What might a Dalek New Adventure novel have been like?

I'm actually very tempted to say that it would have looked something like Enemy of the Daleks. It's got the ruthlessly grey Doctor, gun-wielding Ace, high body count, Xenomorph-inspired Kesabia and ironic name (Bliss, Heaven, Hell, etc.) to boot. A more formidable Dalek presence would probably have done some pretty nasty things to Benny given her family's history with the things. I suppose it would also have opened up the possibility for questioning whether this new, utterly committed Doctor was any better than the foes he fought against. We may have even had a story that explored the Remembrance of the Daleks's aftermath.

With the future world the New Adventures built up we'd probably have seen something like Dalek Empire, with a Dalek conquest campaign taking place over a period of time and a variety of places instead of the single battles usually seen in a Doctor Who story featuring the Daleks.

I mean how there was the future Earth society that popped in and out of the books. We'd have read about different stages and battles of the same war as the Doctor and his companions encounter them, but it would be the same war as opposed to a whole new Dalek War each time like the TV series and Big Finish audios seem to usually do.

Terry Nation wanted a large commission when the Daleks were ever used. That's why their most substantial appearance is buried in GodEngine, where the lawyers wouldn't find it. Jon Peel, Nation's friend, eventually novelised The Chase, DMP, Power and Evil and went on to write the only two Dalek novels for the Eighth Doctor range. The Daleks were going to be revealed as the main antagonist behind a later Eighth Doctor novel arc and had been foreshadowed as such but when the Nation estate denied permission things had to be changed last minute.

Thats right and because of that change, something to do with a Black Hole which was meant to play a bit part was forgotten about

There was a period around 2004 where the Nation estate resented the BBC's perceived freewheeling use of the pepper-pots, including, hilariously, a cameo in a Loony Tunes film. As a result, they initially refused RTD the use of them in the New Series, resulting in a draft of Dalek cheekily titled "Absence of the Daleks," in which the lone Dalek was replaced by a Tocolafane. According to Shearman, the Doctor would recognize it as part of the species that destroyed his people, and desperately try to get it to reveal what that species was. It would refuse him this knowledge, eventually taunting the Doctor as it died. Then, come the season finale, the Tocolafane would reappear and the Doctor would learn that they were in fact Humanity.

On a side note, Davies wanted the Tocolafane to be silent, but Shearman, used to the audio-medium, was uncomfortable without an aural-dimension to work with. He thus gave it a childish-voice, an aspect that made it into the Series 3 finale.


Anyhow, my impression is that the Nation estate finally wised up to the fact that the BBC was their breadbasket, and assented to the Daleks' use in the New series.

DWM was always weird with licensing though, even getting away with using Grace Holloway because (purportedly) no one realized she was off-limits.

And as I said, this was all around 2004. True, Big Finish did record the Juggernauts in April of that year, but it seems quite possible that they'd have lost the rights to use the Daleks had the Nation estate not relented. Alternately, it's possible the Big Finish were simply considered small potatoes, not worth bothering with.

I was under the impression that some of the early eighth Doctor novels had been either rejected by Virgin or commissioned and then fallen by the wayside, with John Peel's two Dalek novels falling into the latter category.

Virgin definitely intended to do the two Eric Saward Dalek serials as novels, but it didn't happen. As I understand it, they struggled to get permission from the Terry Nation estate to use the Daleks, and then once the Daleks were secure they discovered Eric Saward was only prepared to write the books in the style of the Target novels (which, since some info has come out recently about his proposed draft, may not be true), so they commissioned Paul Leonard and Gareth Roberts to do them instead, then Saward (perhaps not unreasonably) refused permission, so the two authors were effectively given free shots at writing entirely brand new novels, and that's how we got one of the best novels, "The Plotters" (can't remember what Paul Leonard wrote for his slot).

Oh, and isn't there a big mysterious eye still present at the end of the Council of Eight plotline that's supposed to represent the Daleks? (Or possibly Sauron. More likely the Daleks)

It may have been left there in the vain hope that the Nation Estate would have relented by that point. But another serious story arc wasn't what the range needed that that point, since it was at that point every two months for each new book and less than ten books to go.

The two Saward Dalek stories are an interesting spot in terms of novelisations. Any official efforts have not been completed, like the original novelisation of Resurrection for AudioGo and there's only the unofficial ones.

Was the Paul Leonard one Speed of Flight? That came out just before The Plotters.