Amber

This stood out from a lot of the Who stories I've read and I loved it. It has a darker tone, with a mad building and an equally mad man. And not the one you think!

The characters are handled well and I'm glad it avoided the Mad Scientist cheesiness of similar stories. I love the two bots, the villain, and the ominous presence of the Craw. The family are more background stock characters than real people. The father irritated me, but it was probably because that kind of personality always does. So in a way that is a good thing.

I love that you really can sense the danger of time passing as the story goes on. It has some grisly, violent bits and though it's more machines than people. The plot is straight forward and the resolution is unexpected, but will make you grin.

My only issue with this is that the Doctor and Martha, especially her, feel like sidekicks in their own story. It seems as if they are supporting the others characters in every way.

Will Thorp, as usual, does an excellent job reading the story. The villain's evil, glee is brilliant and his performance adds life to the story.

I loved this! The premise sounded cool and when I listened to it... Well, it wasn't just cool. It kicked ass!

The main draw for me was the narrator. He had me going through many emotions and facial expressions as the story progressed. His emphasis on swear words are brilliantly done. Women aren't squeaky or breathy. Slight quibble with the Tamil (?) Accented character. Sounded like a dude, but forgivable. She was an old soul. Pun. ;)

The voice of Oberon (?) Always had me cracking up and was perfectly doggy! The narrator has a wonderful grasp of dialogue and turn of phrases. There's a one-liner he says at the end of one of the late chapters that I had listen to three times!

Notable mention has to also go to the narrator pronouncing words and names that sound difficult to pronounce once, let alone many times. He just make every sound so easy. Just rolls it off the tongue.

Now the story. It gets right into the plot and it's easy to follow. There aren't many deviations from the main story and some back-story of the world's history are in appropriate places. There's a lot of action and I also enjoy the mythology of druids and their powers. It's a solid story. But I feel like I ended up liking the character interactions more than the main story. Not by much, the every time Atticus and the Widow are speaking I grin. They have great moments together amid the chaos going on in the story.

The action scenes will have you listening with baited breath. It's feels less like book and more like Atticus relating what happened during battle. Some times during this time Oberon keeps a amusing commentary.

Slight quibbles are Oberon's extensive pop culture knowledge. I feel like I'm being hit over the head with three music and movie channels nearly every time he speaks. But there's a reason for it in the story and I can't really blame the poor thing for relating everything to TV. There are also some things you have suspend belief for, especially regarding people not smelling or seeing things Atticus has cloaked. Also, I started to tire of how much Atticus's age and youthfulness was mentioned. Though his often wise and older-beyond-years insight balanced this out a bit.

Overall, kick ass narrator, great story, and funny dog! Well worth the money/credit. I look forward to the rest of the series.

I felt this story was okay. To be honest, it was probably a bit cerebral for me. The story is a twisty, turny mystery that takes up more than half the story laying out all the clues and back-story. From start to finish, the story began okay and then started to become convoluted.

It seemed as if it tangled within its own web. There's lot going on in this story. From the main plot, to mistaken identity, royal scandal, persons of questionable mental capacities, and political skirmishes. Funnily enough, that's excluding all the extraterrestrial stuff.

Another reason I had difficulty following the story was because of the large cast. There's a good amount of characters in this story and unfortunately, the narrator wasn't able to keep all the voices unique. Understandable though.

Would've made a great episode and I probably would've benefited better if I'd read this book instead. With a lot of moving parts in a story, print tends to stay with me instead simply audio.

Still, even with all my issues with it, it's still a great story. Once I slowly began to understand (I had to rewind a lot), I became completely immersed in the plot. I was switching between wincing and grinning as the plot spun to a close. I liked the way it ended. :)

While I wouldn't read it again, I'd definitely buy the book to read it. :)

I read this book and adored everything about it. The world, it's settings, it's characters, and it's mystery. I had been very pleased to see it on Audible after reading it. I had been further enthused when I saw Jesse Eisenberg would read it, even though he was an unexpected reader. He's an actor and I felt like he would definitely narrate very well.

I bought it and I could barely get through it. I admit, that sometimes some things are better read than said. This is one of those instances. Eisenberg's voice is not the kind you would expect to narrate, which is why I was so surprised. But I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt.

Jesse doesn't have a good range of voices or inflection. Everything is spoken clearly, but nearly emotion-less. The males characters are somewhat indistinguishable from each other. The females aren't squeaky and Jesse handles them ok, but the lack of depth of his voice makes everything run together. It becomes boring. Very boring.

The moments where gets it right are few and far in between. I think the very end of the book is when I actually feel anything concerning the characters. Hopefully, if he reads the next installment, he gets better.

You should definitely read this book instead of listening and if you're curious, preview it before buying.

This is an excellent adventure! The story is well written. I can picture it's world, characters, and creatures. Martha and the Doctor are in character. This could have very well been an episode. While I'm not fond of the 'romance' aspect of their early (Season 3) relationship, it refers to it an casual, tasteful way near the end.

There's a lot of running and action, with a few twists. It starts as creeping dread before becoming fast paced. There's a real tension and worry about the Doctor and Martha saving the day. Though I KNOW they will, I still feel my heart racing as the story barrels towards its climax.

The characters feel real and remind me of a show about people colonizing a planet. Fortunately, this group has the Doctor and Martha on their side. The villain is a dark, imagined malevolence that isn't really revealed until a little ways past the halfway mark.

It's a good plot and I didn't hear any plot holes when I listened. Everyone has an equal part in the plot. There aren't throwaways here. It's a short story and the author makes every detail and character count.

I LOVE Freema's reading. The actress always gets it right! I really wish her and David had read most of their adventures featuring their characters together. Not that there are really 'bad' narrators for the DW books, but Freema and David are top-notch!

I love the Doctor and Martha together, even though I hate that she's the Rebound-Companion during their time together during the series. I'm glad that most of the books don't feature much of the stupid romance forced into the show.

This is definitely a Halloween story. Pumpkin-esqe creatures, a small town celebrating a Halloween-like holiday, and enough black cats to make you start looking around for witches. It's fun, it has some good action scenes, but the villains don't really seem all that threatening. Also, the townspeople are pretty much stereotypes, right down to the one sensible old woman living in the woods.

Martha doesn't have enough to do in my opinion and the Doctor being captured doesn't add any tension. It just makes you wonder how long until he clevers his way out and saves the day. It was predictable and lacked the real tension I crave in Doctor Who stories. But I did like the climax and it is a very good story for younger children during Halloween.

The narrator did a job performing the story. It was always clear which characters were speaking and his villainous Pumpkin sounded great!