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Wednesday 12 June 2013

Doctor Who Plague of the Cybermen audiobook review





This audiobook is nicely times, being that the Cybermen have recently been redesigned and returned in the television series in a story written by superstar author Neil Gamian.
It beings with what, in retrospect, is a rather obvious idea for a cybermen story. We have The Doctor landing in a village in 19th century Germany, thus playing up the (as I say, obvious in retrospect) Frankenstein elements of the story. This even has a mysterious castle and all that…
The story is quiet slow in the first act, as all the pieces arebrought into play, but once it gets going it gets going – there is action and chase scenes aplenty. And conversely, after the slow first act, the final act feels a little rushed.
There are some great touches – I liked the Doctor’s ‘temporary companion’  here – a local teacher. It’s kind of a shame that we’ll not see her again, it would be nice to have a series of these novels running alongside the television show… but that’s wishful thinking. And also the cyberwolves were very cool. Or at least, the ones I saw in my head were.


But, and this is a big but… yet again we get a story that revolves around a crashed spaceship! Seriously, is there no joined up editing across this range? How many times are we going to see this trope used? It certainly helped to detract from what is otherwise a fun and exciting book.


It’s also worth noting that this audio version is read  brilliantly by the great David Warner – no stranger to the Whoverse.


Apart from the crashed spaceship – this makes for some splendid entertainment.

Plague of the Cybermen is released by AudioGo.