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Post by acousticwolf on Dec 9, 2015 9:50:36 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2015 11:48:16 GMT
I'm only an episode in and compared to the novel it's rather bare bones in terms of dialogue (e.g. Holmes makes a passing mention of lookouts, which are referred to as "crows" and given a rather interesting backstory in the original), but it has a wonderful atmosphere to it regardless. It is nice to see nineteenth century London rendered in such a wonderful ambiance and the sparking, hostile chemistry between the Doctor and Holmes manages to equal that of its literary counterpart. It's nice to see that some of the NA!Doctor's abilities made the transition across: he's capable of reading Watson's mind and demonstrates an eyesight far superior to that of human beings. Some of the darkness as well; i.e. the widow's horrific spontaneous combustion, the gang member's threat to Holmes that if he fails he shall remove his hands and so forth.
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Post by mrfuggleboppins on Dec 10, 2015 4:45:38 GMT
Pointing everyone in the direction of the cover I made for this story if anyone wants to use it in lieu of the (also fantastic) Will Brooks cover
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Post by omega on Dec 10, 2015 4:59:26 GMT
I'm only an episode in and compared to the novel it's rather bare bones in terms of dialogue (e.g. Holmes makes a passing mention of lookouts, which are referred to as "crows" and given a rather interesting backstory in the original), but it has a wonderful atmosphere to it regardless. It is nice to see nineteenth century London rendered in such a wonderful ambiance and the sparking, hostile chemistry between the Doctor and Holmes manages to equal that of its literary counterpart. It's nice to see that some of the NA!Doctor's abilities made the transition across: he's capable of reading Watson's mind and demonstrates an eyesight far superior to that of human beings. Some of the darkness as well; i.e. the widow's horrific spontaneous combustion, the gang member's threat to Holmes that if he fails he shall remove his hands and so forth. Of course, the audio adaptations are the reverse of the Target novelisations. While the latter has room to expand the story and give more background to events, places and characters, the former has to distill the main points of the story. This sometimes means characters are merged, excised and/or have their roles given to other people. Love and War the novel featured more of Benny's team (including a Paul Magrs), while the audio only has a single character who talks and plays any role within the narrative. The adaptation of The Highest Science removes two characters Benny gads about with, although that bit of the story was mostly padding anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 5:02:19 GMT
I'm only an episode in and compared to the novel it's rather bare bones in terms of dialogue (e.g. Holmes makes a passing mention of lookouts, which are referred to as "crows" and given a rather interesting backstory in the original), but it has a wonderful atmosphere to it regardless. It is nice to see nineteenth century London rendered in such a wonderful ambiance and the sparking, hostile chemistry between the Doctor and Holmes manages to equal that of its literary counterpart. It's nice to see that some of the NA!Doctor's abilities made the transition across: he's capable of reading Watson's mind and demonstrates an eyesight far superior to that of human beings. Some of the darkness as well; i.e. the widow's horrific spontaneous combustion, the gang member's threat to Holmes that if he fails he shall remove his hands and so forth. Of course, the audio adaptations are the reverse of the Target novelisations. While the latter has room to expand the story and give more background to events, places and characters, the former has to distill the main points of the story. This sometimes means characters are merged, excised and/or have their roles given to other people. Love and War the novel featured more of Benny's team (including a Paul Magrs), while the audio only has a single character who talks and plays any role within the narrative. The adaptation of The Highest Science removes two characters Benny gads about with, although that bit of the story was mostly padding anyway. I know, I know, it's just something I'm going to have to get used to. It's still a fun story though, I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of Holmes or the nineteenth century style stories in general.
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Post by Digi on Dec 10, 2015 13:02:06 GMT
Didn't really enjoy this one, honestly. No slight intended to anyone involved -- McCoy, Bowerman, Aldred, Briggs are always a treat, and Guy Adams wrote one of my absolute favourite Whoniverse stories ever (Random Ghosts) -- but it just didn't click for me.
I'm not a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes line, which I'm sure plays a part in my reaction. But I also really don't care for narration, which was the primary mode of storytelling for the first three episodes. And then it...vanished in part 4? Not an unwelcome change, but a bit odd.
