Audio Review: Doctor Who: The Krillitane Storm

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Doctor Who: The Krillitane Storm by Christopher Cooper


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
With so much Doctor Who on audio out there to choose from, I've mostly stopped buying the audio adaptations of the New Series novels, unless the narrator or the subject matter particularly appeals to me. However, when I spotted this unabridged download-only production of The Krillitane Storm, I snapped it up just to encourage the production of more unabridged adaptations. (I always feel a bit awkward about buying abridged audiobooks - I hate the idea that I'm missing something.) And I'm rather glad that I did.

When the book started with the Doctor arriving in a medieval town to find a krillitane stalking and killing the inhabitants, I thought this was going to be a pretty standard Doctor versus monsters runaround. However, it quickly became clear that what was really going on was actually much more complicated - and more interesting. We learn a lot about the krillitanes in this book. Cooper also creates a couple of interesting secondary characters who serve as surrogate companions for the story: Captain Dark, who arrests the Doctor on suspicion of murder, and Emily, a bounty hunter who initially thinks the Doctor is the man she's hunting.

There are a few odd switches of P.OV. that jarred me a bit - for example, there's a scene where Emily attacks a monk, and we switch into the monk's head for two sentences to describe the impact of the blow on him, and then switch out again. Setting those aside, the book is engagingly written.

Will Thorp does a good job of creating distinct voices for all the characters - I particularly like his voice for the villain Henk, who just oozes a certain kind of nasty charm.

Anyway, if it's been a while since you've heard or read one of the New Series novels, this would be a good place to dip back into the range.

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