Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Science Fiction

Reporter Tom Lambert decides to reinvestigate the bizarre events of a decade earlier concerning the ‘cosmic noise’. Believing the whole truth was never revealed, he tracks down the one man who knows it: retired astrophysics professor Dr Hayward Petrie. Told in flashbacks, the story unfolds from Petrie’s recordings of the time when he experienced things that made him doubt his own sanity. Invited to visit his old colleague Campbell McLaren, who is in charge of a radio telescope on a remote Hebridean island, Petrie asks students Clifford Brown and Elizabeth Ryder to join him.

April, 1242: the Doctor and Ruby answer a distress call sent from medieval Russia. The signal’s sender? Ranavere, an alien girl forced to take part in a barbaric conflict between the armies of Estonia and Novgorod on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus. Ranavere wants to escape, but her distress call has summoned her warmongering sisters, intent on preserving family tradition whatever the cost.

An unabridged reading of this classic novelisation, based on a BBC TV adventure featuring the Third Doctor. A mysterious power loss strands the TARDIS on Exxilon, a sinister fog-shrouded alien planet. The Doctor meets the survivors of a beleaguered expedition from Earth, while Sarah finds a mysterious super-city and becomes a captive of the savage Exxilons. Worst of all, the Doctor's greatest enemies, the Daleks, arrive on a secret mission of their own.

The TARDIS arrives in Gaul in AD 451, on the eve of battle between the forces of Attila the Hun and those of the crumbling Roman Empire. But the Doctor soon finds that both sides are being helped by sinister supernatural creatures. While Graham makes allies in the Roman camp and Ryan is pursued by the enigmatic Legion of Smoke, the Doctor and Yasmin are pressed into service as Attila’s personal sorcerers. But the Doctor knows there is science behind the combat magicks - and that the true war will pit all humanity against a ruthless alien threat.

It's 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness - but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification.

In present day England, a group of scientists are intent on analysing an impossibly ancient skull. But when the ultra-modern technology of their Time Scanner combines with the ancient evil of Fetch Wood, it brings to life a terror that has lain hidden for twelve million years. Arriving in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Leela must fight to destroy the Fendahl, a recreated menace that threatens to devour all life in the galaxy. Louise Jameson, who played Leela in the BBC TV series, reads this classic novelisation of Chris Boucher's 1977 serial. 

BBC Audio present six fantastic tales of twisted futures and times beyond tomorrow. Inspired by the pulp sci-fi of '50s America, these perfectly pitched parodies are redolent of the atomic age—when the space race was at its height, Cold War paranoia was at fever pitch and the future seemed both thrilling and terrifying. 

Coupland's iconic novels brought to life in two full-cast adaptations: In this adaptation by Theo Toksvig-Stewart, Douglas Coupland's brilliantly funny novel Microserfs takes a microscope to working culture in the early days of the tech boom. Perhaps one of Coupland's most iconic novels, Girlfriend in a Coma begins in December 1979 when 17-year-old Karen unexpectedly falls into a deep coma after a teen house party.

The Doctor brings Ace home to Perivale - but on a summer Sunday it seems the least lively place in the universe. All the members of Ace's old gang have gone away - each one disappeared. What is killing the domestic pets of Perivale? Who are the horsemen whose hoofprints scar the recreation ground? Where have the missing persons been taken? Is the Doctor stepping into a well-prepared trap - and if so, can it be the work of the Doctor's old adversary, the Master?

In space, something can hear you scream. And that something is coming. On her first adventure in outer space, Ruby learns that the universe is bigger, more colourful, and crazier than she could ever have imagined. She also learns that even the Doctor can feel afraid – and that certain nightmares are all too real…

Launched into space 350 years ago, a meteor is returning to Earth. Inside it waits Nemesis, a silver statue made of the living metal validium, the most dangerous substance in the Universe. Three factions await the statue: the neo-Nazi de Flores and his stormtroopers; Lady Peinforte, who saw Nemesis exiled in 1638, and the advance part of a Cyberman invasion force. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace are in Windsor.

