All good storytelling works on two levels — allegory and surface-level narrative. When absorbing a story, people make a choice. Do they focus on the allegory, the surface level narrative, or both equally? For me, focusing on allegory is like going to a fashion show for the coat hangers.

Make no mistake. The Human Frontier is an excellent allegory, driven by important themes. What does it mean to be human? Do we ultimately have free will? What does survival look like and do we even have the right to survive? All of these questions matter, and I do ponder them. That said, if I mentally remove the allegorical coat hangers, does Briggs’ intergalactic fashion line flow across the Big Finish catwalk? Yes, it does.

I care about the characters. I care about the universe they inhabit. The Human Frontier is part love story, part murder mystery, and part war tragedy. Briggs leaves all these plot threads unresolved with gloriously annoying cliffhangers.

I’m already impatient for the next chapters of The Human Frontier. Fortunately, the audio format is proving resilient in these troubled times. Listeners can console themselves that the story will be completed, and we can escape our very real problems while rooting for Anna, Daisy, Nilly, and the others to escape theirs. Scifi Pulse

Read the full review here: https://scifipulse.net/in-review-big-finish-the-human-frontier/