Doctor Who: The Ghosts of N-Space, a brand-new audiobook novelisation of the classic BBC radio adventure featuring the Third Doctor, will be released on 27 January 2027.
This is the novelisation written by Barry Letts, based on his own 1995 six-part BBC Radio 2 drama. The original radio production saw the unwelcome return of the upper-class twit of the universe, Jeremy Fitzoliver, inflicted on us by Richard Pearce.
It also starred Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. But this one doesn’t. For this new recording, Christopher Naylor, who plays companion Harry Sullivan in audio dramas for Big Finish, narrates the tale.
The adventure begins with Sarah Jane Smith on holiday in Italy, trying to overcome a bad case of writer’s block. She is shocked to run into the Brigadier, who is visiting to help a distant relative defend their island home against American mobster Max Vilmio. Cue a smorgasbord of unconvincing Mediterranean-cum-Welsh-cum-whatever-sounds-foreign accents in the original production.
But when the ghosts haunting the island’s crumbling castle are joined by more sinister spectres, the Brigadier has no choice but to summon the Doctor. Which is good news as this is Doctor Who not Most Haunted. They soon uncover a ruthless plan by Vilmio and his mysterious hooded henchmen that threatens the future of all mankind. But has nothing to do with N-Space or E-Space as we know it from Season 18.
Produced by Morrison Ellis with sound design by Oliver Denman, the audiobook is executive produced by Michael Stevens for BBC Audiobooks.
The Ghosts of N-Space was the first novelisation not to be released under the Target Books banner, which had become defunct. Instead, it was released as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures line. The book was published nearly a year before the radio play was broadcast, making it the first novelisation to do so. So it was a massive spoiler. If, in fact, you can spoil something that was pretty rotten in the first place. The story is set between Death to the Daleks and The Monster of Peladon, and manages somehow to be worse than either of those clunkers, so it fits in well.
Doctor Who: The Ghosts of N-Space is available to order on Amazon now, ahead of its release in the new year.
