It's crazy to think that with the upcoming release of the Target novelisation of Jubilee also written by Rob Shearman, he's basically written the same story four different times! First with Jubilee, then Dalek, then the Dalek novelisation and this year the novelisation of Jubilee. Time will tell what new material he can bring to arguably his most iconic work. Of course Dalek and Jubilee are very different stories in their own right, Dalek mainly just borrows the bare bones of Jubilee and takes on a life of its own. Though the target version of Dalek does noticeably take a lot more from Jubilee, right down to dialogue that felt somewhat out of place coming from characters like Rose and Goddard when they were originally written for Evelyn and Miriam. But it still brings it's own unique take on the original classic to the point where it feels like a completely different story. We get some of the abstract storytelling from Shearman that I adore as we cut back occasionally to a boy on a green hill and it isn't until much later we learn what the nature behind this is. This book is really more the Dalek's story as well as Van Statten and his staff's story, to the point where the Doctor and Rose feel like secondary characters who are only there to say the lines from the episode as well as a few extra lines taken straight out of Jubilee. Every couple chapters the book takes a detour into the backstory of one of the characters which we get more insight into, from Simmons's sadistic past, Van Statten's messed up upbringing, Goddard's secret romance with one of the guards as well as being an undercover agent, Adam's slightly unhinged mindset, even the female guard who dies protecting Rose and Adam gets a surprising amount of depth. But out of all the stories it the Dalek's that steals the show as we get a glimpse into the psychological effects of what goes into making a Dalek what they are, how they're given a taste of what happiness feels like only to take that away from them and drill into their heads that no other life forms deserve such happiness. How the Daleks look upon their commanders almost as fathers, we even get a brief cameo from the War Doctor as the Dalek feels like a lost child wandering through an empty battlefield before falling through time, this is book is just so rich and full of depth. Like I mentioned before with The Cruel Sea, the one nitpick I have with Shearman's writing is it's very noticeable how he repackages a lot of previous works, I mean most Doctor Who writers do this but because Sherman's collection of stories is so small it tends to stick out more. But so long as he knows how to reuse them correctly I've no complaints. This was a fantastic book and I'm more excited than ever for his next novelisations of two of his finest works and hopefully the first of many Big Finish novelisations.