(These are 2018 Reading Challenge Books #6 & #7.)
There was a time for Doctor Who fans when books were an essential part of the fandom. In an era before home recordings, novelizations were the way that fans could rediscover past Doctor Who adventures long after they had aired. The first novelization, The Daleks, was published in 1964, only a year after airing. In the decades that followed, nearly every original story (barring a few written by Douglas Adams) were reproduced as a novel. During the “dark period” between the end of the original show and the launch of the new one, novels and stories were the only way fans could experience new Doctor Who adventures. Many of the writers of the new series, including both Steven Moffat and Russell T. Davies, wrote new adventures of the Doctor during that period. It may have been in part due to the success of the novels (and comics and audio books) that Doctor Who never really died, it only slept until it was time to arise again.