably biased then, when I say that Nigel Robinson's novelisation is excellent. It is nothing spectacular, but it goes far further than the serial in exploring the Tardis and transforming it effectively from a haunted mysterious edifice into something that is sheer awesome (in the correct sense of the word) in its concept and power.

Of course, the story goes much further than just creating the character of the Tardis, it also finally breaks down the walls of distrust between the Time Lord and the Human inhabitants after they've both been put through the wringer and Robinson handles this superbly, easily getting under the skin of all four travellers, moving from suspicion to distrust of each other whilst never losing the reader's sympathy in any of them. And the result is a book that is a delight from start to finish. Everything that can be achieved from the story is achieved and brought into sharp focus.

8/10