You still have to wait until March 2012 to buy your copy but Ebury Publishing – owners of BBC Books – have released the stunning cover art for the forthcoming novelization of the lost Douglas Adams serial Shada!
Adapted by Gareth Roberts (The Shakespeare Code, The Lodger), the book is the official, Adams’ Estate-approved final telling of the legendary lost six part serial which was plagued by industrial action during its production in 1979.
Douglas Adams is of course well known for his seminal work The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and we think you’ll agree that the cover art for Shada reflects the eclectic nature of Adams’ novels and could easily be picked up by a fan of the late writer (he died in 2001) who has never read or watched Doctor Who…
The Doctor’s old friend and fellow Time Lord Professor Chronotis has retired to Cambridge University – where nobody will notice if he lives for centuries. But now he needs help from the Doctor, Romana and K-9. When he left Gallifrey he took with him a few little souvenirs – most of them are harmless. But one of them is extremely dangerous.
The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey isn’t a book for Time Tots. It is one of the Artefacts, dating from the dark days of Rassilon. It must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. And the sinister Skagra most definitely has the wrong hands. He wants the book. He wants to discover the truth behind Shada. And he wants the Doctor’s mind…
Using the original Douglas Adams scripts, Shada finally brings the much anticipated story to life and into the 48 year story of Doctor Who!
Incidentally fans of Douglas Adams and his era of Doctor Who will be interested to know that both the hardcover and audiobook versions of Gareth Roberts’ adaptation of Shada are available to order from Amazon right now!
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I hope this time the book gets proper promotion outside the Who circles. I still come across Michael Moorcock fans who are completely unaware there’s a Doctor Who novel out there by him. Adams has an even bigger following – very smart idea putting his name on the cover. It’d be cool to see a Who novel hit a bestseller list (again? I don’t know if it’s ever happened before).
I also just realized – we haven’t seen that logo on a new BBC Books novel since the end of 2005!
and doesn’t it look amazing?
Well The Cover is a bit of a mess really. and hase very little in the way of DOCTOR WHO promotion as its more Hitch-hikery .
Fans of Doctor who will love the story inside, but hate the cover
Fans of DOUGLAS ADAMS will love the cover and hate the material inside, especialy the bits re-used already in Dirk Gently. So they get ripped off twice.
I do hope this is GARETH ROBERTS VERSION of the story rather then him trying to do a parody of Douglas Adams.
Still that cover is appaling.
Well heres hoping that Gareth Roberts can do his usual sterling work here with the material but boy oh boy is that one awful cover. Bryan is right its far more Hitchhiker than Doctor Who but that has to be a marketing ploy surely to tie in with the fact that the original story was by Douglas Adams. However one would have thought that the Doctor Who name was equally as strong these days, if not more so and I would personally have preferred something more in the way of one of Alister Pearson’s stunning photo-montage covers ala ‘The Romance of Crime’ and ‘The English Way of Death’ – wishful thinking I know but infinitely preferrable to the bland mess we’ve ended up with.