Tag Archives: writer: andy lane

The Scent of Blood, by Andrew Lane, and The Winged Coven, by Paul Magrs

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Two more Doctor Who audio books.

The Scent of Blood, by Andrew Lane and read by Dan Starkey, is the better of the two. It’s a vampire story set in 19th century Edinburgh; vampires of course have their own Doctor Who continuity, and Lane (whose strong point is crossovers between Who and other continuities) takes all of that on without going too far down fannish rabbit-holes, and bringing in some memorable characters. Starkey is also a very impressive and versatile voice performer. You can get The Scent of Blood here.

The Winged Coven, by Paul Magrs and read by Susan Jameson, is another in the sequence of stories about Mrs Wibbsey, the housekeeper of Nest Cottage, the Fourth Doctor’s home from home in rural England, with also an appearance from Mike Yates. There is some fun with mind swaps, but really the witches are just stupid, the Wibbsey situation is a one-joke plot device and I’m getting a bit bored with it. You can get The Winged Coven here.

The Force of Death, by Andrew Lane

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I have only just become aware of the Doctor Who Audiobook Originals range from the BBC, which looks very promising – I had listened previously to the First World War trilogy released in 2018 but hadn’t realised that they were part of an ongoing series, which I’ll have to work into my schedule somehow. This one caught my interest because it is set in Ireland – specifically in Galway in the 1890s. I winced at a couple of errors – Dún Laoghaire was Kingstown until 1920, and there is no County Connemara – but it’s a well enough done alien zombie menace story, apparently the fourth to feature the Eighth Doctor and companion James MacFarlane. And Dan Starkey, who is really tremendously versatile as an actor, does a great job of reading the text and bringing the characters to life. You can get it here.