But an evil arms dealer, the Dwarf Mordant has been busy fomenting hatred there, so they will break a truce with their enemy,[1] the people of the continent of Ameliora.

It was announced in 1985 that Michael Grade, controller of BBC1, had cancelled a number of long-running programmes in order to help fund the launch of a new soap opera named EastEnders.

In 1988, Target Books, which had been successfully publishing novelisations of Doctor Who stories for many years, saw itself quickly running out of available televised material (although a number of serials remained unadapted, most of these were off-limits due to licensing problems).

While negotiations went forward with the BBC for the publication of all new adventures, the decision was made to resurrect three of the cancelled scripts and publish them in book form.

[1] In 2009 Daly was approached by Big Finish Productions to write an audio adaptation for their Lost Stories range.