‘The Stones of Blood' will always be a ‘Doctor Who' story close to my heart. Tom Baker and Mary Tamm were filming it the day I was born! It is go-to, comfort 1970s ‘Doctor Who' from the Fourth Doctor's Key to Time season.
Written by Terrance Dicks and published in 1980, ‘Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood' was part of the Target novelisations collection. These books, and the prolific author Terrance Dicks who wrote at least half of them (and there were around one hundred and fifty!) taught me not just to read, but to love reading. My childhood was spent with my nose in the Target novelisations, or else scouring second hand bookshops to plug gaps in my collection. Although I've let go of a lot of ‘Doctor Who' items in middle age, the Target books have moved with me from house to house over the years. They're still an important part of my life even though I rarely revisit them. The chance to do so in audiobook form is always a joy.
In ‘The Stones of Blood', the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Mary Tamm) and K9 (the voice of John Leeson) arrive on a Cornish moor while searching for the third segment of the Key to Time. There, they encounter Professor Amelia Rumford and Vivien Fay, academics engaged in a study of an ancient stone circle known as the Nine Travellers. The Doctor discovers that the local Druid cult worshipping a Celtic goddess is connected to a terrifying secret: the standing stones are actually living alien creatures called Ogri, which feed on blood and move across the countryside killing victims.
I strongly recommend a trip to the Rollright Stones in Chipping Norton, which doubled as the Nine Travellers when they made this story. It is a unique, eerie, prehistoric site unchanged since 1978.
Geoffrey Beevers is a fine choice to narrate the unabridged story. Having secured a lot of work as a voice actor over the years, he was chosen to play the Master in the Tom Baker story ‘The Keeper of Traken' precisely because he was mostly immobile and behind a fixed mask, having to perform almost entirely vocally. Unlike when playing the Master, his tone is amiable and engaging. Clearly, he has researched the episodes because his characterisation of the dotty Professor Rumford, so brilliantly played on screen by Beatrix Lehmann, is spot-on, mirroring many of her vocal inflections. He gives the Fourth Doctor the necessary gravitas, authority and eccentricity that Tom Baker brought to the part. The only role he doesn't undertake is K9. Appearing about a third of the way through the story, the Doctor's robotic dog companion is voiced by John Leeson, reprising his role. Although the voice effect doesn't quite sound like the K9 of his 1970s pomp, it's nevertheless a lovely touch to hear the ‘proper' K9!
With sound effects, brief blasts of atmosphere-setting music, and crystal clear narration, ‘Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood' is produced to a high standard to provide listeners with an enjoyable audio experience. Running to only three hours and twenty-one minutes unabridged, ‘Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood' is ideal if you have a journey to make and you can listen in one go. Otherwise, the natural chapter breaks make it digestible across several sittings.
Terrance Dicks is too often underrated as a writer. True, there were probably some technically more gifted or adaptable writers who worked on the Target range, but none of them could match Dicks for efficiency. There are no extraneous words, and there's something comforting and nostalgic about his stock phrases. ‘A police box that was not a police box at all sped through the space-time vortex.' The Doctor is a ‘tall, curly-haired man in a floppy, broad-rimmed hat and long, trailing scarf'. There is something almost Homeric about these concise, readily recognisable turns of phrase!
‘The Stones of Blood' is an enjoyably imaginative story that goes off in directions you don't imagine from the opening chapters. That it is a story within a broader story – the Doctor's hunt for the Key to Time – is the only thread left dangling by the time the adventure wraps up. But that's the perennial problem with the whole ‘Key to Time' season – who wants to sit through all six stories in one go? Taken in isolation, ‘The Stones of Blood' is one of the better, stronger and more original adventures. The descriptions of the blood-drinking Ogri are horrifying, and this is inarguably more effective in prose than on screen.
If you enjoy classic ‘Doctor Who' and want to dip back into the Target novelisation range, then ‘Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood' is a rewarding way to spend a few hours. The artwork retains illustrator Andrew Skilleter's original book cover for that added layer of nostalgia.
Cast: Geoffrey Beevers, John Leeson Publisher: Penguin Random House UK audio Publication date: 4th June 2026 Buy ‘Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood'
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