Short Trips: Monsters - #6:

--- "These Things Take Time" by Samantha Baker

Plot:
Answering a cry for help, the Doctor, Ace and Hex land on Armstrong's World, a colony for the survivors of Earth's collapse. But upon arrival, Hex begins to see things, things that haven't happened yet, things that can never happen if they want to live.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

These Things Take Time has a good idea behind it - a non-linear story of Hex trying to destroy a rogue timeline in which Ace and the Doctor die is really cool and a there are a few great reveals of exactly when we are in the timeline in the actual story, but unfortunately, Baker decided to make some incredibly confusing choices with this story.

The entire thing is written in present tense, which sounds like it could be interesting and tie into the time travel littered throughout the story, but it just makes the whole thing both unbelievably hard to read and very tired, repeating very similar lines again and again. On top of that, the dialogue here reads awful - it takes the "tell, don't show" route a lot of lesser audio plays take but the distinction here is that this is prose, the easiest medium in which to avoid such dialogue; so many lines here just don't feel like something anyone would say and so often they're just blatantly on the nose. One more nitpick, Ace and Hex (two of my favourite companions) are our TARDIS crew this time around and they are just so very bland here, their best characteristics nowhere on display. I'd also note that this story is placed in that weird stretch of stories where Ace called herself McShane, but she's only referred to as McShane in dialogue and the disconnect between the reader and this characters causes a lot of unnecessary confusion.

4/10

Pros:
+ Really cool idea with promising execution in places
+ The non-linear storytelling is surprisingly tightly written

Cons:
- Written in present tense, which makes the story needlessly confusing
- The dialogue is constantly on the nose and incredibly unrealistic
- All three main characters are horribly characterised
- The writer's inability to decide whether Ace should be referred to as "Ace" or "McShane" can get very convoluted

Monsters | Ranked:
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6. These Things Take Time by Samantha Baker - 4/10
5. Last Rites by Marc Platt - 6/10
4. The Touch of the Nurazh by Stephen Hatcher - 7/10
3. From Eternity by Jim Mortimore - 8/10
2. Best Seller by Ian Mond and Danny Oz - 8/10
1. Flashpoint by Matt Grady - 8/10

Overall - 6.8/10