The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Volume Two is another boxset of audio plays from Big Finish Productions. The set would star Matt Smith if he had chosen to participate, however since he has yet to join the party, Jacob Dudman manages to pull off an uncanny impression in order to keep the Eleventh Doctor in the fold. Nicholas Briggs directed this collection of four adventures.

Doris V Sutherland starts off with The Evolving Dead, the Doctor arrives on a research station in space and encounters a couple of people who have died and yet remain undead. The other crewmembers are not quite as evolved in their new status and just have a hunger that the Doctor may have to satiate in a way that would not meet his preferences. Dudman is joined by Ayesha Antoine and Tom Alexander. This turned out to be one of the stronger and more enjoyable episodes in the collection. The Doctor called his latest acquaintances zombies, but they are a little more than that. There is also some past relationship issues between the guest characters that is well handled. Sutherland seems to be new to the Big Finish roster of writers, and she has a promising start.

Daniel Blythe is a writer who I recognize from the days of the original novels a couple of decades ago, and he presents the listeners with The Day Before They Came which takes place in an English seaside town. Jo Woodcock, Joe Barnes and Jacob Daniels are included in the guest cast. The Doctor encounters a young girl who claims to be an alien observer, however there also seems to be a more hostile presence that must be found. I enjoyed the banter between the Doctor and the girl named Kayla. It turned out to be a solid story. I should also admit that I have a fondness for sleepy English villages that face unworldly troubles. Seeing Blythe’s name on the credits did strike a nostalgic chord.

My enjoyment starts to wobble a bit with The Melting Pot by Christopher Cooper. Milly Thomas and, Joe Jameson, and Nicholas Asbury lend their vocal talents to this release. The Doctor arrives on a planet called Piir where some unusual violence has broken out. A mysterious figure known as Preacher Stem seems to have some answers, but he does not appear to be an ally to the Doctor’s. It’s not a complete disaster, but I found it to be somewhat forgettable. I think was put off by aliens that had this weird chirping because they were some kind of rodent species. Anyway, they all can’t be winners.

Finally, the collection closes with Tessa North’s script entitled A Tragical History. Bethan Dixon Bate, Laura Aikman, and Jenny Lee help out here. The Doctor arrives in a prison for women in the early eighteenth century. Another alien presence is allowing these women to have idolized versions of their situation in their own minds. The Doctor is about to be offered a way to obtain all that he desires, but there may be a cost that is way more than he could afford. This episode is a little better than its immediate predecessor, but it’s not one that I really found all that special.

Dudman’s interpretation of the Eleventh Doctor is quite compelling. Once again, the performances still help considerably when the script is somewhat lacking in quality. This collection overall left me with a mixed reaction. There was nothing I truly hated here, but the last two stories just failed to resonate with me all that much. I did appreciate that the narration in the first volume of this range was ditched in favor of a straight full cast audio play. All of the writers managed to keep the Doctor’s zany character consistent. All of the scripts had some amusing dialogue, but my attention waned a bit in the second half of this collection. Although this release is not a total failure, it falls short of a resounding success.

Falling In Love is a mystery novel by Donna Leon and features Venetian police detective Guido Brunetti. It was first published in 2015.

Leon brings back a familiar figure from the first novel Death at La Fenice in the shape of opera singer Flavia Perrelli. Flavia has come to Venice to perform and has a stalker on her trail. The problem takes a more dangerous turn when another singer is shoved down a flight of stairs, and a mutual friend is stabbed.

I have a read a few other books in this series, and this character is not one I am really drawn to all that often. This particular novel did not really help me to want to hurry back either. I found this to be a rather slow. I don’t mind Leon sharing her view of Venice. Brunetti just does not have much to make him stand out. I guess what is a little different is that he has a stable home life with a loving family. There is not much that is quirky and unique other than that. I guess in some ways, I do sort of appreciate a protagonist who is not flirting with the edge of sanity, but he is also a little boring. I was also not all that interested in the story since there was actually no murder. Just a weirdo leaving creepy gifts and assaulting a couple of people.

Leon is not without talent. She does well with bringing the sights and sounds of Venice alive in her prose. It’s just this one did not keep me on the edge of my seat. I may be curious enough to try another installment in the series, but that is not likely be anytime soon.

