The third Faction Paradox audio sequence (how I wish BBV would be honest enough to issue these as double CDs) kicks off with the promised return to Shada – or at least the ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink – don’t mention it by name’ allusion familiar to these unlicensed spin-offs. With Cousin Justine imprisoned for the crimes of Grandfather Paradox during ‘In the Year of the Cat’, I was expecting the jailbreak courtesy of Eliza and Compassion, but instead things are complicated by the actions of new character Demetra Kein.

The play is split fairly evenly into two sections – in one we follow the actions on Shada, whilst in the other we experience some pre-Faction Paradox flashbacks courtesy of Justine’s imprisoned dreaming. These later sequences are by far the more effective, as they allow us a glimpse of Justine’s backstory, including her first meeting with Godfather’s Morlock and Sabbath (played by a different actor here), and provide us some additional depth to this character.

I can’t say I was so enamoured of the Shada jailbreak sections – we don’t learn enough about Kein here to get a handle on the character, and similarly the First Ordinary’s motivations are obscure. Other new arrival Shuncucker makes an even less auspicious debut – as this Faction Paradox member is a very broad and obvious barbarian parody, who gets to utter such Pex-worthy lines as “Feel the wrath of my thermal lance!”. Oh dear. The action scenes are also fairly hopeless, full of characters telling each other what they are doing.

Overall this is not a particularly impressive outing for the Faction, but with the second half of this story to be completed by ‘A Labyrinth of Histories’ things may improve when it becomes clear just what everyone is up to...