Fairytale of Salzburg

Ravenous 2.3

Released: 9 October 2018

Listened: 12/23/21

The first half of this story was mainly setup, if rather scary setup. The second half, though, brings both the timey and the wimey, where situations are what you probably think they are, just not in the way you think they are. And saying any more than that about the plot would bring spoilers. It seems like a story where Sufficiently Advanced Aliens are pretending to be demons, but it’s not. It seems like a story where rewinding time will resolve the situation, but it’s not. It seems like a story where everybody will be made to forget what happened, but it’s not. John Dorney’s too clever for any of those cliches, and he knows not to break the time-travel rules, but he can sure skirt around them. Parts of the story are told in anachronic order, and parts of that are people telling stories to other people, sometimes even nested. And within that there are references to other stories you probably already know. But the story is never difficult to follow, and the narrative jumping around is never used for cheap tricks, so it all feels natural. The big twist, I must admit, doesn’t hold up quite as well on a relisten, but the first time through, it was very effective. Possibly my favorite Big Finish Christmas story.