BFA DW: Blood on Santa's Claws
Dec. 31st, 2024 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeth6 and Peri and some dubiously seasonal shorter stories that turn into a bigger story.
This was okay to listen to but I don't thunk it'll be a favourite. The conceit starts with the 59th century deciding any and every belief counts as a religion so some people worship coffee. Or rock stars, or Wind in the Willows style earth animals, or Shakespeare. The biggest religion is Santa Claus, so they're in charge of sorting out conflicts between other religions.
In other words it tripped my Too Silly meter while doing a perfectly reasonable science fictional thing, tried to be funny while using the parts and pieces quite logically, and just generally didn't bring me along for the dramatic parts because I didn't find it funny.
The Doctor mentions in passing that science has made all the miracles commonplace so the old religions collapsed. I don't think it works that way? I don't think believing in miracles is a necessary part of religion. Also he mentions resurrection as one of those scientific miracles. Which we either never come back to, and wow is that a whopper to leave lying around in a story, or we see played through with Peri's kids, in which case it is not quite what it sounds like.
The bits where Peri meets future tech versions of her children, embryos in robot bodies that can extrapolate them to any age, were sort of sad and sort of pinged my is this argument pro life meter. It argued that embryos can remember stuff that happened to them when they were a clump of cells. And then made it really sad to discard one embryo. And then did science fictiony things with that, sure, but, little bit yikes? And then Peri got really sad about the children. Who in the way of time travel shows grow up without her. So that was a lot.
Which of course I strongly suspect will never be mentioned again, but what do you even do with that?
It's sort of the polar opposite reaction to the Doctor having his hand stuck in a machine and then tada offspring. So I guess what you do is an entire audio spin off, if you so choose.
There was A Lot going on in that last story. If the 59th century appeals you could do ever so much with it.
... I personally would rather not.
Also, quibble, but in the last part the pronunciation of Were Lords was odd. It was always going to work less well out loud than on paper but the sounds they picked seemed the oddest.
But they were a gigantic lore drop for the last part of a single audio book.
And then it did the boringest possible thing with them.
Overall I liked this audio pretty well, I was happy to have listened to it before I went to sleep, I just didn't love it.
Which is sad because it is doing its own unique thing and turning it into a cunning puzzle.
I think I'm going to rate it 3.5/5 but I considered another half a star for it being seasonal.
(Sort of seasonal. The end went a bit unexpected.)
This was okay to listen to but I don't thunk it'll be a favourite. The conceit starts with the 59th century deciding any and every belief counts as a religion so some people worship coffee. Or rock stars, or Wind in the Willows style earth animals, or Shakespeare. The biggest religion is Santa Claus, so they're in charge of sorting out conflicts between other religions.
In other words it tripped my Too Silly meter while doing a perfectly reasonable science fictional thing, tried to be funny while using the parts and pieces quite logically, and just generally didn't bring me along for the dramatic parts because I didn't find it funny.
The Doctor mentions in passing that science has made all the miracles commonplace so the old religions collapsed. I don't think it works that way? I don't think believing in miracles is a necessary part of religion. Also he mentions resurrection as one of those scientific miracles. Which we either never come back to, and wow is that a whopper to leave lying around in a story, or we see played through with Peri's kids, in which case it is not quite what it sounds like.
The bits where Peri meets future tech versions of her children, embryos in robot bodies that can extrapolate them to any age, were sort of sad and sort of pinged my is this argument pro life meter. It argued that embryos can remember stuff that happened to them when they were a clump of cells. And then made it really sad to discard one embryo. And then did science fictiony things with that, sure, but, little bit yikes? And then Peri got really sad about the children. Who in the way of time travel shows grow up without her. So that was a lot.
Which of course I strongly suspect will never be mentioned again, but what do you even do with that?
It's sort of the polar opposite reaction to the Doctor having his hand stuck in a machine and then tada offspring. So I guess what you do is an entire audio spin off, if you so choose.
There was A Lot going on in that last story. If the 59th century appeals you could do ever so much with it.
... I personally would rather not.
Also, quibble, but in the last part the pronunciation of Were Lords was odd. It was always going to work less well out loud than on paper but the sounds they picked seemed the oddest.
But they were a gigantic lore drop for the last part of a single audio book.
And then it did the boringest possible thing with them.
Overall I liked this audio pretty well, I was happy to have listened to it before I went to sleep, I just didn't love it.
Which is sad because it is doing its own unique thing and turning it into a cunning puzzle.
I think I'm going to rate it 3.5/5 but I considered another half a star for it being seasonal.
(Sort of seasonal. The end went a bit unexpected.)
no subject
Date: 2025-01-03 06:59 pm (UTC)Yeah that seems extremely silly to me, and pretty 'god of the gaps' which is a very specific approach that doesn't relate to how lots of people approach religion.