Anyway. Really dug Theatre of War, but not so much this one.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 23:33:14 GMT
Spoilers for the novel: For me, the omission of Sherrinford's book death and Abzzaorth's death cry undercut the telling of the story quite a bit, leaving the story on a rather anti-climatic end. I understand there were probably concerns about how such scenes would carry over to a family audience, but it doesn't strike me as remarkably different to content found in other stories post-2005. So, does anyone else feel we'll see Seven team up with Sherlock and Watson again in his later years within the Ordeals/ Judgement time period? Two remarkable men facing their mortality.....
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Post by omega on Dec 11, 2015 22:57:12 GMT
Just finished the story. The last episode kind of threw me off, going from the Sherlock Holmes crossover to pure Doctor Who territory where Holmes and Watson didn't play much of a part. Ace was wasted, not interacting with anyone until halfway though episode four, then I suppose that's how her role in the book went. The mid-credits scene was a bit odd, a bit whimsical. Was it in the novel originally, or something Guy Adams added to offset the more serious tone of the story?
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Post by Timelord007 on Dec 21, 2015 8:42:20 GMT
I found this to be a decent adaptation, good performances but a but slow & very choppy pacing in parts, I'd say this deserves a 7/10
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2015 22:53:16 GMT
I found this to be a decent adaptation, good performances but a but slow & very choppy pacing in parts, I'd say this deserves a 7/10 Eh, I didn't mind the pacing all that much - it's Sherlock and Watson's slow descent into the madness that is The Doctor's universe, after all.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2015 0:35:42 GMT
I found this to be a decent adaptation, good performances but a but slow & very choppy pacing in parts, I'd say this deserves a 7/10 Eh, I didn't mind the pacing all that much - it's Sherlock and Watson's slow descent into the madness that is The Doctor's universe, after all. True... But I had the same problems with the haphazard pacing as well and I'm not just talking about how Ry'leth seemingly comes right out of nowhere. If anyone manages to track down the novel, I'd highly recommend it. It was the book that got me into the wide, wide world of Holmes to begin with (pastiche or otherwise) and it is probably one of the most beautifully written Andy Lane stories I have ever read. I'd recommend the audio for its best efforts because they do really seem to be trying and for Nick Briggs's performance as the infamous Baker Street detective in question.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2015 0:39:08 GMT
Eh, I didn't mind the pacing all that much - it's Sherlock and Watson's slow descent into the madness that is The Doctor's universe, after all. True... But I had the same problems with the haphazard pacing as well and I'm not just talking about how Ry'leth seemingly comes right out of nowhere. If anyone manages to track down the novel, I'd highly recommend it. It was the book that got me into the wide, wide world of Holmes to begin with (pastiche or otherwise) and it is probably one of the most beautifully written Andy Lane stories I have ever read. I didn't have a problem with the pacing, but admittingly, I was just excited to see this story finally brought to life with Big Finish! I'd also like to add that the novel adds quite a bit more to story in terms of climax and Sherlock and Watson's experiences with the wider stranger universe.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2015 2:30:39 GMT
True... But I had the same problems with the haphazard pacing as well and I'm not just talking about how Ry'leth seemingly comes right out of nowhere. If anyone manages to track down the novel, I'd highly recommend it. It was the book that got me into the wide, wide world of Holmes to begin with (pastiche or otherwise) and it is probably one of the most beautifully written Andy Lane stories I have ever read. I didn't have a problem with the pacing, but admittingly, I was just excited to see this story finally brought to life with Big Finish! Good to hear that pacing wasn't a problem for everyone. Besides that problem, it really is a rather good story. One of the NAs best. I'd also like to add that the novel adds quite a bit more to story in terms of climax and Sherlock and Watson's experiences with the wider stranger universe. Not to mention the fact that the figures referred to under the aliases of "Sherlock Holmes" and "Dr. John Watson" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to preserve their anonymity (much like "the Doctor"), I think were briefly considered as replacements for Benny and Ace. Whether or not, these two figures are someone we know from today's Whoniverse like Vastra and Jenny, the matter is very unlikely but still very much debatable. The reference to the Doctor lodging in with Litefoot was there in the original story as well. In summary, if The Talons of Weng-Chiang was "Sherlock Holmes vs. Fu Manchu" then All-Consuming Fire is "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Cthulu