(no subject)
I couldn't see any posts about the new books, apologies if this is old stuff - I picked up the three new novels today and started with The Twilight Streets (the one with Ianto in clown makeup on the cover). Enjoyed it a lot, and there's a lot of Jack/Ianto stuff that might be of interest to this community:
(ETA: I've now read Trace Memory too, so I've added some notes for that.)
The Twilight Streets
The plot for The Twilight Streets involves the return of Bilis Manger, a 'haunted' area of Cardiff that Jack's never been able to enter without feeling intensely sick, and the gang getting to experience a possible future where Tosh, Owen and Gwen have become corrupted by a force called 'Dark' and are using Jack's immortality to control the Torchwood Empire (by keeping him in a sealed cabinet and siphoning off the energy every few hours, when he suffocates and comes back to life.) I enjoyed it a lot - I'm a little puzzled by the plot, the two Abaddons and where Manger's evil twin comes into all this, but that's because I was interested enough to be racing through it.
So, the shippy and character bits:
- everyone on the team knows about Jack and Ianto. Ianto seems a little flustered about this, especially when Gwen and Tosh assume that Jack must have stayed at his place the night before since he's not in the Hub. When Jack says he's taking some time off, Owen suggests he take Ianto with him (this isn't altruism, he wants to race the jeep and Ianto shouts at him when he does that.) The team interactions are really fun, particularly Tosh and Owen's conviction that Ianto might poison their coffee at any minute, especially if they let something bad happen to Jack.
- Gwen asks Ianto if he likes Abba; he delivers a quite magnificent speech about his opinions on their work (he hates Dancing Queen.) She correctly guesses that he's come up against that particular stereotype before - yes, he says, from his mum. "When she found out about you and Jack?" Gwen asks, but Ianto says no; it was when he was fourteen. He then rips Gwen's head off for remarking that bisexuals have the best of both worlds.
- Jack has a key to Ianto's flat.
- in the possible future, Ianto's the only one of the team who doesn't betray Jack - he and Rhys (!) resist the other three and Ianto's killed trying to free Jack (though not before he kills Owen first). It's very shippy ("One last look at Jack. His Jack.") and dying in the illusion brings Ianto back to the real world - as the book puts it, "His love for Jack had brought him back." Meanwhile, still in the 'future', Jack somehow senses his death - "He knew then that Ianto was dead. Somewhere inside his head he felt something sever and die." - and goes a bit mental - "He was driven by something more powerful than good sense or logic. He was driven by the death of Ianto Jones."
- Oh, and when the rest of the team turns on him and he realises he's stuck in a prison, perpetually dying - "Jack smiled. Because he knew that Ianto would find a way. Because he was Ianto."
- And (this is still the future) Rhys names his and Gwen's son 'Jack Ianto'. It's insanely fanficcy. ETA: and I applaud the tie-ins being fanficcy, because fanfic is of the good. Especially this sort.
- Back in the present day, Jack finally forces himself into the street he's been trying to enter for a hundred years. Turns out he needed some incentive - "Ianto in trouble, in possible pain, was enough for Jack."
- The first chapter is set in 1941, when Jack's some sort of freelance agent for Torchwood - he sticks around because he's involved with a man called Greg. Bilis Manger points out that Greg's not very different from Ianto. He also says that Jack was in love with Greg, which Ianto reacts to, but Jack doesn't look at him.
- Jack gets a lot of action, actually - Ianto reads from a file about Jack and a (female) Torchwood driver having sex in the back of the company's Daimler in 1922, Jack reminisces about a threesome with a showgirl and a sailor, and he gets snogged by both a man and a woman during the story.
- there's a scene near the end with the team on a high building. Gwen remarks that she hates heights; Ianto says "you should go on a date with [Jack]", adding that Jack thinks that standing on roofs is a great time but he refused to go on a rollercoaster with Ianto on the grounds that it was a deathtrap. (Fic please?)
