Legacy of the Daleks

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Site added: 29 December 2004 · Last updated: 12 July 2007

Legacy of the Daleks, by John Peel, is an adventure story in which the Daleks lurk in the background as an ever-present menace while the Master lurks in the foreground as a more tangible danger.

The novel is set several years after the events of the 1964 TV story ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ with the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan and her partner David Campbell undergoing a crisis of their own as David has aged but Susan has not.

This is a logical development of all that we have been told about the Time Lords and is handled well here. Both the Doctor and Susan are outcasts, not through choice, but through biology, and both must find their niche in the universe.

Meanwhile the Doctor has ‘lost’ his companion Sam and the Tardis tracks her to Earth (quite why is unclear) so the Doctor decides to pay a visit to Susan whom he knows to be there too.

The action on Earth comes thick and fast as Susan investigates a Dalek artefact and discovers its secrets while the Master’s plotting – as usual – lands him in more trouble than he can handle. This is the Roger Delgado version of the Master, following the events of Frontier in Space. Some of the dialogue rings so true that you can hear Delgado saying it.

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