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Doctor Who: The Cold Equations by Simon Guerrier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Like the previous story in this trilogy featuring newly-created companion Oliver, this really captures the feel of Hartnell-era Doctor Who. The meticulously worked-out details of zero-gravity navigation even evoke some of the show's original purpose as education television, without getting tedious.

I continue to really enjoy the relationship between Oliver and Steven, and this play does a lot to showcase it, since the second half is mostly a two-hander featuring the two of them. They present a nice contrast to each other: Oliver is shrewd, slightly devious, but very much out of his depth in the realm of time and space travel. Steven is much more open and plain-spoken, but comes from far in Oliver's future.

We also get to find out what Oliver's secret is. I think they made a smart choice to reveal it now rather than trying to string it out for suspense. I'd had my suspicions about what it was, and they happened to be correct. Oliver's confession and Steven's reaction to it were pitched just about perfectly.

I'm very much looking forward to the next installment in the trilogy.



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Sherlock Holmes: The Tangled Skein by David Stuart Davies

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is basically Sherlock Holmes versus Dracula, and how you react to that capsule description will tell you most of what you need to know about how you'll feel about the play. My own reaction was more or less, "Well, the two don't really seem to belong in the same universe, but it could be fun."
( Very minor plot spoilers, but I'll cut just in case )
I like Nick Briggs and Richard Earl as Holmes and Watson, and I thought the more traditional Holmesian parts of this were quite good, so I'll definitely be checking out other titles in Big Finish's Holmes range.



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Doctor Who: Robophobia by Nicholas Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you were to force me to pick my single favorite televised Doctor Who story, I might well choose Robots of Death. First, because it actually seriously engages with a science-fictional idea (albeit one largely stolen from Isaac Asimov). Second, because of its visual design, especially of the robots, which perfectly illustrate the idea of the uncanny valley, being just not-human enough to be creepy. And third, because Leela's in it.

So, I wasn't entirely sure how I'd feel about a direct sequel done on audio featuring a companionless 7th Doctor. It does engage with a science-fictional idea, but it's basically the same one as Robots of Death. And it has no visual design and no Leela.

On the plus side, though, I do tend to love the solo 7th Doctor stories that Big Finish does. For one thing, they offer the opportunity to see the Doctor introduce himself to a new proto-companion. I enjoy the ritual of seeing the Doctor introduce himself to a new person and gain their trust, and it's particularly fun with McCoy's doctor because his Doctor somehow combines the bizarre mercurialness of Tom Baker with a certain gentleness.

This audio also has the 7th Doctor at his most enigmatic. I suspect that if I listened again with a more critical ear, I'd find moments where his stringing along of the other characters seems counterproductive in retrospect, but on a first listen, it helps build the tension nicely.

I was kind of expecting the storyline to be "Robots of Death 2: More Robots, More Death", but writer Nick Briggs has come up with a few twists that make it more than that. And the cast give excellent performances - I actually got a bit teary during one of Toby Hadoke's later scenes in the play. And here I thought the man was merely a funny comedian, gifted writer, nice bloke, and walking encyclopedia of Doctor Who trivia.

My only niggle is that rather than seeing this in the visual style of the original Robots of Death, my mind's eye insists on picturing something much more utilitarian and functional looking. The cast just don't sound like they're swanning around in garish eye-shadow and silly hats. The robots sound perfect, though.



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Doctor Who: Kiss of Death by Stephen Cole

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While I thought it was really nice to give Turlough some extra back story, I found the play as a whole didn't grab me. I thought it dragged a bit in the second half, and rather unusually, I found the alien Morass really unpleasant to listen to. (Am I implying that I find Daleks pleasant to listen to? I probably do, if only because I'm conditioned to it. The Morass were both difficult to understand and sort of made my skin crawl. I think one or the other would have been acceptable.)

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Doctor Who: The Feast of Axos by Mike Maddox

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


As I think I've said in previous reviews, I have to give Big Finish credit for making the character of Thomas Brewster very much the "Artful Dodger in space" character that Adric was originally conceived as, but never really written as. It's a worthwhile concept for a companion, and it deserves to be done properly. And this audio does it properly.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a Doctor/companion dynamic that I care for much. Something about the "Oh, he's double-crossing the Doctor/No, wait, he's having second thoughts/No, wait, he really is going to betray the Doctor this time/No, actually, it was a double-bluff" plotting that it tends to produce just irritates me rather than creating much suspense. This was a big part of why I didn't much care for Turlough during his early days on the TARDIS, and it's not endearing Thomas to me either. Big Finish has done much to redeem Turlough in my eyes - maybe someday they'll sell me on Thomas Brewster.

Anyway, that may be why I felt kind of meh about this audio even though there's really nothing wrong with it. It is a joy to hear the lovely voice of Bernard Holley again (even if his Axon dialogue is rather repetitive), and the cliffhanger to part 3 is rather poignant. And I'll admit, I got a huge laugh out of one of the characters reacting to their first sight of Axos: "It's so....orange." Beyond that, there wasn't a lot that grabbed me, although it passed the time pleasantly enough.

