The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It's a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing, and there have been stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore.
©2012 Stephen Baxter (P)2012 AudioGO Ltd
"A Few Cracks In The Ice"
Most definitely.
Yes, especially if they are Second Doctor fans. The flavor of the characters is really well captured.
This is a very solid read. I am not familiar with Stephen Baxter's other work, but based on his work here I'd give it a go. I was definitely intrigued by the basic setting here, and Baxter did a good job of bringing it to life with a decent-sized cast of characters in addition to the main cast of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. Although some of the characters didn't really rise about the stock cyphers we're usually presented with, even in the television series, a few of them took on enough dimension to make them interesting. So it's good that the main cast is well rendered. It might have helped that I listened to the audio book, and David Troughton does an amazing impression of his father, the late Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. It really is uncanny at times. The surprising thing is that he does a very good Jamie as well.
The main plot is intriguing enough, and unfolds in a pleasing manner for the most part. The mystery is solved little by little for the most part. One unfortunate exception occurs during one of the "interludes" in the book. The author uses this device to give us a bit of the backstory of certain characters or settings. For the most part, it works. But I feel like the nature of the main "threat" came too early during one of these interludes, and it became annoying that the main characters were falling behind us in discovering it's nature and it took some of the mystery away too early.
There is a subplot involving a visit to another moon that seems to not go much of anywhere. I think the point was to build up the guest cast a bit (and give Jamie something to do) but while Jamie comes off well, the guest cast with him never really comes to life. It just seems to be a series of misfortunes that happen to them that don't amount to much. I was also a bit annoyed at the number of times characters entered and exited the moon. They'd barely escape with their lives, and then head right back down again. I think this happened at least four times. Although the task ahead was different each time, it did feel a bit repetitive. Also - I must note that bomb defusing in a book is even less interesting than it is in TV shows or in the movies.
Still, all in all I found it an enjoyable experience in audiobook form, and I'm so happy past Doctors are finally getting new books again.
"Doctor Number Two"
I am an old-time fan of the Doctor Who (DW) series. My tastes with DW have developed from loving the old series (Doctors 1 to 8) to really loving the new fast paced series (currently Doctors 9 to 11).
I was a bit concerned when buying this audiobook that it would a bit slower-paced then my new tastes with DW, however I was proven wrong. This is my favourite DW audiobook yet. The Wheel of Ice is a fresh, gripping and fun story. David's accent is quite enjoyable and brings something new to the DW audiobooks. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would like to hear more from this author and narrator.
Love having someone read me a story. Fires in the hearth, rain on the roof, sunny days and surf. Good friends, good food and J S Bach.
"sad"
This was downloaded because of Stephen Baxter having worked with Arthur C Clarke.
And I was interested too as I had just listened to Shada (Douglas Adams). I loved that.
I may love this as a video. As an audio it left me cold.
Unless a person is sight impaired, there are DVD of most of the older Doctor.
"A solid story, brilliantly presented"
I enjoyed this book a great deal. Some people seemed bothered by the meandering nature of this story. I enjoyed it all the more for it's breadth. The interludes did confuse me a bit at first, but once I realized they were tributaries off the main story to provide more backgrounds, I just went with it. I would say this book is like a relaxing float down a river. If you want to just get to the end by speed boat, this may not be the story for you. If you want to just follow a story where ever it leads, this is a good one.
The narration of this story was brilliant. The voices were spot on and I was not the least bit distracted by them. In fact, I forgot at times it was not presented by the original cast.
I listened to this book twice in a row and I am sure I will return to it on my next long drive. I found this much more satisfying than the audio books which are a blend of narration and tv show audio.