Doctor Who: The Devil in the Smoke by Justin Richards (audio)

Victorian London, its snowing and two boys are futilely sweeping snow from the workhouse yard.  They give up and build a snowman, but then it begins to bleed.  They flee and one runs into the arms of a strange troll like man who takes him to meet Madame Vastra, the fabled Lizard Woman of Paternoster Row. 

But these monsters are the good guys and in fact it is one of the great and good of Victorian society that is bringing death to the streets.  As in all great Dr Who adventures there is alien involvement and impending doom for mankind.

A really entertaining spin off from 'The Snowmen' Dr Who episode, featuring the Siluran Madame Vastra who first appeared in 'A Good Man Goes to War' and the Sontaran Strax who is simply hilarious.

Snake Bite by Scott Hancock (AUDIO)

The Doctor and Rory decide to steal a march on Amy and race out of the TARDIS into their next unknown world without her. You would think after accidentally condemning Amy to 36 years on Apalapucia with the handbots they would know better. They find themselves in a steel lined room, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver gets them out into the laboratory of Doctors Elehri Mussurana and Ernst Wharner. But as Amy emerges she and the TARDIS are sucked into the wormhole created within the chamber and finds herself on a dying world under three red suns. And she's not alone. As Rory and the Doctor try to get back to Amy a terrible truth comes to light.

Read well and rather disturbingly by Madame Kouvarian herself, Frances Barber, a good sparky adventure.

Only Human by Gareth Roberts

A good short read for an afternoon or a great book for kids, this Doctor Who story goes right back to series one and features Rose, Christopher Ecclestone's Doctor and Captain Jack.

We open with a strange diary entry from 7 year old Chantal in the year 438,533. Humans are obviously still around, but language has shifted. Chantal speaks of 'wrong-feelings' and genetically re-engineering her cat.

From this unsettling entry we are hurtled into far more familiar territory, the carnage of people in fancy dress in a present day nightclub, a brawl begun over one bloke looking at another's girlfriend the wrong way and the thug who bites off more than he can chew when he picks a fight with a caveman. Except this one really is a caveman, well, a Neanderthal to be precise, a long long way from his own time.

Cue the TARDIS, and Rose, the Doctor and Jack just about to go on holiday to Kegron Pluva when a flashing warning light indicates a temporal disturbance and, as usual, the holiday is derailed for high adventure in 2005AD and 29,185BC involving Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens, humans from the 437th century and some lethal genetic engineering. The very best of Doctor Who, excellent witty characterisation and great imagination.

Doctor Who Serpent Crest 1: Tsar Wars by Paul Magrs (AUDIO)

Tom Baker stars in this adventure, he and Mrs Wibbsey are kidnapped and taken across the universe to a distant kingdom where the Tsar and Tsarina rule over the Robotov Empire.  The mystery of why they have been brought there unfolds with questions about the rights and humanity of artificial intelligence and the life of a child who may hold the key to resolving the conflict between robot and human kind.  A case of mistaken identity leads the Doctor to the shadowy forces lying behind the conflict that are playing a far more long term and sinister game.  A good audio play, good fun but a little archaic at times with regard to some of the attitudes.

Doctor Who: Blackout by Oli Smith, AUDIO

The Doctor has travelled back to 1965 with Amy and Rory, they've taken a train from Philadelphia to New York City and walked into a world of alien abductions and clinical trials run on a city wide scale.  There is something in the water, a hidden ship is 100ft above the city and the Doctor, Rory and Amy are all dying from a disease that makes you ultimately explode with heat.

An excellent straightforward Doctor Who adventure, fighting aliens to save mankind, but with a twist of reflection on our right to experiment on animals.

Autonomy by Daniel Blythe

Set in the near future, Hyperville is the mother and father of all shopping malls, an experience so vast with restaurants, bars, casinos, cinemas and theme parks that its hotels hold the shoppers who come to stay for a week or more to get the entire experience.  But something terrible is lurking under the very lowest level of the complex and the Doctor once again fights the Nestene Consciousness, a contest we have seen many times before as the consciouness takes over plastic and taps into our fear of shop dummies.  Good fun and thought provoking about the seeming human love for shopping malls, which are my personal idea of hell.

Forever Autumn by Mark Morris, read by Will Thorp (AUDIO)

In the New England small town of Blackwood Falls the Doctor and Martha emerge out of an eerie mist, a strange book has been dug up from among the roots of an creepy black skeletal tree and a slumbering menace has awakened.  Think Sleepy Hollow with aliens:  the Hervokan.  They are an ancient race whose science of gestures, psychic connection, ability to bring to life inanimate objects and take over minds looks to human eyes like black magic.  With their giantlike spindly figures and jack o lantern style heads these monsters have been the inspiration of much of the celebrated horrors of Hallowe'en.  The Doctor and Martha must fight to save themselves and the townspeople of Blackwood Falls.  A nice length story, two cds read by Will Thorp, who Dr Who addicts will recognise as Tony Zed from The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit story arc.

Doctor Who: The Hounds of Artemis by James Goss (AUDIO)


It is 1929 in Smyra, Turkey.  The archaeology expedition of Lord Woolcroft are breaking the seals on the lost Tomb of Artemis, closed to the world for thousands of years, but there's someone inside.  Out step ... the Doctor and Amy Pond, only a few feet out but definately on the wrong side of the door.  The Doctor has come to discover the answer to the mystery of the expedition that made a young archaeologist's name when he was the only surviving member.

A curse is stalking the expedition, people are disappearing leaving only a few workers from the nearby village, the junior archaeologist Bradley Stapleton, the 'money' Lord Woolcroft and the expedition artist.  As the story unfolds, told by Amy in the form of a diary, it becomes clear that the Doctor is up against an ancient evil, a goddess who is not all she appears to be.

Well narrated by Clare Corbett as the descendent of Bradley and as Amy and Matt Smith as the Doctor.