Enlightenment was a novelisation based on the 1983 television serial Enlightenment.
This was the last Doctor Who novelisation to include an image of the Doctor on the cover until the novelisation of The Savages was published in 1986. It was also the last time the image of the current Doctor (as of the time of publication) appeared on the cover until 1988's Paradise Towers.
Publisher's summary
In response to a warning of great danger given by the White Guardian, the Fifth Doctor sets new co-ordinates and the TARDIS materialises on the heaving deck of an Edwardian racing yacht.
But the Doctor soon discovers that this is no ordinary yacht-and no ordinary race. Captain Striker is competing for an unusual prize-"Enlightenment."
The crew will be lucky to reach port safely-but with such a prize would they be lucky to win?
Book Chapters
- Winner Takes All
- The Race
- Here She Blows!
- Marker Buoy
- One Down!
- The Officers
- Man Overboard!
- The Buccaneer
- The Grid Room
- Spy!
- Focus Point
- The Prize
Deviations from televised story
- In the chess game at the beginning, Turlough plays black; whereas he played as white in the episode.
- Upon reading a "First British Submarine Launched" headline in a newspaper, the Doctor concludes that the year is 1901.
- The power chamber on Wrack's ship is floored with a grid, rather than simply having a hole in the centre of the floor.
- Wrack uses several different kinds of crystal in the book, not just red opals.
Writing and publishing notes
- Writer Barbara Clegg expanded on her television script when writing the novelisation.
- Dedication: For Adam, Rufus and Jemima, my most constructive critics
- Clegg is the first woman to publish an officially-sanctioned Doctor Who novel of any type (she was predated by Jean Airey's 1982 work, The Doctor and the Enterprise, but this was not licenced by the BBC).
Additional cover images
To be added
British publication history
First publication:
- Hardback
- W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. UK
- Paperback
- Target
