The Gods of Winter [AUDIO/2015.8.20]

★★☆☆☆

  What a bore. The Gods of Winter immediately leaves a sour mark on the Winter family series by bring such a non-entity of an adventure; it's almost as if James Goss has cooked this story up on autopilot, one that's so lacking in personality and fun. Jumping from one interesting scenario to a long, drawn out boring locale for a good ten or twenty minutes or so. Clare Higgins injects some much-needed gravitas into the audiobook, and the concept of the story (setting up the mystery of the Winter family's Doctor calling card) is interesting when it needs to be, but the "main" narrative is such a slog with its pelvis-face monsters (the one true spark of creativity over here) and arenas and whatnot. If I can't feel the excitement from either the narration or the script, I can't in all honestly say I like a Dr. Who adventure; The Gods of Winter suffers mostly from the latter, with Goss relying on age-old tropes to lift the story afloat (just barely), while the former also has small issues here and there with Higgins sounding positively bored in some sections of the audiobook. I'm cautiously looking forward to what the other three Winter audiobooks will be like.