It took me a while, but I finally managed to turn my attention to the Torchwood novels. I was rather curious about their content, considering the darker, more violent, more adult nature of this corner of the Doctor Who universe. It could translate into fantastic prose in the right hands…but would it be there in the books I chose to read?
I shouldn’t have worried. My first three dips into the Torchwood literary universe were suitably rewarding, and I discovered a new star in the process…
Written by Guy Adams
The plot and the setting are standard issue Torchwood. A creepy, haunted house with *temporal/extraterrestrial *issues. A painful secret from Jack’s mysterious and slightly sordid past, coming back to bite him in the rear end. Gwen doing her best to sort out the situation, and Ianto doing his best to keep everyone well fed, well watered, well dressed, and well supplied.
In some sense, it’s playing everything very safe - the prime example of what could be the result of a “random Torchwood story generator”. That said, it adds it own tweaks to the standard Torchwood clichés, and manages to rise above the muck to be, by turns, poignant, frightening, shocking, and hilarious…sometimes all at once. If you can sum up a typical Torchwood situation of this kind, look no further than the scene where Ianto is knocked over by an invisible tram car…and ends up wet and frozen in a closet!
It’s a tight little package of Torchwood goodness. The prose flows like a cool stream: the author has each of the characters’ voices down to a reasonably successful degree, the action is fast, the pace is quick, and the story concludes very efficiently. It’s not something that completely knocked my socks off, but it’s the perfect introductory novel for a Torchwood neophyte, and it never outstays its welcome. Frankly, I was surprised by just how much I ended up enjoying the story. In short: a good first choice for a novel from the series.
7
Written by James Goss
One of the most outrageous books I’ve read in recent memory. If Almost Perfect proves one thing, it’s that James Goss is a man who DESERVES to write for the television incarnation of Torchwood. Immediately!
Almost Perfect is, in every sense, completely perfect. Goss has captured the characters’ voices, behavious, and mannerisms in a way I didn’t imagine was possible. Jack’s recklessness and bacchanalial instincts, the completely splendid and beautiful marital relationship of Gwen & Rhys, and the courageous yet insecure Ianto, who is completely tossed into the deep end…leaving his friends trying to come to terms with a transformation that boggles the mind. In every conceivable way, Goss makes the Torchwood team leap off the page with a dynamism worthy of the best performances in the best episodes of the series.
Not content to master the characters, Goss also manages to concoct a story that plays games with every conceivable aspect of the Torchwood playground. Where else will you find people turning into dust after a first date? Where else do powerful, reality-warping aliens retire, content to make life better for the gay community of Cardiff? Where else does a moving wall of bodies trap people…and result in ironic, sarcastic arguments about how the hell to escape? Where else does a shopping trip with a gender-transformed Ianto turn into a comedy of errors? Most magnificent of all: the speed-dating class attended by Rhys & Gwen, which is so full of genuine, authentic couples humour & slapstick hilarity that it should be marked down as one of the best passage from ANY book set in the Doctor Who literary universe.
If there is one Torchwood book you must read…if there is only one Torchwood book you will EVER read…it is Almost Perfect. Its title is the understatement of the year.
10
Written by James Goss
Ironically, it’s not as risk-embracing as Almost Perfect, but it sucessfully takes a different path to the previous novel. It takes Goss’ masterful command of the Torchwood cast, and applies it to the past: Torchwood’s murky, fascinating, mysterious history.
With the introduction of the mysterious risk assessor Agnes Havisham, flashback sequences become a fascinating digression from the main plot of the story. We are privy to the thoughts of a dying Queen Victoria, the terrors suffered by Jack & Company’s predecessors, and the buried emotions that result from giving up one’s life to a greater cause. It’s very poignant watching Gwen trying to comprehend the loneliness inherent in Agnes’ position as the last bastion of a Victorian, imperial Torchwood…to say nothing of watching Jack completely transform in her presence. Gone is the jaunty self-confidence and lewdness. In its place comes a quiet, nervous trepidation…and it manages to throw everyone (including the reader) for a loop.
It’s the central mystery of the novel that sits uncomfortably side-by-side with the story of Ms. Havesham and the trips down memory lane. They are both well written and both absorbing, hilarious, and action packed…but they seem to have been bolted together from completely different novels. Now, I’ll be the first to say that they’ve been fused with exceptional skill…but as I read about Jack & Agnes fighting an alien, zombie-like menace, it feels like a distraction from the more fascinating exploration of Torchwood’s melancholy & violent past. I’m also left with a head-scratcher ending that continues to puzzle me. What is Goss trying to imply?
The final verdict? Masterfully written & full of characters that leap off the page…but not quite the gorgeous jewel that was Almost Perfect. Let’s consider it a messy triumph and leave it at that.
8
