Hot off of The Sarah Jane Adventures' triumphant run on CBBC, where episodes held eight of the top ten ratings slots for 2007, BBC Audio has released two new adventures. Read by Elisabeth Sladen and clocking in at 1 hour and 10 minutes each, these stories are cast as Sarah Jane's thoughts and are a delightful addition to the SJA canon.

The Glittering Storm seems to come first, as it takes a moment to introduce the setup. "I came to motherhood late in life," Sarah Jane muses, "but then Luke came to Lukehood late in life." Luke (whose existence is explained in the TV adventure Invasion of the Bane) is pegged beautifully as having "the wisdom of a genius, the innocence of a lamb, and the experience of a mayfly." He also is beginning to develop the guile of a teenager; at one point, having promised Sarah Jane that he wouldn't go out at night, he's gone like a shot the moment the sun rises.

The introduction to the story is equally amusing; Sarah Jane, hearing a noise in the dark, finds it anticlimactic that it is a mere human housebreaker who is searching for her jewelry. The burglar, a woman who begs Sarah Jane for gold, suddenly utters the odd words, "Our thoughts shine" before she disappears.

It is one of a series of bizarre thefts, always by someone who had been law-abiding, always of gold coins or jewelry. Sarah Jane tracks the common link to a pain-relief center called the Auriga Clinic and takes her "niece" ( Maria Jackson, borrowed without her father's awareness) in for treatment for a gym injury. Little did she realize exactly what that treatment involved - until Maria mutters the fateful words, "Our thoughts shine."

I enjoyed it thoroughly. The plot was fairly straightforward, befitting its role for younger audiences, but still exciting. The characters were fully realized and (with the exception of Maria's clueless father) each got a chance to move the plot forward, including the often-overlooked Clyde. Witty lines stud the narrative, adding sparkle to the story.

The Glittering Storm was written by Stephen Cole, who has a long history of writing in the Whoniverse. In addition to some of the Big Finish Gallifrey audio series, Big Finish Short Trips stories, and tie-in novels from the period between shows, he has also penned the new Doctor Who tie-in novels Feast of the Drowned, Art of Destruction, and Sting of the Zygons.

The Thirteenth Stone takes Sarah Jane on a totally new adventure for her - a school field trip! Luke's class is off to see a Victorian settlement and some Neolithic standing stones, and Elisabeth is particularly wry as she describes Sarah Jane fighting back the urge to correct the instructors. "Have you studied medieval history?" the other chaperone asks. "I've certainly done medieval" is the reply.

Romantic legend has it that the stones are knights who are holding an evil king at bay, turned to stone for all eternity. Of course, nobody believes that old story; it's just a silly myth grown up around completely normal stones... one of which has started to glow...

The Thirteenth Stone was written by Justin Richards; as the Creative Director for the BBC Books range and a long-time BBC and Big Finish writer, his credits are too numerous to mention. While I liked the audio - his understanding of what makes a good Whoniverse plot is unparalleled - I also felt that it was slightly weaker than Glittering Storm. If Richards has one flaw, it is that his characters become a bit generic. When he writes a Doctor Who story, a quick search-and-replace on clothing details could turn the Doctor into any incarnation; a quick description rewrite could turn his companion into any companion. It's the same here; Clyde and Maria fade into generic schoolkids with familiar names. Sarah Jane and Luke are more fully realized, but Sarah Jane also falls back into her classic role of fluttering around the central character (in this case, Luke.)

Don't get me wrong; it's not a bad story. I loved listening to Sarah Jane readjust her time-travel credentials to dealing with babysitting and her rocky realization that she is overmothering Luke. And the plot is great fun. I certainly recommend The Thirteenth Stone to any Sarah Jane fan. But it doesn't have that extra bit of fun that's in The Glittering Storm.

I hope there will be more in the Sarah Jane audio line, and hopefully I will also be able to announce an official second season of The Sarah Jane Adventures!

Doctor Who Theme Song -- Murray Gold & BBC National Orchestra of Wales (USA)