The four short children’s books about K9 written by Dave Martin are one of those things which very few people know about and if they do, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about.

It is a little bit wonderful that K9 has had so many different spin-offs dedicated to him and its clear both Bob Baker and Dave Martin were more than happy to exploit their little tin mutt as much as possible. What with K9 and Company, the K9 annual, these books, the Australian children’s TV show and the aborted K9 vs Omega film, there is plenty to suggest they believed, with all their heart, that K9 was capable of carrying his own series.

I’m not sure they’ve ever been proved right.

K9 and the Time Trap sees K9 come up against Bob Baker and Dave Martin’s other iconic creation. No, not Drax. Not the Mandrels. Not even Axos. Omega, of course!

K9 working for the Rigelians, heads off in his little spaceship K-Nel to investigate the disappearance of numerous ships. He discovers it is the work of Omega who is taking them to create his own battle fleet which he plans to use to attack Gallifrey.

It has to be said that Martin doesn’t really seem to remember (or care) much about what was established about Omega in The Three Doctors. This book was published three years before Arc of Infinity and the year before K9 and Company so is the first reappearance of both its stars.

Here Omega exists within a crimson bubble and clearly can’t create things with his mind anymore, relying on kidnapping various spaceships to create his battle fleet. He can easily cross from his bubble to the rest of space and very nearly succeeds in getting his fleet to Gallifrey were it not for K9’s intervention.

K9 also seems to have close contact with the Time Lords but his loyalty is to the Rigelians who give him a new spaceship (he blows up the original to defeat Omega) with go-faster racing stripes!

Omega’s depiction here is far less impressive than in either of his classic TV appearances (but is infinitely superior to ‘skull monster Omega’ from The Reality War. He does at least retain the helmet and cloak look even if the colour scheme is a little, brash, shall we say.

Weirdly, Omega apparently knows all about K9 because of him belonging to the Doctor suggesting Omega has been keeping tabs on the Doctor since the events of The Three Doctors.

To be honest, Omega here is simply ‘Time Lord out for revenge’ with none of the nuance of either Thorne or Collier’s versions. Reference is made to him being an engineer, creating time travel and being banished but it reads a bit like a wiki entry rather than proper motivation.

Also, in the original book he is called Omegon, not Omega (although in the audiobook version read by John Leeson, he is referred to as Omega).

All told this is a simple, linear children’s book that is far more about painting K9 as a hero in his own right with Omega a camp villain who’s not dissimilar to those seen in cartoons of this era such as Venger in Dungeons and Dragons or Zoltar in Battle of the Planets.

It’s not enjoyable for what it is and, actually, is a much better concept for a K9 spin-off than sticking him in rural England or surrounding him with a bunch of kids in ‘London’. Space, spaceships, robots and aliens just feels more like the sort of thing that works for a supercomputer robotic dog.

This was defo a different side step into expanded media for me

K9 is one of the characters of all time. Most famous for his many television series which moved the character into stardom, with the classic series “K9 and Company” and its revival, often dubbed by fans “NuK9”, being wildly popular with the general public. Though there is a heavily underrated side to this franchise, that is saddeningly not as popular as the main television show.

After rumours from behind the scenes that the beloved K9 and Company would be cancelled, several ideas began to spring up on how to continue the K9 franchise in different ways. Ideas for audio spinoffs, to an American revival were thrown about, but the most reasonable idea ended up being a continuation in the form of a series of novels. Great talents old and brand new would come together to shape an entirely new ‘era’ for the beloved robot dog.

Nowadays, The Adventures of K9 (or the Sparrow New Adventures as they would become known among fans) are mostly famous for being complicated, violent diversions from the K9 television series, and usually written off as not more than that. This is, in my opinion, immensely unfair. I won’t deny that the stories are violent (K9 is described to start a “colossal explosion” which “obliterates Omegon” in the first book alone) and certainly contain high concepts the degree of which weren’t seen in the classic series, but these moments weren’t without merit.

Many a fan these days only knows K9 for watching NuK9. What these people often might not know, is that the basis of NuK9 actually lies in the SNA’s! Take for example the first episode of NuK9, Regeneration, and the first book of the SNA’s. The teleportation, and the idea of K9 as this all powerful being that wouldn’t even blink at the sight of aliens, is first established in And the Time Trap, where we see him fighting against a god-like being like Omegon. Likewise, we see K9 not hesitating at taking the responsibility of sacrifice and choice, in where on television, K9 has to sacrifice his body, his earthly being, so does he sacrifice his ship K-NEL, as much a part of him as anything after maybe even months of being so much together that they practically melted into each other (with this implied to be even more, considering time is said to not be there in the time trap) out of the completely selfless thought to save the mortal lives of the people.

Alas, not many these days are willing to read the books in which many of these concepts originate, and as such will assume such things as that K9’s title as “The Fallen Angel” originates from the new series, while ignoring the existence of, or just disregarding the SNA’s, by calling them ‘non-canon’.

There is a huge treasure of ideas to find in these books, and it’s a shame that many will not read them, even if they are as much ‘proper K9’ as any episode om television. The books might have ups and downs, but when they hit, they really hit, and I truly hope that you will give them a read, or at least a try, after this article. This is an incredibly hypocritical satire by the way, because I’ve not read a single VNA or EDA lmfao

But in And the Time Trap, the hard sci-fi and high concepts of the time trap really hit. The first establishing of Omega (though using an alias here) as K9 his greatest enemy, upgrading him from an enemy of spinoff character Doctor Who to a true part of the Kaynineyverse, which would of course be followed up on in the incredibly successful multimillion K9 movie. The feelings of solitude during K9 his journey are pulled off masterfully, and the humor is biting and excellent. It’s a truly great start of The Adventures of K9, and a really good jumping on point for the SNA’s, though considering I’ve spoiled pretty much the whole thing already for you now, I guess that advice isn’t a great help per se.

Anyways, a great start to the series that is surprisingly poetic as well. It’s a shame to know that many fans will not engage with it, simply because of the medium, even if that medium brings so many opportunities with it. Not to speak of what harm an exaggerated reputation can do.

And on that slightly saddening note, that’ll be it for today. Happy April Fools for me rn because that’s when I’m writing it, and happy April Fools to you too if you’re reading it on April Fools, or just feel like being told happy April Fools. Gosh who even came up with this your shoes are untied business on April first… Thanks to that I’m here writing nonsense about K9.

A simple children's story that tells a quick adventure with K9. While not complex, it is a good way to introduce the Doctor Who universe to a younger audience. The artwork that is included is rather good and is enjoyable to look at, even for more mature audiences.