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Big Finish: Monthly Range #188
Doctor Who: Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories
An anthology of four tales on the theme of perception.
Breaking Bubbles by LM Myles
The Doctor and Peri find themselves in the palatial gardens of the deposed Empress Safira Valtris where nothing is ever quite what it seems.
Of Chaos Time The by Mark Ravenhill
Cast adrift in his own chronology, the Doctor must avert the consequences of a catastrophic experiment in using time as a weapon of war.
An Eye For Murder by Una McCormack
The year is 1939, and a case of poison pen letters at St Ursula’s College threatens to change the course of the Second World War. Fortunately thriller writer Miss Sarah Perry is on hand to investigate...
The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time by Nev Fountain
Michael is a young boy who likes to solve mysteries, such as the mystery of the extra gnome, the mystery of the absent father, and the mystery of the strange man in yellow trousers at the bottom of the garden.
Breaking Bubbles by LM Myles
The Doctor and Peri find themselves in the palatial gardens of the deposed Empress Safira Valtris where nothing is ever quite what it seems.
Of Chaos Time The by Mark Ravenhill
Cast adrift in his own chronology, the Doctor must avert the consequences of a catastrophic experiment in using time as a weapon of war.
An Eye For Murder by Una McCormack
The year is 1939, and a case of poison pen letters at St Ursula’s College threatens to change the course of the Second World War. Fortunately thriller writer Miss Sarah Perry is on hand to investigate...
The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time by Nev Fountain
Michael is a young boy who likes to solve mysteries, such as the mystery of the extra gnome, the mystery of the absent father, and the mystery of the strange man in yellow trousers at the bottom of the garden.
Audio CD
First published July 1, 2014
64 people want to read
About the author
L.M. Myles
13 books30 followersI’m a Scottish writer, editor and geek, with a blog called Follow That Trebuchet cause medieval siege weaponry is awesome, most especially trebuchets.
I co-edited the Hugo Award nominated anthology Chicks Unravel Time (with Deborah Stanish), and Companion Piece (with Liz Barr), and I’ve written for Doctor Who in prose and on audio, most recently the title story on the Big Finish release Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories.
My writing’s been published in Cranky Ladies of History, Uncanny Magazine, and Bernice Summerfield: Present Danger, amongst others.
You can also hear me say very sensible things about Doctor Who on the Verity! podcast.
I co-edited the Hugo Award nominated anthology Chicks Unravel Time (with Deborah Stanish), and Companion Piece (with Liz Barr), and I’ve written for Doctor Who in prose and on audio, most recently the title story on the Big Finish release Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories.
My writing’s been published in Cranky Ladies of History, Uncanny Magazine, and Bernice Summerfield: Present Danger, amongst others.
You can also hear me say very sensible things about Doctor Who on the Verity! podcast.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 24, 2018
An anthology of four 30-minute stories.
* Breaking Bubbles - The Doctor and Peri meet the deposed ruler of an interstellar empire, and become involved with her attempts to escape her imprisonment. This is a pretty decent story for its length, with a few twists in its relatively short run-time. There's perhaps little that's truly remarkable about it, although it's notable that Peri has almost as much to do with the resolution as the Doctor, and overall it's a pretty fun short story. 4 stars.
* Of Chaos Time The - The Doctor contracts a time sickness that causes him to experience events out of chronological order. We hear the story from his perspective, trying to piece together what is going on as he does, even as the characters around him are moving through time in the usual manner., and so often know what is happening before he does. Since the time jumps come quite rapidly (as they'd have to in a 30-minute story) events are particularly jumbled up, so it makes sense that the underlying story, about the development of a time-based weapon, is quite straightforward. Even so, such stories have been done before by Big Finish, and this is a reasonable, but not standout example of its kind. 3.5 stars.
* An Eye for Murder - This takes as its setting a women's college at Cambridge University at the outbreak of World War II (there are a few obvious nods to Gaudy Night). As the only significant male character in the story, the Doctor quickly becomes sidelined as the professors assume that he must be Peri's assistant and curtail his activities to avoid any hint of impropriety. This set-up leads to some great moments as McCormack plays with the altered dynamic, as well as a mystery story involving a Jewish professor being threatened by an anonymous Nazi sympathiser. Although it fits its length here, it's the sort of thing that might have worked even better with more room to breathe. 4.5 stars.
* The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time - Like the book that was the obvious inspiration for the title, this takes the form of a first-person narrative by a teenage boy with autism spectrum disorder. It's a nice mix of comedy, focusing as it does on the threat to Earth posed by some garden gnomes, and pathos, as the narrator struggles to understand the more basic things around him while not batting an eye at the bits about aliens. There are some nice parallels, too, with how the Doctor also sometimes has difficulty with basic human emotions (something that probably works better with Six than it would with, say, Five). 4.5 stars.
