BF 115: Forty Five

[Rob McCow]

Starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred
With BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, JON GLOVER, PAUL REYNOLDS, LINDA MARLOWE And Philip Olivier as Hex

1. FALSE GODS
by Mark Morris

In the blistering heat of the Egyptian desert Howard Carter and his team search for the lost tomb of Userhat, a servant of the god Amun. What they discover sheds new light on the history of the world as we know it.

2. ORDER OF SIMPLICITY
by Nick Scovell
Dr. Verryman has devoted his life to the advancement of knowledge. When his experiments on a remote planet threaten the entire human race only the Doctor can help - if he puts his mind to it.

3. CASUALTIES OF WAR
by Mark Michalowski
Opportunity knocks in postwar London. But when a tea leaf steals from the wrong woman it becomes a race against time to discover the truth. Only some truths are best left untold.

4. THE WORD LORD
by Steven Hall
In a top secret military bunker deep beneath the Antarctic ice a mysterious death threatens peace negotiations and could spell disaster for the inhabitants of Earth. Can the Doctor cross the t's and dot the i's? Or will his efforts get lost in translation?

Yay! Soapie's back! Seems like ages since we've had an Ace/Hex story.

[Dirk Gently]

Has anyone got this yet?

[SiHart]

Oh yes, it arruived yesterday. We've put it in the backlog queue for when we do long car journies, which seem few and far between at the moment.

Si xx

[WileyKat]

I have this, and I listened to it yesterday and today. Or rather, them.

Like Circular Time, the quality of the stories varies. However, I enjoyed all of them. The theme is a little random, and I'm not sure it adds that much to it. Except I've just noticed that there's a line in the last play that sort of attempts to draw it together.

Casualties of War was by far my favourite - well written, interesting. Word Lord is fun but silly, Order of Simplicity is a little flat. False Gods manages to not be too ambitious, and makes its structure work for the maximum effect (as well as confounding expectations).

[Rob McCow]

This turned out pretty good in the end. I liked False Gods with the Egypt stuff, I thought Order of Simplicity was just a whole bunch of grunting. Casualties of War tried to do too many things at once although it was great to hear the Curse of Fenric nods in the music. Word Lord was great stuff though, a good story with a clever resolution.

The whole 'tea' thing was a bit weird. Though I did laugh when they decide to have coffee for a change at the end.