The Archive Tapes: Cybermen

By: David Banks

Narrated by: David Banks

David Banks portrayed the Cyber leader in BBC TV sci-fi series Doctor Who and wrote the best-selling book Doctor Who - Cybermen, illustrated by veteran sci-fi artist Andrew Skilleter. The Archive Tapes: Cybermen is a audiobook based on that book, the hypothesized history of the Cyber race, written and narrated by the Cyber leader himself. This gripping retelling of the origins and history of the Cybermen is fully dramatized with vivid effects and original music.

©1989 David Banks (P)2020 Explore Rights Management

An occasionally incomprehensible history

This is a chronicle of the Cybermen, as summarized and hypothesized by an in-universe historian, covering all of their appearances in Classic Dr. Who. I'm only a casual fan, but the subject matter was easy to understand, although I will admit to sometimes getting lost in the long Cybermen "evolutionary tree."

The actual words, however, were not always so easy to understand. The narration was fine, crisp and clear; but whenever characters from the show were quoted, it's a different story. Some distortion effects were applied to them that made them difficult to make out. This goes double for the Cybermen themselves; in particular, the Cyber Module (or Coordinator) in "First Invasion Of Earth," and the entirety of "Welcome To The Cyber Hive," are almost completely unintelligible. This is not related to how they sound in the show, where I had no problem understanding them. It's a baffling choice that ruins large chunks of this presentation.