I like to think it was the budding wargamer in me, rather than anything more misanthropic, but the sight of Daleks roaming the streets of a devastated London sent thrills through me as a child watching the otherwise rather weak, "alternative universe" Doctor Who film with Peter Cushing: Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD.It wasn't until years later that I discovered this film, and its prequel Dr. Who And The Daleks, were simply American remakes of classic episodes of the Doctor Who television series. Even as a child I couldn't equate a "human" Doctor, calling himself "Dr. Who", with a self-built TARDIS, slapstick sidekicks and gas firing Daleks to the super-intelligent Timelord I was watching every week on television.
But that still didn't detract from the frisson of excitement that the idea of battling Daleks (the ultimate intelligent alien villains) in a war-torn city can still stir in me. This, eventually, led to my discovery of Harlequin's (now Black Tree Design's) Invasion Earth wargame and then recently the superior Doctor Who Miniatures Game.
The 1977 Target novelisation of this story, by Terrance Dicks, is a no frills adaptation of the original William Hartnell era Doctor Who story that crackles along with the pace of a good television drama, replacing the Bernard Cribbins-led lunacy of the Cushing film with proper menacing Daleks, a sensible plot and a creepy Lovecraftian 'slyther' monster.
It also got my fanboy geek juices flowing when I tried to integrate the plot with events in more recent Doctor Who: were the Dalek's trying to take control of the Racnoss spaceship (and its ancient technology) at the centre of the Earth by replacing its flooded engines with their own? And is Carl Tyler, the resistance man who helps the Doctor, a descendant of Rose Tyler? Enquiring minds want to know...
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