Doctor Who: The Stones of Blood Audiobook

DOCTOR WHO

The Stones of Blood – Audiobook

Written by David Fisher

Read by Susan Engel and John Leeson

“The stone circle of Bodcombe Tor, in the South West of England, stands in tribute to a mysterious goddess.”

The Stones of Blood was first broadcast in 1978. Now it has been novelised by its original writer, David Fisher. Fisher expands his four episode TV classic in to a well detailed four CD audiobook. He devotes more time to the backstory of his secondary characters and the history of the location of the adventure, the Bodcombe Moor stone circle in 20^th Century Dorset. In fact the Doctor doesn’t appear until Chapter Two of this audiobook, the amount of depth that Fisher goes into about local history, the Orgi’s and the Caliac – an evil ancient being that lives on blood, a lot of blood.

The story stars The Fourth Doctor (played on television by Tom Baker), his companion Romana (as played by Mary Tamm) and the faithful robot dog, K9 (John Leeson). They are busy searching for the powerful Key to Time and their next stop is at Bodcombe. Here they make friends with Professor Rumford and her friend Vivien Fay. The history of the stones is a dark one and is linked closely to a nearby manor house, owned by Leonard de Vries, the leader of a druid cult. This druid cult worships and gives sacrifices to this mysterious woman – The Caliac. Another mystery is a group of creatures that rampage across the moor. It also turns out that not all of The Doctor’s new friends are who they say they are.

Susan Engel played Vivien in the original production and reads this audiobook. Engel gives a strong performance. Her “Tom Baker” has a charm to it, slightly deep and gruff. Her Romana is good, but lacks the snobbery of Mary Tamm’s original. The role she really does well is Rumford. She plays tribute to her co-star, Beatrice Lehmann, by giving the character the characteristics of Lehmann’s great performance. To avoid horrible impersonations by Engel, she is joined by John Lesson, voice of K9. He does his old role well but doesn‘t get a chance to shine until about Disc 3, so he sounds a bit underused.

The sound design by Simon Power is wonderful. Very few audiobooks get a full music score and sound effects. The ones on this release are fantastic, one in particular on Disc 3, a motorbike that “flies” across your headphones from left to right. The speech is given atmospheric changes, such as a loud echo when in the manor house.

David Fisher has managed to make his story better, by adding details and a backstory that makes this story realistic. Although by Disc 2 it starts to drag, the drama speeds up again later. Altogether a good reading by Engel with nice cameo’s from John Leeson, underscored with marvellous music and sound effects.

The Stones of Blood is published by AudioGO Ltd (BBC Audiobooks)and is available to download or purchase from www.audiogo.co.uk and all good on-line and high street stores.