Within about 10 minutes of listening to Coming to Dust all my reservations about listening to further Faction Paradox adventures, after the BBV contributions, dissipated. Better acted, better produced and better written, Coming to Dust opened my eyes to why Faction Paradox is a popular as it is.

The story effectively picks up from In the Year of the Cat, in that it is set in 1763. Events in that story are obliquely referred to and it is made clear that many ‘Earth people’ know of the Faction’s presence in the 18th century. Our ‘locals’ are still members of a secret society and Cousins Eliza and Justine are back trying to sort out the mess. But the story itself heads off in a very different direction, as it enmeshes another Doctor Who story into its tangled web. The Faction Paradox audios have involved the Sontarans, human TARDISes and The Talons of Weng-Chiang and now the Magic Bullet series pours Pyramids of Mars into the melting pot. And a delicious meal is made for all.

The Great Houses and Osirians are old ‘friends’. Too powerful to conquer, the Great Houses have an ‘arrangement’ with the Osirians. Cousins Justine and Eliza discover, in 18th century Italy, quite how far the Houses have been prepared to go and discover a plan to bring the Osirians to Earth in a time period which as far as they are concerned, belongs to the Great Houses.

All of this, in lesser hands, would probably not have come off any better than the storylines in the BBV efforts, but Magic Bullet have a trump card. Gabriel Woolf. Woolf is back as Sutekh and the moment his voice drifted through my earphones I literally felt a shiver run down my spine. He is magnificent. But Magic Bullet didn’t just stop there. A flashback scene to the glory days of the Osirians sees Sutekh debating with his brother, Upuat. And who do they have playing him. Only Julian flipping Glover! It makes for a brilliant scene.

The rest of the cast more than match up to the calibre set by these two greats. Justine and Eliza have been recast, Wanda Opalinsky and Jane Lesley respectively, and they are superb. Justine is now mannered and slightly arrogant, Eliza is all enthusiastic Cockney and it works. Mrs Julian Glover, Isla Blair is on villain duties and is marvellous. The three members of the secret society are very good, although unfortunately fall into the same trap as in the BBV audios in that the men sound very similar so it is difficult to tell them apart in some scenes (although this may be partly because two of them are played by brothers Alastair and Robert Lock). There are also some dodgy Italian accents on display, but I’ll let that go.

Also infinitely better than the BBV offerings is the sound design and production. Sound effects are spot on, outdoor scenes sound as if they are outdoors and interiors as if they are indoors. It’s something you don’t necessarily notice unless contrasting two productions as I have done here. A lovely touch is the sound of the sarcophagus/time tunnel from Pyramids of Mars. It’s subtly fed into the background of the scene and when you realise what you can hear, the mental images flood through.

The scripting is much better too. This is Lawrence Miles at his best. The dialogue is crisp, the plotting concise. Scenes lead effortlessly from one to the other and it all builds to a climax which leads, teasingly, into the next instalment with Justine and Eliza off to take the fight to the Osirians.

Historically, this is more about atmosphere than fact. References are made back to Lord Sandwich but all the characters on display are fictional as far as I can tell. The idea of a secret society is well established from the BBV stories but this isn’t the Hellfire club. The concept of the Great Ape echoes this century’s fascination with the strange and bizarre and the three Englishmen’s presence in Naples, certainly fits with the era’s propensity for loving all things Italian.

There is a little historical titbit though, when Justine, Eliza and the three Englishmen, travel to nearby Pompeii to find the Faction Paradox race bank. It is established that, in the 18th century, the area wasn’t known as Pompeii as the name ‘hadn’t been dug up yet’ and the place was referred to as Civita. This, I did not know, and it’s quite nice to have a story set around Pompeii after our two visits there earlier in this marathon.

Unless you couldn’t tell already, I really enjoyed Coming to Dust and am eager to listen to the next instalment. With actors of the calibre of Philip Madoc and Peter Miles yet to join the action, things can only get better. The action is clearly moving away from 1763 but I may well continue to post my thoughts on the entire series before moving on to the next part of my 18th century marathon – it will depend on how far removed from this century the story becomes and whether I can place the latter part of the series, timewise, as specifically.