* Breaking Bubbles - The Doctor and Peri meet the deposed ruler of an interstellar empire, and become involved with her attempts to escape her imprisonment. This is a pretty decent story for its length, with a few twists in its relatively short run-time. There's perhaps little that's truly remarkable about it, although it's notable that Peri has almost as much to do with the resolution as the Doctor, and overall it's a pretty fun short story. 4 stars.
* Of Chaos Time The - The Doctor contracts a time sickness that causes him to experience events out of chronological order. We hear the story from his perspective, trying to piece together what is going on as he does, even as the characters around him are moving through time in the usual manner., and so often know what is happening before he does. Since the time jumps come quite rapidly (as they'd have to in a 30-minute story) events are particularly jumbled up, so it makes sense that the underlying story, about the development of a time-based weapon, is quite straightforward. Even so, such stories have been done before by Big Finish, and this is a reasonable, but not standout example of its kind. 3.5 stars.
* An Eye for Murder - This takes as its setting a women's college at Cambridge University at the outbreak of World War II (there are a few obvious nods to Gaudy Night). As the only significant male character in the story, the Doctor quickly becomes sidelined as the professors assume that he must be Peri's assistant and curtail his activities to avoid any hint of impropriety. This set-up leads to some great moments as McCormack plays with the altered dynamic, as well as a mystery story involving a Jewish professor being threatened by an anonymous Nazi sympathiser. Although it fits its length here, it's the sort of thing that might have worked even better with more room to breathe. 4.5 stars.
* The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time - Like the book that was the obvious inspiration for the title, this takes the form of a first-person narrative by a teenage boy with autism spectrum disorder. It's a nice mix of comedy, focusing as it does on the threat to Earth posed by some garden gnomes, and pathos, as the narrator struggles to understand the more basic things around him while not batting an eye at the bits about aliens. There are some nice parallels, too, with how the Doctor also sometimes has difficulty with basic human emotions (something that probably works better with Six than it would with, say, Five). 4.5 stars.
October 12, 2019
The best anthology release so far! Filled with cracking, interesting stories. My favorite is defintely the last one which for me was an extremely important story that had to be done right since I'm a person who has autism myself and it was beautifully well done!
Breaking Bubbles: 8/10
Of Chaos Time The: 8.5/10
An Eye For Murder: 9/10
The Curious Incident Of The Doctor In The Night-Time: 10/10
Breaking Bubbles: 8/10
Of Chaos Time The: 8.5/10
An Eye For Murder: 9/10
The Curious Incident Of The Doctor In The Night-Time: 10/10
June 8, 2021
Maybe not the best of the Sixth Doctor anthologies I've listened to, but definitely entertaining. Pretty clever to have the words in the second title out of order. And Six being mistaken for a gnome in the last one is hilarious.
July 17, 2024
Breaking Bubbles - 3.6/5
Of Chaos Time The - 4.2/5
An Eye for Murder - 2.6/5
The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-time - 4/5
Of Chaos Time The - 4.2/5
An Eye for Murder - 2.6/5
The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-time - 4/5
September 21, 2024
Colin baker
Good
Last story was weird
Long musical interlude at the end of the last story before the interviews
Good
Last story was weird
Long musical interlude at the end of the last story before the interviews
October 23, 2024
1. Breaking Bubbles - 3/5
2. Of Chaos Time The - 3.5/5
3. An Eye for Murder - 3/5
4. The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time - 5/5
2. Of Chaos Time The - 3.5/5
3. An Eye for Murder - 3/5
4. The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time - 5/5
December 5, 2014
I'd heard this was very very good but I'm not sure why. I must admit I don't really like Peri and for most of the stories she didn't really do anything. The first story about an evil galactic ruler in prison I thought was very good. The story about the Doctor jumping back and forth in time was alright, if a bit generic. The story about the women in the college in 1939 by Una was also enjoyable. Though it just made me wish it had been written for Evelyn instead of Peri so much! I spent the whole time sad that she wasn't able to be in that setting instead. The last story by Nev I will admit I only got 5 minutes into before I turned it off. I know he was trying to write a character with autism sympathetically but I just found it far too frustrating. Writers always seem to make autistic people highly verbal, when most autistic people I know are the opposite. They also don't understand that autistic people do in fact have senses of humour, in fact they can be very funny and very good at teasing people. It was probably good to have that representation in a story, but I would just have preferred it to be done differently I think.
August 14, 2014
An excellent collection of 4 short stories, each quite well told, featuring the 6th Doctor. I particularly enjoyed the 4th story, "The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night," which well captures many of my experiences in communicating with autistic individuals.
July 24, 2016
4 adventures with Peri and the Doctor.
May 19, 2015
Great set of short stories. Particularly enjoyed the fourth, The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time
August 30, 2014
Mixed bag of stories - some good, some trying to be too clever.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews