Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Alongside their release of the audiobook of Frazer Hines’ retelling of The Evil of the Daleks, BBC Audio are continuing their diamond jubilee celebration of Doctor Who with new audios coming between October and December.

Doctor Who: The Lagoon Monsters, arriving in October is written by Gary Russell, and read by Seán Carlsen The waters of the Pacific Ocean form the backdrop of this foray into Eighteenth Century seafaring for the Doctor and Martha, when the TARDIS materialises on board the Blue Groper sailing ship. Grudgingly accepted as stowaways by Captain Sadler’s crew, the travellers learn that the ship is on a mission to Luna Puesta, ‘the land where the moon has set’. There, just off the coast of New Zealand, Professor James Tomlinson hopes to locate a missing archaeological link between dinosaurs and man. But what the expedition finds on arrival is far beyond the Professor’s wildest dreams…

In November, Arthur Darvill, Olivia Colman, James Albrecht and Nicholas Briggs read four original stories featuring the Eleventh Doctor. In Apollo 23, by Justin Richards, Amy is stranded on the moon, whilst the Doctor discovers one last great secret that could save humanity. In The Night of the Humans, by David Llewellyn, the Doctor and Amy arrive in the middle of an all-out frontier war on the Gyre, the most hostile environment in the galaxy. In The Forgotten Army, by Brian Minchin, an ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy in New York. In Nuclear Time, by Oli Smith, the Doctor finds himself living backwards through time, while Amy and Rory are hunted through the suburban streets of his future…

New tales for the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors arrive in December. Jaye Griffiths reads an original adventure for the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, The Cuckoo by Steve Lyons. For Clara Oswald, life has fallen into a routine. By day she teaches the pupils at Coal Hill School, and by night – and at weekends – she travels in Time and Space with the Doctor. To Clara’s immense shock, the Doctor has acquired a new companion – and Arix is just as at home in the TARDIS as she has been. Suddenly, Clara’s world has tilted on its axis. As the two companions size each other up, the Doctor is caught between them. And when they all wind up in an alien swamp, it’s time for a reckoning of grievances, grudges – and bravery.

And Toby Longworth reads Niel Bushnell’s original adventure for the Thirteenth Doctor and Graham, The Romanov Project. “There is a darkness here. A darkness that feeds.” It’s 1970, and record-breaking explorer Silvia Sandstrom has completed an epic lone drive to the North Pole. But as she activates her on-board experimental equipment, her vehicle is swallowed by a massive hole in the ice. Meanwhile the TARDIS is drawn to an arid wasteland, also apparently at the North Pole. There the Doctor and Graham meet Silvia – but it’s clear that she is a woman out of her own time. Why is a nearby experimental base haunted by deranged figures? And who is the genius behind the Romanov Project, the wave of energy that now threatens to rip the Earth apart at every point in history?