The first Doctor Who novelisation is one of the more interesting ones - as it diverges significantly from the originally published version of the story. David Whittacker - the original script editor for Doctor Who who remained involved with the show as a writer until 1970 (and was novelising one of his stories when he died in 1980) was tasked with both adapting Terry Nation's script for the Daleks and also introducing the main cast - Doctor Who was still new and so it was clearly felt that they clearly could not just assume readers knew who the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan were.

The opening is a dramatically different retelling of An Unearthly Child - involving Ian (a teacher, but wanting to leave the profession to go into science) driving home from a failed job interview through Barnes Common when he comes across a car accident where Barbara is injured; but worried about Susan who she is tutoring. When searching they come across the TARDIS and have a very similar argument as in the broadcast story in Totter's lane before being whisked off to Skaro. This creates a dynamic that is very different to the broadcast story - rather than it being Ian+Barbara vs The Doctor with Susan being stuck in the middle; you have four relative strangers thrown together with a different dynamic. The story is also told in a first person perspective from Ian - which I think is beneficial as it allows the story to focus on these dynamics and Ian's wider thoughts - including interestingly the first indication of a romantic element to Ian and Barbara's relationship in an official publication. Its also interesting how elements of this has leaked into other elements of the expanded universe - reference to the everlasting matches is an explicit reference to this novel and makes it more important.

From there the story is a lot closer to the broadcast story until the climax although adding additional details at points. This being from Ian's perspective also shifts some emphasises - the first episode cliffhanger is mentioned by Barbara after the fact; the Doctors role in much of the second half is limited to summaries. It also means that certain characters have heightened importance - Kristas for example is a much more important, fleshed out character in this version of the story rather than the broadcast version as the story of infiltrating the city is fleshed out. The climax however is when the age of the novelisation is revealed - the use of a Glass Dalek 20 years before Revelation of the Daleks is interesting (and possibly an inspiration) but the description of the Dalek mutant itself is obviously incredibly different to a modern version. I don't think this is necessarily bad - in fact it makes this much more interesting that a more rote novelisation would be.

I think this is well worth a read - the fleshed out charactarisations are interesting; and I really like the third person perspective. This is not universally positive - things like the failure to break out of the cell initially and the boxing match scene feel like padding rather than actually building on the story - but I think Whittacker's writing on this is very interesting and compelling - especially when coupled with William Russell's performance in the associated audiobook. If you want your novelisations to align with the broadcast episode then you might not like this; but I thought this was a fun read.