The Macra Terror is a bit weird.  It’s one of the later Target novelizations, being published in late 1987 so right on the border between novelizations as simple adaptation and novelization as early pitches for original Doctor Who fiction.  It’s also a novelization of a completely missing serial, the soundtrack being one of the early releases in 1992, however like Marco Polo and The Massacre, it has its original author coming back to novelize it based on his scripts.  Ian Stuart Black would actually novelize all three of the stories he wrote for the series, The Macra Terror being the second of the three to be novelized.  Despite this, the novelization remains quite close to the soundtrack of the television story, the dialogue is especially similar throughout with a lot of the lines that would be best remembered in the animated version remaining intact.  Black actually works quite well as a novelist, making it surprising that he never actually pitched anything for Virgin Books because he’d have made something good out of it.  The Macra Terror is a novelization that while keeping everything intact outside of making the structurally weak decision to let Medok live thus making the Macra less deadly a threat, feels quite a bit deeper in the way it characterizes the regulars.

The character dynamics of Ben, Polly, and Jamie as a TARDIS team were always a bit rough, since Jamie was quite literally a last minute addition causing last minute rewrites to The Underwater Menace and The Moonbase.  The Macra Terror was the serial where they actually clicked the most as a team, Ben being the working class everyman who succumbs to the influence of the Macra.  The novelization takes it one further, Black really wanting to delve into how Polly and Jamie react differently to Ben’s betrayal.  Jamie in particular holds a grudge which while not explored too much, this is a shorter novelization after all, what is explored is fascinating.  The trust is broken and Polly is the one worrying that Ben will be hurt by Jamie because of it, it adds this tiny little layer of drama that elevates this from simple novelization.  There’s some slight reordering of the events of Episode 1 in particular that add to this, the business with Jamie carrying a big stick actually feels more comedic in the novelization which works pretty well.  The Doctor in general is also emphasized as the total mythic trickster figure that was what Patrick Troughton excelled at especially.

Overall, The Macra Terror despite being a later novelization is mostly a match in terms of quality and engaging storytelling when compared to what remains of the television counterpart.  Black’s prose is quite slick and emphasizes the size and cunning of the Macra which was difficult to really portray on television and to get some actual deeper characterization in a way only prose really can do.  8/10.