In my attempt to better understand the War Master, I have been following his continuity, which is believed to start with this audio.

So it is a pretty solid introduction to the War Master audios, and given the light presence of Derek Jacobi here, I think that actually makes it quite effective. I did flag it as needing a prerequisite in that I do feel you ought to have a sense of who and what the Ood are, as well as perhaps a sense of the Master as a villain in general.

It is a slow, deliberate build-up to him, where he feels like this unseen, powerful figure quietly pulling the strings behind the scenes. All that stuff, and some excellent performances by Jacobi and Silas Carson as the Ood, go a long way at making Call for the Dead stand out a little bit. I don't think the Ood had a lot of association with the Master before unless I'm forgetting something but it is so, so natural to pair these two. A species all about enslavement and telepathy feels almost tailor-made for the Master, who is easy to picture gleefully manipulating both aspects of the Ood for his own cruel gains. That's all really good and compelling stuff that largely propelled me through most of the audio.

However, I do find the story itself a little disjointed. We jump around with out other characters quite a bit, and arguably even though this whole audio set is already four parts, Call for the Dead kind of feels like it should be two distinct parts as well, one focused on Eliot and the other on Cassie. As it stands, by doing them both, here, it feels less fun to have this story drawn out over so many parts. I still have Sins of a Father to listen to but I do question how valuable it was to be telling this story over so many parts. I'm not sure the world and story of Callous warrants that, at least from what I've seen so far.

So, yeah, it was pretty good. I'm glad I listened to it and would recommend it, but I don't feel I would be revisiting any time soon.