Published: January 1986

Edition read: Target first, 1986

Coolest Cover: Not one of Skilleter’s most inspired- his Hartnell is good, but his Wyatt Earp is drab. I like the fuzzy edge of the airbrushing on Hartnell’s coat, though.

Purple Prose: "But whereas Doc, as we know, was a medical man, Ringo himself had preferred to opt for the Classics, on account her considered them a mite more genteel. And to this end, it was his habit to devote some percentage of his blood money to the purchase of such texts in the dead languages as were considered to be required reading by the folks who live on Nob Hill.

At the moment he was into Caesar’s Gallic Wars..." (p.113)

Childhood Recollections: Not sure I ever read this one- as with some others, I suspect that the opening was a little bit too sophisticated for my thirteen-year-old self.

Ramblings: If Donald Cotton’s adaptation of ‘The Myth Makers’ was an unexpected revelation in terms of style, approach and entertainment value, it’s a pleasure to be able to reassure everybody that if anything, his take on ‘The Gunfighters’ is even more accomplished. Cotton begins by setting up the same kind of narrative framework, in this case having the events recounted by Doc Holliday from his deathbed to one Ned Buntline and then re-worked into a third person account of the adventure. It’s an improvement on the Homer device of his previous novel, as it means that the narrative voice is far less intrusive and feels less contrived- while Homer’s repeated forays between the Greek and Trojan lines were amusing up to a point, after a while the artificiality wears thin. But here the story flows much more naturally and more coherently, and it’s a far more fluid read as a result.

The original story of ‘The Gunfighters’ is, like many of its era, one which thrusts the regulars into the build-up to a situation which unfolds by itself; like many of the late Hartnell stories, this allows the Doctor to coast through much of the story, become involved in a little bit of comic business and intrigue without really affecting the otcome that much and look on while his companions carry much of the burden of the action. The novel repeats this more or less faithfully; having briefly been mistaken for Doc Holliday, the Doctor spends much of the book in the protective custody of Wyatt Earp apart from a bit of comedy with a shotgun towards the end, which turns black as its implied the Doctor claims one if not two lives by firing accidentally- surely a sequence which it would have been impossible for the William Hartnell of 1966 to have attempted. One of the curious things about Cotton’s story is that, again like ‘The Myth Makers’, it doesn’t shy away from the violence and bloodletting but still finds a certain amount of gallows humour in them as well; Seth Harper and Charlie die in ways which are if anything more bloody than the televised episodes, and yet this sits alongside Johnny Ringo’s aspirations to be taken seriously by the cultured classes of San Francisco, Pa Clanton’s political ambitions and the most bizarre collection of pseudo-Western similes you’ll ever encounter this side of a varmint’s...well, you get the idea, but there’s an almost Wodehousean joy in the preoccupations of minor characters.

The humour can also on occasion turn a little blue- prairie oysters indeed, and frequent references to Ma Golightly’s establishment and Kate’s previous professional engagements- it’s also, if I recollect aright, the third instance of the word "bastard" in a Target novel. But overall your feelings about Donald Cotton’s Doctor Who work are always going to depend on how rigid your ideas of the series’ parameters are- while the novelisation is squarely entertaining and a sophisticated addition to the range, it doesn’t have any monsters (or much of a Doctor, for that matter) and its take on the subject matter is unconventional. And that, to my mind, makes it an excellent addition to the range and well worth the £1.60 I paid some twenty years ago.