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The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


First off: I knew when I bought the audio book that it was abridged, but I don't think I'd realized quite how abridged. As a runner, I was disappointed that the chapter on ultrarunning didn't make it into the audiobook. Since I had audible.com credits to use up anyway, I found the audio made a nice taster to see if I want to read the full book. (I'll probably check it out of the library.) Along with the audio book, you do get a PDF that offers more details on the "Occam's Protocol" exercise program described in the book.

So, on the one hand, if you're into fitness and you're a certain kind of geek, you're going to find this book fascinating. If you've ever tracked your sleep, logged your food intake, worn a pedometer or a fitbit to track your daily activity levels, hit Pubmed to try to learn how to use the latest science to improve your workouts, or otherwise used your geeky obsession with data to try to improve your health and fitness, you're going to recognize a kindred spirit in Timothy Ferriss.

On the other hand, Ferriss is really really obsessive about this stuff. Far more obsessive than I am, or than anyone else I know (and I know some pretty obsessive people). He's also got some pretty extreme fitness goals. For example, he talks about how his "slow carb" diet allowed him to achieve low enough body fat to have visible veins on his abs. Which is fine, if that's your thing, but it's not really my thing. This means that some of the protocols he recommends strike me as being much more complicated and much more detailed than someone who's just trying to get a bit fitter would need. Then again, if you just want to get a bit fitter, you probably don't want to read this book.

Furthermore, it's important to keep in mind when reading this book that Ferriss's method of talking to scientists and then carrying out experiments on himself and his acquaintances is not the same as rigorous science. Most of the stuff in this book seems like it would probably work, and would at least not be actively harmful, but take it as inspiration for your own research and geeky experiments rather than gospel.

The book starts with a particularly interesting chapter about what motivates people to make changes to their fitness and to stick with those changes. From there, it covers diet/fat loss, building muscle mass, female orgasm, increasing testosterone, improving sleep, increasing longevity, and probably a few other topics that I've forgotten about. So, if you've got goals in any of these areas in your life, you'll find some ideas here. Just be prepared to think, "Wow, this guy is making it way more complicated than it needs to be."

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Doctor Who: The Crimes of Thomas Brewster by Jonathan Morris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have kind of mixed feelings about Thomas Brewster - I liked the character when they initially introduced him, but I've never thought that Big Finish ever made it fully plausible that a Victorian orphan, even an admittedly bright one like Brewster, would have the nearly effortless ability to master future technologies and societies that Brewster does. And somehow I think that prevents me taking as much pleasure in Brewster's antics as I should. Or maybe it's the way Brewster is always trying to justify himself as having noble ends. I think I might actually like him better if he were a more straightforwardly self-interested liar and thief.

(At the same time, I think I remember complaining when I reviewed what was ostensibly Brewster's final story that I thought there was more potential in the character and that it was a shame that Big Finish hadn't kept him on for more stories. I don't think I'm being inconsistent here - I do think there's potential in the character. It's just not being developed in the way I might prefer.)
( the rest of this review is very mildly spoilery, so I'll cut just in case )
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Not a Well Woman by Katy Manning

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Big Finish are branching out slightly from their cult TV roots, and producing a "Drama Showcase" line of original dramas, with, as far as I know, no science fictional content. Although so far all of the ones they've commissioned are by actor/writers of impeccable cult TV credentials, with the first one up being Doctor Who's Katy Manning.

Katy Manning performs all the voices in this story about Pansy, a woman whose extreme nearsightedness leads her into all kinds of interesting trouble. The story is at least partly autobiographical, and is by turns funny and moving, and occasionally both at once.

I think two things stopped me from rating this audio higher than I did. First, the presentation of Pansy's story was very fragmented in time - while there are some good narrative reasons for this, it meant that I spent a lot of time just trying to put the timeline of the story together. Second, I think the play make a few odd choices about how much to show of certain events - it just seems a little bit odd that we get more direct dialogue from Pansy's dressmaker than from her lifelong best friend, for example. (Authentically portrayed female friendship still being a relative rarity in literature, I thought this was a particular missed bet.)

Still, this is probably a must if you're a Katy Manning fan, and well worth a look if you're interested in non-genre audio drama.



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Doctor Who: Master by Joseph Lidster

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A tricky play to review, because it's doing different things on different levels, some of which I quite like, and others that I'm not so sure about.
( And in order to explain, I must indulge in massive spoilers. Really, really huge spoilers! )



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A Killing Kindness: Featuring Dalziel and Pascoe by Reginald Hill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is quite possibly the best of the Dalziel and Pascoe novels that I've read so far. It's a very well paced police procedural with enough twists and turns to keep you hooked until the very end. If you haven't tried this series before, this book would be a good place to start; it's an excellent example of most of the things the series does right.



One thing that particularly impressed me about this book is how it deals with a lot of difficult subject matter. There is a serial killer who is murdering young women; there is a nearby encampment of Romany, some of whom fall under suspicion for the crime; there's the return of the radical feminist group we first met in A Pinch of Snuff; and there are some moments when the police resort to some decidedly dodgy tactics to get their evidence. The opportunities for the author to do something cringeworthy in relation to ethnicity or gender are numerous, as are the moments where I might expect another author to deliver a crude political rant. Hill evades these pitfalls. His characters, although they can be pretty extreme, never seem like stereotypes to me. The world Hill depicts can be pretty ugly, but you never feel like he's stacking the deck to make a point.





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