Blake’s 7: The Forgotten REVIEW

Release Date: 31 May 2012
226 pages | £14.99 (hardback)/£12.99 (eBook)
Authors: Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
Publisher: Big Finish

In the current world of reboots, remakes and relaunches, the surprise isn’t that someone’s decided to revisit cult BBC SF saga Blake’s 7 in prose form, but that it’s taken quite so long. Handed the baton by rights holders B7 Enterprises, Big Finish have already embarked on a new series of Liberator Chronicles audiobooks. Now they’ve launched a range of novels, kicking off with this lively but over-familiar tale.

Set during the show’s first season, the story follows the adventures of freedom fighter Roj Blake and the often-unwilling crew of the Liberator, as their battles against the Federation lead to a seemingly abandoned space station at the heart of a nebula. Here they find a stranded group of space pirates and a potentially Federation-beating super-weapon. A fragile alliance between the two groups soon goes pear-shaped, resulting in plenty of action, alongside the kind of character interplay that made the show so memorable.

A no-nonsense retro SF adventure, it feels like a genuine lost B7 story, but that ends up as both a strength and a weakness, with the language and execution of the whole story feeling extremely clunky and dated. As usual, Avon and Villa are the most enjoyable (and morally ambiguous) of the characters, but the attempt to draw parallels between Blake and the chief villain doesn’t come off, and the ultimate lack of any surprises leaves this dangerously close to nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake.

Saxon Bullock

Read our review of Blake’s 7: The Merchandise Guide.
Read our review of audiobook Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles Volume One.
Read more of our book reviews.