The Diary of River Song
This is my first real audio book and it was because of Tansy. I feel there are a lot of people who say things like that.
Did anyone else think that the music was distinctly James Bond-ish? I got a really strong Bond vibe from it.
I have no idea whether this is standard Big Finish format, so for those not in the know: there are four 1-hour long interconnected stories. It begins with River Song having taken a position as an archeology professor (of course) who rather reluctantly gets pulled out of her office and out onto a dig in somewhere fake, Mesopotamia-ish. Bad things happen. In the next story, River is back in space, and slowly the connection to the first story is fleshed out – it’s not all fully explained until the last story. Of course the story gets bigger and more complex as the four ‘diary entries’ unfold.
Having seen the Christmas special about the husbands of River Song, I shouldn’t have been surprised by how cold River is in some of the situations presented here, but I was. I still have a somewhat childish, old fashioned view of the Doctor – that he doesn’t hurt anyone, and works for the good of everyone except maybe Daleks – and ascribe this to River as well for I-don’t-know-why. So some of the callous responses from River were… unexpected. I’m not saying I hated them, because I don’t think I did, but I was surprised.
Alex Kingston has a wonderful voice and in general did very well in this format. Most of the other actors were equally good, and I thought the production qualities were also excellent.
This has not turned me into a raving Big Finish fan, but I am glad I listened to it.
Librivox
If you have a commute, or otherwise do things that don’t require a lot of brain power and you’d rather be reading, and you have a music device, you should totally get hooked up with Librivox. Books that are our of copyright get read by volunteers and are available to download for free! How cool is that?
So far, I’ve listened to two H. Rider Haggard stories (written in the 1890s, Brits travelling in Deepest Darkest Africa and having adventures; be warned about the casual racism) – both well done; and HG Wells’ The Invisible Man, which was totally not what I expected: much more social drama, much less SF, but enthralling nonetheless. I downloaded Wells’ Time Machine too, but… well, it’s done by volunteers. And I simply could not, could not listen to the reader’s voice another minute. Drove me batty. *sigh* Still to go, I have more H. Rider Haggard (Allan Quartermain), I have The Island of Dr Moreau, and I have The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I’ve never read! So hopefully the readers of those will be approachable. (I must say that the reader of The Invisible Man is utterly swoon-worthy… I recommend listening to anything he’s read!)