Well, as I continue to breathe, I continue to read. The next literary diversion on deck is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

Scourge of the Cybermen by Simon Guerrier kicks off a new range of Doctor Who audio novels for Big Finish Productions. Jon Culshaw narrates this piece and does a very impressive impression of Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. Nicholas Briggs lends his voice and voice modulator to bring back the dreaded Cybermen. The Third Doctor had never faced these silver monstrosities on television, so Big Finish decided to have this match-up and it’s a pretty good idea.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are helping with pollution reduction and producing clean energy on an alien world. When radiation sickness starts to emerge among the other residents of the base, the Cybermen appear with a chilling proposal. The people can survive as long as they agree to join their emotionless, relentless ranks. The Doctor, of course, has no interest in agreeing to this no so magnanimous offer, but he has fallen victim to the sickness as well. It’s up to Sarah to help the others to keep their spirits willing to fight for their souls.

This is a lengthy tale clocking in at about eight hours. Culshaw is a great narrator, and his enthusiasm for the series does seem to shine through. Guerrier uses the extra time well for the most part. There are some interesting new characters and relationships. Sarah finds a new friend, but a betrayal is soon to come. It’s really Culshaw that pulls this together. The Cybermen are also utilized well. I actually tend to prefer them over the Daleks when it comes to well-used adversaries for the Doctor. The story also starts off with the Doctor and Sarah already ingratiated within the sea base personnel. Guerrier is a prolific and effective writer for the series. I think he was a fine choice to start this new range. Even though this story takes place pretty early in Sarah’s association with the Doctor, the trust and worry she shows for him still seemed to come off believable.

Big Finish continues to make solid casting choices, and Culshaw will likely be a favorite storyteller and performer. He has proven his talent time and again already. Guerrier is also a reliable selection to debut this new series. As much as I love the idea, it still takes some patience to get through this particular one but not that much. There is no shortage of reasons to find enjoyment with this one.

Doctor Who- Revelation of the Daleks is a novelization by Eric Saward of the television story that was first broadcast in 1985. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant were in the lead roles of the Doctor and Peri all the back then. Finally the old Target novelizations have been revived, and this particular adventure finally got the treatment.

The Doctor and Peri arrive on a planet called Necros where the Doctor is to attend a memorial service for an old friend. Instead, he finds an old enemy calling himself the Great Healer. He meets assassins, embalmers, and supposed body snatchers within the walls of Tranquil Repose. Of course, the Daleks are lurking within catacombs itching for some extermination while Davros watches from the darkest of caverns.

I believe Saward also wrote the original script, but he adds a couple of new characters and scenes which breathes some new life.. The book did not take long to read since these are so simply written. It was fun to revisit this story in a new format. Saward does not really break new ground here, but the writing is competent and enjoyable enough. The Sixth Doctor comes off a good deal more likeable and clever than what the audiences got onscreen. Not everything in the story works all that well, but this was a troubled era of the television series. Anyway, the novel was a worthy indulgence for a fan such as myself.

Time to return to the mysterious and enchanting city of Venice which can still be plagued by obsession and violence. Commissario Guido Brunetti is back on the case where he faces the darker consequences of Falling In Love by Donna Leon.

Living Memory is a recent Star Trek novel written by Christopher L. Bennett and takes place between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Federation worlds are besieged by something called vacuum flares or some type of cosmic storm. Admiral James Kirk is trying to get used to spending most of his time at Starfleet Academy and does not like being sidelined as the USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Spock, is sent to investigate. The location of these storms seem to coincide with previous port of calls made by the Enterprise. The more telling common denominator is the presence of Lt. Commander Uhura. A previous misadventure had wiped her memories which led her to having to relearn her past and her abilities. These events force her to reunite with a family she had largely forgotten and renew connections that she had found painful in order to save many worlds. In the meantime, the Academy has accepted a group of students especially bred for war, which leads to a questioning of Starfleet’s priorities. Kirk has to head off a diplomatic crisis and solve a murder on Academy grounds as a seemingly unstoppable force creeps closer to Earth.

This turned out to be one of the better Star Trek novels in recent memory. It is somewhat of a sequel to a television episode which dealt with a mysterious probe that killed Scott and wiped Uhura’s memory. Obviously, Scotty’s death was only temporary, but here was not much explored in the way of Uhura’s recovery. The answer was that Uhura never recovered most of her personal memories but relied on her connections aboard the starship to cobble together a life worth living and relearn the skills that made her such an invaluable officer. Obviously, not all of the explanations provided by Bennett seem all that credible if something like that were to happen in real life, but the overall story still works, and I applaud him for exploring an overlooked piece of Uhura’s history.

There are a few other side plots going on such as a burgeoning romance for Dr. McCoy. Sulu also gets to try his hand at investigating a murder as well. All of the main characters are present in some form or another even though they are no longer on the Enterprise bridge together.

