The Death and Life of River Song: The Dissolution of Time

The Death and Life of River Song #3

by Rochana Patel, Alex Kingston (Narrator)

River Song has been imprisoned in the Stormcage, facing multiple life sentences for the Doctor's assassination... or, at least, she was. Now, time is collapsing, and River is unexpectedly marooned in Tudor England, 1536 - with a mysterious alien companion, Dust. Someone, or something, has broken history: the distortions centring on the court of King Henry VIII. River must find the culprit, and fix the damage, before it's too late. But some players, for whom established history does not end happily, may have other ideas.

3.1 The Armageddon Game
3.2 Anne Boleyn Must Die
3.3 A Good Woman Goes to War
3.4 The Schism Bloom

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published August 19, 2025

Reviews

[Ellen Schoener · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know, I maybe need to listen to this again at a later date.
I really felt out of my depth here, not knowing that much detail about English history.
I had a hard time with the characters and character interactions and who was usurped by whom and why.
Yes, I know about Henry the 8th and his habit of not being able to keep his manhood in his pants (and killing women so he could mate with the next one), but honestly, all these characters were pretty horrible and unlikable (well, they probably were also in real life). Yes, this story made me look up Wikipedia for the main plot and a short "who exactly are these people", so bonus- at least I know some more history now than I did before.
I admit this might sound highly ignorant, but I was listening to this while mentally in a pretty dark spot, so I just got very annoyed that I had to read wikipedia to be able to follow the plot. In a more normal state of mind, I might have been happy to learn something new.
So yeah, I went through with this, but neither the story, nor the characters nor the noxious alien weed growing out of control did grab me.
Performances were great, so were the sound effects, as is to be expected from Big Finish.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.1 The Armageddon Game - A fun romp full of shenanigans with River Song and a 7 foot tall talking cat. What’s not to love? Oh and let’s throw in Henry VIII just for laughs. This is definitely how you kick off a River Song multipart adventure. (4/5)

3.2 Anne Boleyn Must Die - In ways I almost felt like I listening to an episode featuring the TVA. With how much they were trying and failing to protect the “sacred timeline.” 😹 (4/5)

3.3 A Good Woman Goes to War - All the timey whimey shenanigans explode in this one. It is nothing but chaos and River Song is at the center of it all. But of course she is. As soon as the big surprise at the end of the last chapter occurred, I had a theory for how they were going to try and deal with it, and I was totally correct. It’s not often that Big Finish can simultaneously fulfill my exceptions and still surprise me. Well done. (3/5)

3.4 The Schism Bloom - Time to clean up the mess in the garden! As only River Song can do it. There’s a lot of crazy River Song stuff here. Lots of timey whimey stuff, or rather parallel reality, tangential reality, maybe branch off the “sacred timeline?” In any case, it’s a wild ride and it really wraps things up in … a really unexpected way! (5/5)

[Andy Of The Blacks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good self contained Audio Story of River in Tudor England.
The story was a bit preachy and too "telling you the history to make sure you understand" at several points - they could have skipped a lot of the "this character is important / hate this other character because..." explanation for me. But I guess they might need to do it for people who don't know much about this part of history...
Still very good, the ending of each cd has a cliff hanger, which I enjoyed and kept me interested. It is self contained enough, but links well with main canon events from the show that I am familiar with / like, so I enjoyed that. The ending is a good link with the main River storyline.
I will seek out more River adventures in history type of stories.
I also really enjoyed Dust.

[Joseph S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous!

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the way this focused on Henry VIII related stuff. Also had talk of parallel universes. And there’s overlap with consequences of Asylum of the Daleks by the end.

[KP · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting idea nice to see Anne Boleyn get some agency. River and Dust made a great team!