The Eye of the Jungle

The Eye of the Jungle is a first listen for me which is always an exciting prospect in my marathon.  It’s also the first 11th Doctor audiobook I have listened to out of the entire range.  I had forgotten, initially, that it wasn’t read by one of the regulars (all the previous BBC audiobooks I’ve listened to have either been read by the Doctor or companion) and it was a little jarring when David Troughton’s immediately recognisable tones wafted from my headphones.  However, Troughton is a brilliant reader and made listening to this audiobook a very pleasurable experience.  I have cited before my difficulties with single-voice audio, but Troughton is a reader who makes it easy to keep attention on the story.  His range of voices doesn’t stray too far from his own but he did enough with certain characters to distinguish the main players.  He does do a rather bizarre ‘oo-ar’/Somerset accent for Amy which becomes more pronounced as the story develops which seems odd when a Scottish accent would surely not be beyond his skills.

The story sees mysterious disappearances in the Amazon jungle, both of wildlife and humans.  An expedition is in the jungle capturing animals for the collection of London Zoo, due to open the following year.  The ‘white men’ are portrayed as nasty and racist and the locals are kind, yet simple.  It is a stereotypical delineation but serves the story to set up the dynamics early on with a minimum of exposition.  Blazington, the archetypal hunter, is allowed redemption at the end of the story, but nothing feels particularly new or unusual in the characterisation of the guest cast.

It transpires that the disappearances are due to a race of aliens, the Nadurni, who are genetically ‘mashing together’ the animals and humans in an attempt to create the ultimate warrior.  This warrior will be deployed in a war the Nadurni are engaged in which has seen them genetically modify themselves to the point of degeneration, causing them to visit Earth.  The visual images of the mashed-up creatures is suitably horrific and not something I can envisage ever getting to the TV series.

The story is a little run of the mill, to be honest, with fairly familiar beats.  The most obvious is the apparent destruction of the Doctor when he is zapped by one of the eponymous eyes.  It is blatantly clear he hasn’t been killed and the beam is probably of the transporter kind – anyone who’s seen Bad Wolf will suspect this immediately.  There is also a slightly unsatisfying reset switch employed at the end of the story when the Doctor effectively ‘reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’ and separates all the mashed-up wildlife and humans with apparently no ill effects.

The regulars are written well with some good dialogue for Amy and Rory, particularly a nice moment between Amy and a native girl working for the local priest.  Matt Smith’s portrayal of the Doctor is well served and you can easily imagine him whirling around the jungle, avoiding crocodiles, winding up amoral naturalists and butting heads with mercenary hunters.  Rory is great, even without Arthur Darvill’s performance and proves what a great addition he is to the pantheon of companions –  he is one of the best companions the series has ever given us.

Historically, there is little in the way of facts.  The characters are fictitious although the background of the opening of London Zoo is a nice touch.  The jungle setting feels very like the early Tarzan films of European hunters crashing into the unspoilt rainforest (although I think they were Africa-set, but the feel is the same).

Overall, this was another entertaining listen with a good narrator in Troughton, but ultimately a fairly obvious and unsurprising story.