Bennett handles these threads quite well, but he has been writing in this series for a while now. I usually enjoy Bennett’s contributions anyway, but I think he did noticeably better in this particular novel for some reason. Plus, I tend to enjoy when some of the characters other than Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get to shine a bit, and Uhura at the center of the story is a treat that is just too rare.

It is now time to leave the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and return to the TARDIS console room as I read a recent addition to revived Target range of novelized Doctor Who. It finally happened in that Eric Saward had the opportunity to revisit a script he wrote almost forty years ago and novelize it. On the planet Necros, the Doctor and Peri face The Revelation of the Daleks.

Moonfall is a science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich also co-wrote the script with Harold Kloser and Spenser Cohen. Halle Berry leads a cast which includes Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Pena, and Donald Sutherland.

A space mission goes disastrously wrong some years ago, and NASA fires an astronaut who had reported some type of alien swarm had claimed the life of a friend and colleague. Anyway, he gets called in by a friend who happens to be deputy director of NASA when it is noticed that the moon is slipping out out of orbit. There is an eccentric scientist who gets pulled into the effort to save the world. It seems there is alien technology and a rogue AI behind the apocalyptic forecast. Anyway, people are running for their lives, and a small band of heroes cobble together a mission to check out the origins of this phenomenon.

Emmerich is the dude behind Independence Day, so we get to see some of his old tricks there. There are family members of the main characters trying to make their escape. The problem here is that the main story is somewhat nonsensical and has a cobbled together feel. The actors do their best, but the dialogue doesn’t help much here. The visual effects are quite good, but that seems almost given. There also seems to be lack of a punch in what is supposed to be the pulling of the heartstrings moments.

The experience manages to not be a compete disaster, but it’s a very bumpy ride to try to be satisfied with the time spent.

Jolt is an action film with a bit science fiction and dark comedy thrown in. It is directed by Tanya Wexler from a screenplay written by Scott Wascha. Kate Beckinsale stars in this one alongside Jai Courtney, Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox, Stanley Tucci, and David Bradley.

Beckinsale plays a woman named Lindy Lewis who has intermittent explosive disorder and relies on a vest that delivers electric shocks to her system that apparently keeps the rage in check. At the behest of her psychiatrist, she goes out on a date with an accountant who gives her some hope that she can have something like a fulfilling relationship. The accountant is then murdered, and Lindy has someone or something which focuses her rage. She also happens to be a skilled martial artist and can take down multiple burly opponents in seconds, so that skill come in handy.

I have seen many movies over my almost half a century of life, and they have not all been masterpieces. It is hard to remember all of the bad ones, but this one may possibly be the worst. I probably have seen worse films than this one, however there is not much that goes well. Some of the fight scenes were kind of entertaining. It is rather surprising that this one turned out that bad considering there is actually some formidable talent in the cast. Beckinsale does make a engaging enough action lead, but the writing does not do her many favors. The soundtrack was just ghastly. The initial idea may have had a some potential, but I only made it through this thing by force of will.

I usually like films of this genre, but this one just failed to make me care all that much about Lindy’s efforts to find the bad guys. The participation of more prestigious actors like David Bradley and Stanley Tucci was wasted. Maybe they helped to make this travesty somewhat watchable, however this ended up being more disappointing than even I could anticipate.

Precious Annihilation is a Doctor Who drama starring David Tennant with Alex Kingston returning as the mischievous and mysterious River Song. As expected, it is presented by Big Finish Productions with Lizzie Hopley banging out the script. Nicholas Briggs is back in the director’s seat. The guest cast is comprised of Barnaby Kay, Joe Jameson, Joe Sims, and Anjli Mohindra.

River Song and the Doctor cross paths in 1912 London to investigate some dangerous gemstones. They have to go further back in time to find the answers and find a doomed love and an erratic Artificial Intelligence.

This turned out to be a pretty engaging adventure, but especially toward the end. Kingston and Tennant spark well together. Of course, we fans know the fate of the temporally displaced professor. I am not sure how well these continued encounters with this Doctor fit into the canon. It’s actually a pretty engaging adventure, but it still doesn’t quite rise to the ranks of a future audio classic. It is fun and competently written, and that will have to do for now.

The Big Sleep is a crime novel from the iconic Raymond Chandler and was first published in 1939. It also introduced LA private detective Philip Marlowe to the literary landscape. A very successful film with Humphrey Bogart was released a few years later. This particular novel is considered the the crème de la crème of hard boiled detective fiction. Now that I read the novel, there is not much I can say to dispute that designation.

