Beyond the bloodbath of Gauda Prime, Blake’s 7: Afterlife explores the fate of the survivors. 

After the brutal ‘Blake’, the 21st December 1981 episode that concluded Blake’s 7‘s fourth series, fans were left bereft. They watched Avon take down Blake, Scorpio crash and saw its crew gunned down by Federation troopers. Merry Christmas, eh?

Despite drawing 10 million viewers, numbers a BBC drama could only dream of these days, that was it for the rebel cause. Spare a though for those at CultBox Towers who’d only just got into Doctor Who‘s more grown up cousin at the tender age of 7!

However, a 1984 Target novel from Tony Attwood, author of the series programme guide, picked up where ‘Blake’ left off.

In the story, developed from an idea by series’ script editor and writer Chris Boucher, the surviving members of Blake’s rebellious crew continue their fight against the Terran Federation, while the sinister Servalan tightens her grip on the galaxy.

Here’s the synopsis for Afterlife…

Did Blake’s death really mean the end of the fight against the evil forces of the Federation? Was the vulnerable thief Vila killed – or just wounded? What happened to the computer Orac? Would the scheming Servalan regain her old powerbase?

And what of Avon himself, the unbeatable, unpredictable paranoid who had ended it all?

Afterlife is Tony Attwood’s brilliant continuation of the Blake’s 7 story.

Long out of print, Afterlife has been narrated by Alister Lock as Big Finish audiobook. The company has long been the show’s home, creating new audio dramas with the series surviving cast.

Producer Peter Anghelides said:

“When we released the audiobook of Paul Darrow’s prequel novel Avon: A Terrible Aspect, we knew we wanted to do the same with Tony Attwood’s Afterlife, because it’s the other original novel from the time of the TV series that bookends the whole of Blake’s 7.

““The book was first published by Target Books in 1984 – appropriately enough, a year that’s long associated in literature with a dystopian world ruled over by a dictatorial leader. Four decades later, we are revisiting that world of a faceless bureaucracy cruelly directed by an uncaring supreme commander.

“Following directly on from the explosive TV finale, Afterlife reveals not only the consequences for our heroes from Scorpio, but also what happened to the character most significantly absent from that story – Servalan herself. Now fans can hear these startling events brilliantly read by the familiar voice of Alistair Lock in this brand-new reading.”

Blake’s 7: Afterlife has a running time of seven hours and fifty minutes. It’s now available to pre-order as a digital download from Big Finish and is out in October 2025.

The audiobook also comes with a PDF download of the original novel’s 2,000-word glossary.