An unabridged reading of this classic novelisation featuring the First Doctor's original encounter with the Cybermen. The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ben and Polly to a space tracking station in the Antarctic - and into trouble. A space mission is going badly wrong, and a new planet has appeared. Mondas, fabled twin planet of Earth, has returned. But while its inhabitants used to be like the humans of Earth, now they are very different. Devoid of emotions, their bodies replaced with plastic and steel, the Cybermen are here.

A letter arrives at Nest Cottage, warning of danger for all former companions of the Doctor. Intrigued, Mrs Wibbsey begins a correspondence with one Polly Wright - and soon finds herself with an unexpected guest for Christmas. But shadows are gathering in the Hexford snow and old scores are waiting to be settled. With Mike Yates and other friends around her, Mrs Wibbsey must navigate her way between facts and half-truths if she's to keep the Doctor's secrets safe, and live to tell the tale....

Anneke Wills reads this exciting novelisation of a classic TV adventure for the Second Doctor. In the summer of 1966, thousands of young people are taking their holidays with Chameleon Tours - and not one of them is coming back. When the TARDIS lands at Gatwick Airport the Doctor is drawn into a web of intrigue and deception. To add to his troubles, Polly mysteriously vanishes. Or does she? The girl at the Chameleon Tours desk looks like Polly, and even sounds like her, but she claims she comes from Zurich. Who is she really?

The TARDIS lands on the Ood-Sphere in the year 4126. Here, human profiteers have subjugated the Ood: the gentle creatures are forced into servitude and sold across the galaxy as the perfect slaves. But now, some are fighting back. Their eyes turn red as they throw off their chains and kill their oppressors. The Doctor and Donna soon learn that the planet of the Ood holds cruel and awesome secrets. As they battle for justice and survival, the fate of the entire Ood race hangs in the balance. Will the outcome be salvation - or extinction?

It is AD 79, and the TARDIS lands in Pompeii on the eve of the town's destruction. Mount Vesuvius is ready to erupt and bury its surroundings in molten lava, just as history dictates. Or is it? The Doctor and Donna find that Pompeii is home to impossible things: circuits made of stone, soothsayers who read minds and fiery giants made of burning rock. From a lair deep in the volcano, these creatures plot the end of humanity—and the Doctor soon finds he has no way to win.

Jason Slater is a very average twenty-first-century English teacher from Cheadle Hulme, but somehow wakes up after a few drinks in nineteenth-century Macclesfield. Apparently, he's now Tarquin, third son of Lord Belport, with a faithful valet, a suspicious brother, a spurned ex-girlfriend (who's now going out with his brother)—and no obvious way he'll ever get back home again. From toasted sandwich makers and the perfect beer, to root canals and royal visits, can Jason—Tarquin, that is—change the course of history and make 1834 his playground?

Katy Manning reads this exciting classic novelisation of a Third Doctor TV adventure. The Doctor and Jo land on a cargo ship crossing the Indian Ocean in the year 1926. Or so they think. Far away on a planet called Inter Minor, a travelling showman is setting up his live peepshow, watched by an eager audience of space officials. On board ship, a giant hand suddenly appears, grasps the TARDIS and withdraws.

The TARDIS materialises on a research station, locked in a state of temporal displacement on the surface of Volkoff Epsilon. The station’s human crew are engaged in the study of a mysterious artefact they call ‘the remnant’. Apparently a source of unlimited power, it could be the solution to Earth’s energy problem. Yet the station’s time barrier has become disrupted, leaving the crew confined with no way out. The Doctor realises that both he and Ace - and the TARDIS - are now also trapped by the time displacement.

It's the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people have descended on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. Reporting on the event is journalist Zoe Meadows, who files her copy from a food van run by her friends Sam and Lisa. When some of Sam's customers get sick, it looks like food poisoning, and it's exacerbated by the mud, rain and inadequate sanitary facilities. It's assumed to be a 24-hour thing until people get home and discover strange skin lesions, which ulcerate and turn septic. More people start getting ill - and dying.