The Drosten's Curse

Conceptually speaking, this story could have been really good. The story itself and the monster were pretty interesting and original. However, it was so poorly executed as to make it a massive disappointment.

The prose is rambling, verbose and tangential throughout the book. It's obviously meant to be quaint or witty like Adams or Wodehouse but instead it actually comes of as neither and is instead often boring and even irritating. This applies to a lot of the first person perspective in the story and despite the ample amount of insight into the small cast of main characters , they still come off as two dimensional clichés.

And padding, padding and more padding. There are long sections of long, trivial dialogue and description that are neither entertaining or pertinent to the plot. And the final confrontation(s) with the monster goes on and on and on well past the point where I even gave a damn anymore. At one point I thought it must nearly be over, only to realize that there was still over 2 1/2 hours left. Complete slog. I almost DNF'ed and I never do that with Doctor Who books.

As if all that weren't enough, I listened to the audio book which was poorly produced. The narration was quite good but there was this frequent, terrible and incongruous ambient music that kept drowning out the narration. And it would pop in often for no particularly obvious reason. Also at multiple points you get to listen to the cloister bell gong loudly and monotonously for long stretches as you struggle to hear and focus on the narration. At one point this went on in excess of half an hour.

I would advise skipping this altogether, but if you must, DO NOT get the audio book.