Philip Marlowe is a private eye barely scraping by the streets of the City of Angels. He is invited to meet with an elderly millionaire concerning an attempt to blackmail him due to a daughter’s indiscretion. Marlowe learns that the two daughters have some dangerous secrets. He also learns of a husband who has gone missing and a book dealer who is less than scrupulous. There are plenty of deadly dames, gangsters, and murder awaiting Marlowe’s pursuit.

Marlowe probably was a more intriguing character at the time of his inception. Chandler was a pretty straight down the middle kind of writer as far as prose, but he does know how to make compelling characters. I was already pretty familiar with the story have read many authors who sort of used Marlowe as a template. There are a few times that Chandler seems to take his time moving the story along, but the whole thing still works. Marlowe is a complicated protagonist with a strict code of ethics in some ways and still willing to bend a few societal rules. The story also does reflect the messiness of some life situations and not everything is resolved as neatly as some would expect or prefer.

And the improvised 2022 reading journey continues on with Christopher L Bennett’s Star Trek novel entitled Living Memory.

The First Doctor Adventures Volume Two contains two audio adventures from Big Finish Productions and stars David Bradley as the First Doctor, who was of course originated by the late William Hartnell. Bradley is joined by Claudia Grant, Jemma Powell, and Jamie Glover, who take on the roles of Susan, Barbara, and Ian, respectively. This was the cast of the docudrama that aired a few years ago entitled An Adventure In Time And Space. The set was directed by Big Finish stalwart Nicholas Briggs. Fans of the early years of Doctor Who are getting new stories with a new cast that resurrects the style of the early years of the series.

John Dorney starts this set off with The Invention of Death, which has Tracy Wiles and Michelle Morris making up the guest cast. The Doctor and his friends find a civilization that has no death. Not long after their arrival, one of the Ashtallahan citizens suddenly dies rather mysteriously. This story explores the notion of how death can be a motivator for societies to procreate and to create. Dorney creates a society with an androgynous species and who may be the most innocent of people ever encountered by the Doctor and his friends. Although it was unintentional, the TARDIS crew has apparently brought a corruption to this pleasant environment.

This took me a little while to find interesting, but that’s not unusual for the recreation of this particular era. David Bradley still manages to capture the spirt of Hartnell’s performance without an outright impersonation. Although there is an evil that must be confronted, there seems to not be an outright villain, which makes for a more interesting story. I don’t want to suggest that we make more stories without an evil mastermind lurking in the shadows, but I enjoy the complexity of not having one of these characters at times. That does tend lead to more scenes of philosophizing that could bog down the action. Dorney seems to navigate this well enough though. The post production is, of course, quite convincing. I rather enjoyed this story.

Unfortunately, I was a little less enthralled with Andrew Smith’s The Barbarians and the Samurai, which takes place in 19th century Japan, during the time when that nation was much more isolated from the rest of the globe. It actually is a rather interesting historical time, and I should perhaps read up more on Japan’s decision to be more secluded during that time. This one has a much larger guest cast that includes Dan Li, Andrew Wincott, Susan Hingley, and Christopher Naylor. The casting director has managed to find some Japanese actors for this, which does lend some authenticity to the play. I know most of the names I mentioned are English, but there the Japanese were actually represented quite nicely here. Well, I guess I can go ahead and mention Sadao Ueda and Jozef Aoki who do round out the guest cast. I am not usually too particular about who plays what on audio, but I do appreciate Big Finish’s efforts to match a performer’s ethnicity to the role when it matters. Since the story does take place in Japan, I rather think that matters here. From what I understand, the Japanese actors did give Smith credit for the historical accuracy.

Unfortunately, in spite of the of the intrigue of samurais and so forth, I had some trouble appreciating the pace of this story overall. It may just require another listen with closer attention, but there were just a few too many moments that dragged for me. The post production work was great, but I was not all that clear on what was going on during some of the action sequences, which is a common problem on audio plays of this sort. The cast performed well, as expected with Big Finish. Smith is a long-time writer for Doctor Who, going all the way back to the classic television series, but I felt this was a bit of a misfire for him. Like any writer, Smith deserves the opportunity to stretch and try new things in the series. He is not without some interesting ideas, and I have found plenty to admire in this contribution to the series overall. This particular story just didn’t hit the mark for me, but I still look forward to his continued participation in Big Finish.

I had a somewhat mixed reaction to this set overall, but I am getting used to Bradley’s interpretation of this Doctor. Even if I sometimes was a little exasperated with the Hartnell era, I am very glad that it is still being represented in some way with Big Finish. Hartnell’s performance still started the whole journey, and his Doctor is one for which I have developed an affection in spite of the fluffed lines and odd chuckling.