Now, I'm not a fan of Dave Stone's work to begin with, but I found this one basically unbearable. Felt like 15 pages of plot buried in a 105-page book.

If you've ever had a small child tell you a story, where they start to tell you something, then veer off on a tangent, then veer off again, and again, until you don't remember what they had started to tell you about, and you're not sure they'll ever stop talking because they're clearly not headed towards any end point...well, that's what it felt like to me.

Dave had an interesting idea, which he conveyed in the last few pages. The rest of it, well, it's just a confused mess until you get to the explanation, IMO, and to me, that's not a fun way to read a book.

It took me a lot of listens to get my head around this one, which was due to a combination of things, primarily being very distracted by work stress. Also I don't think there was enough variation in Frazer Hines' voices, so getting a sense of multiple characters being there was not easy. Finally, though I get the premise (at last), I don't think that premise works so well on audio.

The crew lands in Switzerland at some point in the future. I got no sense of Switzerland from the audio, it was just some city... Anyway, the city has two versions existing simultaneously, one where things have fallen to ruin, one where people haven't caved to despair. This is the result of some experiment, we find out at the end. The shifts between the two versions might have looked good on screen, but I never got much feel for it in the audio. The Hawkers, big metal birds that envelop people and turn box-shaped might look great onscreen, but conceptually they make no sense whatsoever, and what explanation we get for them is weak.

There's a mildly interesting idea here about the world you live in being the one you decide to live in, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

The first of two books, Intelligence Taskforce being the second one, United Nations draws on elements previously seen in the series, bringing in members of the Russian and American military and or intelligence community, setting up a situation that once again will require international cooperation to resolve.

There's nothing in this one that's actually about setting up UNIT, but there's certainly a good deal done to sow the seeds. Actually, whenever the subject is mentioned, it's clear that the idea is met with a ton of resistance.

The plot of this book itself revolves around people who affect the laws of probability. I know I've seen this idea used somewhere before, but darned if I can remember where. In any case, it's handled well here and makes for some really compelling action. This plot is not resolve in part one, but it does reach a good, logical stopping point, setting up the action to be picked up in another location in part two.

I like how Fiona is handled here too. It's a little tough, as we know enough about Alistair's life to know that their relationship won't last, so it's bittersweet to see how much good there is in their relationship.

If there's one downside to the book it's that the focus on the international elements means that we don't get so much time with the series regulars (other than Lethbridge-Stewart). A necessary evil for where this two-book journey needs to go.

In a way, this story really has the feel of a stage play. Mostly, it's a two-person script, with a smaller third role, which is not an uncommon construction. In that vein, the story works very well throughout the bulk of the audio.

It becomes clear fairly early that things are happening out of sequence, and Jamie is trying to work out the sequence. It's a bit vague how he knows he needs to work out a sequence, exactly, but that does not detract from the fun of trying to work things out.

For me, the story lets us down at the end. When Jamie works out the answer, I didn't find that particularly satisfying. And at the very end, the characters head off to...

It really, really feels like they're about to go into the next part of the story. Except there is no next part. I had this weird feeling like I was missing the second disc of the story. That came as a particular letdown as I had really been enjoying the story and I wanted to get what happens next.

So, a good story that ends rather suddenl--

A very basic Beauty and the Beast variant. I was all set to complain that there's no whiff of any Doctor Who connection, but then the Doctor himself actually shows up towards the end, mutters some technobabble and solves the problem. Not much to it, but this one does fit the remit (Doctor Who + fairy tale) better than most of the stories in the collection.

Well, I guess with "seven" as the common, um, denominator, Justin Richards could not resist welding together fairy tale dwarves with a Doctor Who stage play. The result is nonsensical. Some despot king gets someone to make a machine that will destroy everything. Why would he want that? Never explained. Why would the tradesman build such a machine? How would he know how? Why make it so that it only works with seven keys?

There's no sense behind any of that, but at least the king is poisoned and killed so later, an evil queen can decide she wants the keys so she can...do what? No idea, But Snow White has to stop her. Since the machine requires all seven keys to function, she finds one and destroys it. Oh, no, she doesn't do that. Instead she finds all seven keys, brings them to the room with the Doomsday Machine, and then attempts to destroy them. Really?

Fortunately when she breaks one key, it explodes and blows up...somehow not in her own face, but in the face of the evil queen who pushes her away just as she breaks the key, so that the queen is caught up in the explosion and no one else is harmed. That queen had some great timing.

If it sounds like I thought this was a terrible effort, well, yes. But at least it presents the life lesson that if your actions are dumb enough, everything will work out alright in the end.

But at least the title is fun.

Finally! One of the Time Lord Fairy Tales is all about the Time Lords! Well, okay, there are no Time Lords whatsoever in it, but it takes place on Gallifrey! Well, okay, in takes place in some forest on Gallifrey that is nowhere near any populated area, and could be any forest on any planet, but at least a couple of locations get name-dropped.

Based on the fairy tale Babes in the Wood, the skin is the same, but the babes don't die when they're covered with leaves. Honestly, I don't know what the reader is supposed to take from this story. Except maybe further proof that twins and Doctor Who do not a winning combination make.

One of the few Time Lord Fairy Tales to actually include the Doctor, this one actually has him center stage, and it is all the better for it. The Second Doctor as the Pied Piper, Cybermats in the role of the rats, heck the space station is even named Hamlyn. Just as unoriginal as the rest of the collection, this one actually feels like something they might have done in the show.