Doctor Who: Big Bang Generation

Nov 8, 2025 10:28 AM

Author:Gary Russell

“I'm an archaeologist, but probably not the one you were expecting.”

Christmas 2015, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Imagine everyone's surprise when a time portal opens up in Sydney Cove. Imagine their shock as a massive pyramid now sits beside the Harbour Bridge, inconveniently blocking Port Jackson and glowing with energy. Imagine their fear as Cyrrus "the mobster" Globb, Professor Horace Jaanson and an alien assassin called Kik arrive to claim the glowing pyramid. Finally imagine everyone's dismay when they are followed by a bunch of con artists out to spring their greatest grift yet.

This gang consists of Legs (the sexy comedian), Dog Boy (providing protection and firepower), Shortie (handling logistics), Da Trowel (in charge of excavation and history) and their leader, Doc (busy making sure the universe isn't destroyed in an explosion that makes the Big Bang look like a damp squib).

And when someone accidentally reawakens The Ancients of the Universe - which, Doc reckons, wasn't the wisest or best-judged of actions – things get a whole lot more complicated…

Reviews

Exquisite craftsmanship

—— Guardian

An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade, during the Forties and Fifties, I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century

—— David Mitchell

One of the books I return to frequently is Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters: a near-perfect novel

—— Hanya Yanagihara

A complex, detailed and agreeably gossipy book...The author's obvious nostalgia for this vanished world does not prevent him from looking objectively at its darker side and this, together with his artful blend of the exotic and the mundane, creates an absorbing and richly textured story

—— Sunday Times

A subtle, moving novel

—— The Times

A classic novel of a whole country about to turn on the terrible hinge of the war into modernity; its tone is elegiac and bleak

—— Observer

The work of Tanizaki offers to us in the West one of the most valuable keys to understanding the Japanese crisis of identity

—— Independent

An extraordinary book which can truly be said to break new ground

—— New Yorker

The outstanding Japanese novelist of the century...The Makioka Sisters is his greatest book

—— Edmund White, , New York Times Book Review

Sensitive, thoughtful and rich with the spoils of its author's plunder of the past

—— Irish Independent

This is a tremendous book: affecting, intelligent, ironic, humane and utterly convincing. It is also extremely funny

—— Spectator

A brilliant read

—— Dermot O'Leary , Waitrose Weekend

A rich, imaginative, vividly characterised rite-of-passage tale

—— Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

High-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting

—— The Times

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