Just before starting this story, I mentioned that this was next up on my listening order in the Guide server, and all the Project: Lazarus haters crawled out of the woodwork and told me how awful it is. Now that I've listened, I have to say - I can't agree. I largely enjoyed this story (although I can see how it might not be for everyone), and am giving it 4 stars. Spoilers throughout.

Loved this line from Evelyn: "Just trying to lighten the mood. It's what I do!" It was a great little nod to the role of the companion, but especially of Evelyn's role in darker stories. The "Sixth Doctor" (Lazarus)'s unsettling loyalty to Nimrod and insistence that he wouldn't lie to him... This is some toxic parent/child relationship material if I ever saw it... Gonna go see if I can find any fics about this hehe (UPDATE: there are only four (4) fics on AO3 about Nimrod. Someone needs to go fix this immediately!!) Also, that line about Evelyn never forgiving Sixie for what happened to Cassie, "right up to the end", nearly gave me a heart attack - I rushed to tardis.wiki to make sure this wasn't her last story! Cassie's death here felt brutal and out of place - which brings me to my negatives.

There is some quite gritty and disturbing stuff that doesn't really go anywhere - it's not bad, persay, and I don't dislike it, I just feel like this all could have been done with a little more purpose. Similarly, the idea of "just following orders" crops up - the Forge is a military operation. It has soldiers, including one (Frith) who would make a great focaliser - why didn't they go harder on the nazi comparison? The whole thing just feels like a missed opportunity. Also, we never get to hear the Huldran's side of things - they are a silent victim, never allowed their own voices. This is I think my biggest problem with the story. Half the story is supposed to centre around them and their war with the Forge, and yet I barely know a thing about them! The story also  occasionally suffers from "telling" instead of "showing". Usually it doesn't damage the story, but when Frith died and the only way we knew is because the Doctor said (rather too casually), that he must not have made it into the lift, that really took the story down for me.

Creating the world of the Forge has been done really well, with the relationships between the characters being believable and making sense in a way that makes me feel for every one of them. Well, almost... I admit, I cannot wrap my head around Nimrod. I'm not sure I want to. There's a nice use of time lord telepathy. And, oh... raining again... Nice use of weather and circularity there. Ooh - "Maybe it's time I went home..." HELLO???  Foreshadowing at the end there, liked that - the story isn't over.

Despite it's flaws (the telling instead of showing, the lack of purpose to it's violent themes, etc), I enjoyed this story overall. It never lost my interest, and made good use of some of my favourite concepts (especially around themes of the self). 3.5-4/5 (averaged to a '4').