Despite being a television creation, our favourite time lord has had a long association with the printed page. More than one fan over the years has revealed that they discovered Doctor Who through reading the popular Target novelisations of the television series, rather the onscreen original. When the series went into its long sixteen year hiatus in the nineties however, the Doctor Who novel really came of age, at first under the aegis of Virgin Publishing, and later under BBC Books own imprint. Although the novels carried over many of the same authors between companies. By the time the programme came back in 2005, the Doctor had enjoyed well over 200 adventures across his many incarnations, and several writers would eventually create stories for the new series, including Gareth Roberts and Paul Cornell. So far Cornell is only writer to have seen his own novel Human Nature realised as a television adventure, a two-parter which was extremely well received by fans. But there are plenty more great tales in those books which deserve to reach the wider worldwide television audience. So here are ten more novels which Moffat or any future showrunner may care to consider. In every case these are stories with a great central idea which can be adapted into a single or double episode adventure. Human Nature showed how a book could be adapted in a way that kept the strengths of the novel, but also made it more television friendly and in places improve on the book. Such as replacing the cricket ball holding the Doctors essence with a pocket watch that offers a dramatic choice of whether to open it or not. Heres a warning, in order to discuss these books these entries will have to be a bit spoilery when it comes to their plots, but well just try our best not to give away more than is absolutely necessary. Quite a few of these choices are set in exotic locations but lets not let mere budget considerations effect the selection too much. After all, the surroundings of Cardiff have proved to be surprisingly versatile in the past decade. In some cases there are novels which are too literary to be effectively turned into forty-five minute of prime time entertainment. Others which are just too horrific for a family audience, including ironically Damaged Goods the work of Russell T Davis, the man who brought the series back. So lets start with some gory zombies