Mythos" wherein our dear Doctor would fit right into their unearthly and eldritch pantheon. Here's an extract from their first arrival on Ry'leh as recounted by Benny: First question: where am I? Well, it's an alien planet. Not just any alien planet, either. This one's stranger than most. Stranger than Moloch, the hollow moon of Lucifer that's linked by a bridge to its sister Belial. Stranger than Eusapia and Zeta Minor, half in this universe and half in another. Stranger than Tersurus, with its clone banks and its singing stones. Stranger even than Magla, whose crust is a shell covering a vast, dreaming, creature. No, Ry'leh is the strangest planet I've ever seen. I'm not a geologist, but I suspect that it's an old world. At some point in its past the local star must have gone nova, blasting much of its matter away intospace to leave a colder, smaller core. Soon after that Ry'leh's atmosphere must have frozen, leaving it looking like a great cue-ball hanging in space. The frozen jacket doesn't fit tightly though: the heat from the planet's core has melted the interior layers of ice back into an atmosphere, leaving valleys, fissures, channels and plains with an oppressively solid sky hanging above them, supported upon the pillars of the mountains. And that's where you are, girl: sandwiched between rock and a hard place. The wind whistles through the canyons like a demon. It plucks at your clothes and whips your hair into your eyes. It snatches things from your hands and whirls them gleefully away from you. It hates you. The plants hate you too. Only the strongest and most stubborn life-forms survived the sun going nova. Their razor-sharp bruise-coloured vanes catch at your clothing as you clamber past them, and make rents for the wind to get in and sap the warmth from your bones. Some of them hiss and thrust their roots between your feet as you pass. High above, up where the sky is hard and cold, small black specks wheel. Rakshassi? I wouldn't be at all surprised. You get the picture? Ry'leh is not a nice place to be. As we emerged from the gateway the wind snatched the words from our mouths, and it collapsed behind us. When we turned, India had vanished. We were just a step away from Earth in one direction, a million light-years in another. We were standing at the foot of a mountain range. The dusky purple ground rose gently for a few miles, then jabbed sharply upwards into a set of harsh peaks, all of them truncated by the ice sky. The sun was a lighter spot through the ice, too weak to cast any shadows. Turning, I could see that we were surrounded by the mountains. Valleys led away in three directions. It was as if we had been dumped in the middle of a giant's maze. Gravity seemed to be about Earth normal. I find it difficult to tell - I've been on so many worlds that I forget what my body was designed for sometimes - but neither Watson nor Holmes were falling down or falling up. The Doctor walked around as if he owned the place. Which he might well have done, of course.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2016 6:11:24 GMT
I have to admit this continues the trend for me - Damaged Goods excepted - of the Novel Adaptations being thoroughly mediocre. It's a damn shame as some of the titles - Love And War and this one - are among my favourite of the early-mid VNAs. I appreciate for some people this is their first exposure to the stories but honestly...if you can pick up the books cheap (and barring 4 or 5 they're all easily found on ebay and amazon second hand affordably) I'd recommend doing that as these stories are not really doing justice to the texts. You just can't distill any old book to a 2 hour audio play. Different formats entirely.
Again - I exclude Damaged Goods. It's a terrific version of the story. YES, it's watered down but it managed to make a wonderful 2 hour play from a wonderful dense adult novel.
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Post by brax on Jan 5, 2016 6:35:12 GMT
I do feel that you're best served having comparatively recently re-read the books than coming to these raw.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2016 8:23:04 GMT
I do feel that you're best served having comparatively recently re-read the books than coming to these raw. I'm of the opposite view. I think they work well as audio adventures in their own right, but if the novel is too recent in myemory then I get too caught up in compare and contrast.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jan 5, 2016 8:48:45 GMT
I'm a bit miffed the Doctor's opinion of Holmes versus Watson on suviving on an alien world - stripped of his touchstones Holmes would flounder while Watson who reacts to what he sees and acts on his conscience would be fine - was cut in favour of the Doctor blowing smoke up Holmes' fundament.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Jan 5, 2016 12:35:57 GMT
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Post by acousticwolf on Jan 5, 2016 12:55:07 GMT
Never having read the novel, I enjoyed this a lot (but then again I enjoy BF's Holmes series and like the Cthulhu mythos in general). A definite win for me Cheers Tony
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Post by mark687 on Jan 7, 2016 10:54:15 GMT
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