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turlough has submitted 18 reviews and received 37 likes

Review of Rose-Coloured Crosshairs by turlough

26 May 2025

This review contains spoilers!

Positives: Again proving to be one of the best Faction Paradox authors out there, Bidmead creates a masterpiece of intertwined storylines, with some really complex stuff that ties itself together pefectly within just 150 pages. The initial concept of the 'nostalgia bomb' was really cool, especially at the end when the Cousins are describing how unaware those affected cultures were of Faction Paradox's greater scheme. I loved seeing the fallout of the Cousins being essentially blasted through time, my absolute favourite section being the sort of parallel version of London. The characters were all well established and developed for the short time they got. Despite this book following an almost short story format with each of the side characters being introduced and left in roughly 40 pages they were all memorable, and each feeling relevant, which is really impressive for such a short book. It felt so satisfying to see everything link together at the end, with Rake saving Yousef and Prudence gaining a new body, and I liked the point they didn't mention the results of the experiment, as the main point of the story lay with the characters and what they went through.

Negatives: I don't really know if it's just a me problem but it took me far too long to realise what was going on. Up until Rake and Yousef appeared in the parallel London section I just hadn't made the connection that the Faction agents were dealing with the fallout of their experiment, so I spent the first half of the book really confused.

9/10


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Review of The Minister of Chance by turlough

25 March 2025

This review contains spoilers!

The Minister of Chance novel serves as an adaptation/retelling of the audio series, but it achieves a lot more in my opinion. The story flows better, the large chapter count helps to keep the pacing fast and doesn't disrupt the plot, and in general it just doesn't feel as messy, as the audios felt a little loud and chaotic.
I'm a big fan of Dan Freemans writing style, the exposition was mostly explicit and overall very straightforward, and while that may not be ideal for some it worked really well for me.
As for the story itself, I loved the little details provided in the novel compared to the audio series, the characters feel a lot more fleshed out, in particular Kitty and Professor Cantha. The implication at the end that Kitty could potentially be from Earth completely caught me off guard but added a nice little bit of world building. I do however wish the novel could've expanded on Durians character a bit more; he seems to be used as more of a plot device than an actual character here, making his death a lot less impactful.
As for the series as a whole, I really enjoyed listening/watching/reading it all, I'd love to see more from this world one day and while I don't think that's very likely, the story as a whole was wrapped up really well, so I'm content with leaving it as it is.


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Review of In a Barque on the River Hex by turlough

20 March 2025

This review contains spoilers!

This story was absolutely fitting for the finale, it ties up the events of the series well, and although a little messy, everything felt properly concluded. I do think it could've done with being an extra twenty minutes long, or given another part as it did feel like they were really rushing to get the story done at times. The plot itself was fun, it felt to nice to see how far the Minister and Kitty's relationship had come and they felt like truly well developed characters by the end. Durians death was dealt with in a particularly interesting way, it would've made more sense to have him stick around a little longer, but seeing it told only through gossip from other people was really cool. The idea of the river Hex itself was also very fascinating, I enjoyed how vague they presented it's powers, and the whole 'it's sort of mythical just deal with it' thing made it seem a lot more exciting.


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Review of The Tiger by turlough

15 March 2025

This review contains spoilers!

A little let down compared to the previous episode but again by no means bad, I'm slightly confused as to why this episode is named The Tiger. I appreciated the bigger focus on the politics here, with characters like Durian taking more centre stage and there being some proper action with the Sezeans. It did annoy me a little however that they tried to make us believe Kitty was dead for about half the episode. It was so obviously not true, meaning the anger and emotions people felt towards this factor meant pretty much nothing to me. I did however appreciate finally seeing some emotion from the Minister himself, it was great to see him actually feel something towards Kitty's death, and get some emotional development, even if it was this late into the series.

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Review of Paludin Fields by turlough

13 March 2025

Possibly the best episode of the series so far. Paludin Fields pretty much attempts to combine everything we've seen from this franchise so far into one, longer, more coherent story. I was glad to see more action from Durian and Cantha, the political aspects were interesting if a little predictable. The audio quality again wasn't the best, however I can praise the score to no end. The choice of music and the way it was used was just beautiful, it made the more dramatic moments even more dramatic, and the more emotional ones ever more emotional. Kitty again stood out to me, making me wish she could've been a full time Doctor Who companion. Overall this was a fun story, building well on previous elements and making me more excited to finish the series.


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Review of The Forest Shakes by turlough

13 March 2025

This review contains spoilers!

I'll admit I found it a lot harder to keep my attention in this one, there were still some interesting ideas as with the last episode, but the sound quality made this a bit more difficult to enjoy. The Forest Shakes was better in some aspects however, the smaller cast worked so much better in the short runtime, and the focus on the Minister, Kitty and Sutu (there is no evidence online as to how this guys name is spelled) as a trio gave them all great time in the spotlight and development. I also appreciated the brief appearance of the other 'main' characters at the end, seeing Durian and Cantha added a sense of continuity outside the main story itself set the rest of the series up nicely. Overall there's not a lot to say about this story, the audio quality was quite poor which made it a little difficult to listen to at some points but other than that I enjoyed it a lot.


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Review of The Broken World by turlough

13 March 2025

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This would have been an absolutely fantastic story had it just been a bit longer. 35 minutes was an odd runtime but it still manages to achieve a lot, but an hour would've made a lot more sense, and given them proper time to develop characters and settings. Kitty was obviously a standout character for me, she was funny, displayed a lot of bravery and got involved in a lot of action, making her a well fleshed-out character right from the start. Her relationship with the Minister himself was also great, their argumentative conversations didn't get in the way or feel annoying at all which was nice, and it made me look forward to seeing how they would learn to trust each other in the future. Aside from these factors, the story was pretty decent, none of the other characters really stood out to me but I liked the development Durian received with his promotion.


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Review of The Pointed Hand by turlough

13 March 2025

Now this story is very interesting as not only did it come out as a nine minute audio in 2011, we also got a full webcast adaptation in 2014. Having seen/listened to both I can confidantly say I really enjoyed this little prologue. It sets up events nicely, characters are established the best they can be in under ten minutes, and it was really interesting to see Paul McGann play someone who wasn't the Doctor for once. I did much prefer the webcast version of this, but I still had a good time with both.


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Review of The Dying Breed by turlough

22 January 2025

This review contains spoilers!

I may just be biased towards anything from the Whittaker era but this was a fantastic origin story for the Lupari. 4 was obviously great and Leela was in her element especially around the more tribal and violent Lupari, but it was K9 who stood out. He had some wonderful comedic lines and probably the most dialogue and action I've ever seen from the little guy which I loved. The establishment of the relationship between the Lupari and humans was also great, I wish it had been a stronger theme throughout as I think too much focus was given to Kira and her ideas of honour but it was all nicely tied in with the soothsayer at the end.


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Review of The Krillitane Feint by turlough

21 January 2025

This review contains spoilers!

A pretty good story with too many plot twists to shake a stick at, The Krillitane Feint really picks up the ideas that School Reunion just couldn't achieve with the limited budget and CGI restraints of 2006. I loved the idea of the humans being some of the main enemies, and I wish we could've seen more in terms of them being experimented on with the Krillitane ways of adaptation. Overall this was a great story, 2, Jamie and Zoe were the perfect TARDIS team for this and it was nice to see them all be useful to the plot, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series


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