Friday Fiction: The Talking Knife
The time is the far future.
The crime is murder.
And the detective is very good at his job.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 28th, 2024
The time is the far future.
The crime is murder.
And the detective is very good at his job.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 26th, 2024
“Boom” is an episode that is clearly trying to be as morbid and macabre as possible. The story’s insistence on bleak moments, casual character death, and tragedy is so frequent it’s almost overplayed. I can’t believe I’m calling for the horror to be toned down—but here we are.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 24th, 2024
“The Devil’s Chord” is too short of an episode. I mean this as a compliment—and a criticism of everything added to the episode that limits chances to tell more of this story. This should’ve been a two-parter. It needed to be a two-parter. It could’ve been a top-ten, all-time episode if only it had been a two-parter.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 21st, 2024
Do you ever wonder what aliens use to communicate with each other?
Well, in this story, the answer is cell phones.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 19th, 2024
“Social Stigma” is a great episode that not only entertains by itself but redeems the previous episode “Hard Reset.” I like to think of them as a two-parter now. We get a ton of buildup to that strange Isaac Newton stuff, and then a payoff with an extended conversation.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 17th, 2024
“Space Babies” doesn’t seem like an episode to start a season with. Doctor Who is no stranger to weirdness, not by a long shot—but this episode is not only weird, it’s also goofy.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 14th, 2024
When our main character started talking to a ghost, he probably didn’t expect to end up trying to save his whole city.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 12th, 2024
“Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” is a fascinating, humanist piece of science fiction. Despite having almost no conflicts, barely anything that counts as a propelled plot, it’s intriguing all the way through. Reading it instills so many emotions: sadness, joy, wistful nostalgia, and the exact type of curiosity that incredible concepts have all the power to invoke.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 10th, 2024
“Hard Reset” is a weird, kind-of-bad episode. It’s obvious that it has great plot importance, and the few snippets of context we do get for “The Protocol” are interesting—but for the majority of the listening experience, it’s more befuddling than enjoyable.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 7th, 2024
A warning, dear reader. This story contains spiders—and if you have arachnophobia, at all, you may not want to read this one.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 5th, 2024
“The Long Game” is actually a story about very short periods of time and the exploitation of a species. Its title refers to one idea in the story, among a few different, some related, some not, concepts—and the greatest strength of this one, like “How It Unfolds,” is how interesting those ideas are.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 3rd, 2024
“Solo Work” is a fantastic episode. The horror is weird and cosmic. The character work is great, and we get a lot of it—and there’s a cameo that made the ending all the better.