Tom’s penultimate ‘adventure’

Audiobooks tend to reveal annoying quirks in a writer's writing style, and this one is no exception. As a result, we find the writer has a tendency to use descriptive words that end in ‘ly’ every few sentences - redly, quickly, hastily, angrily, madly, easily, etc etc. It does get irritating. Surprising, when sci-fi supremo Terrance Dicks wrote the thing.
The Keeper of Traken was, I think, the penultimate Tom Baker Doctor Who adventure, and for much of this story he’s not in it. Late period Fourth Doctor stories were never my favourite and this one also follows the airy-fairy style of others from this era - I preferred the earlier, simpler tales, with proper fights with proper monsters, less talking and Sarah and Harry being the companions.
Melkur, the villainous statue in this story looks like something a thirteen year old Art student would cobble together and since the age of ten I’ve always hated that he looked so crap.
There seems to be a tenuous Lord of the Rings link with some of the character names (Saeron, Melkur) and a need for ‘all the rings to unite’ to defeat The Keeper. Hmm.
That said, this is another solid audio production and excellent performance, with a great last few chapters, and would recommend it.

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