- to add to the stopwatch/hockey stick bizarre sex play reference catalogue, Jack makes a remark about Ianto with jumpleads and a pole. Gwen and Owen sarcastically thank him for the mental image.
And loads of other stuff, really, which I'll add in if I remember.
Trace Memory
Damn, I loved this book.
The plot's very simple compared to Twilight Streets; basically it's Torchwood does The Time Traveller's Wife and it's very much in the vein of Out of Time or Captain Jack Harkness. In 1953 a young Cardiff docker called Michael is exposed to radiation from an alien artifact and gets displaced in time, landing in one of Torchwood's basements in the present day. And every one of the team knows him already; Michael's going to continue moving back and forwards through time, drawn to the team because they've been exposed to the same type of radiation from the artifact. So Tosh met him when she was a little girl in Japan, Owen treated him as a junior doctor, Ianto was at Torchwood One when he caused a security alert there, Gwen arrested him on her first day patrolling with Andy - and Jack knew him for a short time in the 60s, when they were lovers.
There's much less Jack/Ianto than in the last book since this is more Random Shoes-like, focussing mostly on Michael and Jack, but Ianto's initially jealous of Michael and asks Jack where it leaves them, now that he has Michael back - but Jack explains that Michael's going to vanish again, that from his point of view he doesn't know Jack yet, and Ianto tells him to go to him for however long they've got. Aside from this angst there's a lighter bit early on in the book, with Ianto's James Bond obsession revealed and a rather cute conversation -
Ianto Jones was at his station behind the run-down Tourist Information Centre that served as a front to the clandestine goings-on in Torchwood. His bare feet were on the desk, his tie slumped like a crestfallen snake nest to an open pizza box, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
"Taking it easy, I see?" said Jack, stepping through the security door that led to the Hub itself. "Well, at least somebody has the right idea. Whatcha doing there, Sport?"
"'Sport'?" said Ianto. "Not sure I like 'Sport' as a term of endearment. 'Sexy' is good, if unimaginative. 'Pumpkin' is a bit much, but 'Sport'? No. You'll have to think of another one."
"OK, Tiger Pants. Whatcha doing?"
(If anyone's wondering, this is only locked because I get a bit weirded out when the authors google their stuff and then join in the discussions. Which they're perfectly in their rights to do so, but I'd rather my squeeing was done in private...)
(ETA: I've now read Trace Memory too, so I've added some notes for that.)
The Twilight Streets
The plot for The Twilight Streets involves the return of Bilis Manger, a 'haunted' area of Cardiff that Jack's never been able to enter without feeling intensely sick, and the gang getting to experience a possible future where Tosh, Owen and Gwen have become corrupted by a force called 'Dark' and are using Jack's immortality to control the Torchwood Empire (by keeping him in a sealed cabinet and siphoning off the energy every few hours, when he suffocates and comes back to life.) I enjoyed it a lot - I'm a little puzzled by the plot, the two Abaddons and where Manger's evil twin comes into all this, but that's because I was interested enough to be racing through it.
So, the shippy and character bits:
- everyone on the team knows about Jack and Ianto. Ianto seems a little flustered about this, especially when Gwen and Tosh assume that Jack must have stayed at his place the night before since he's not in the Hub. When Jack says he's taking some time off, Owen suggests he take Ianto with him (this isn't altruism, he wants to race the jeep and Ianto shouts at him when he does that.) The team interactions are really fun, particularly Tosh and Owen's conviction that Ianto might poison their coffee at any minute, especially if they let something bad happen to Jack.
- Gwen asks Ianto if he likes Abba; he delivers a quite magnificent speech about his opinions on their work (he hates Dancing Queen.) She correctly guesses that he's come up against that particular stereotype before - yes, he says, from his mum. "When she found out about you and Jack?" Gwen asks, but Ianto says no; it was when he was fourteen. He then rips Gwen's head off for remarking that bisexuals have the best of both worlds.
- Jack has a key to Ianto's flat.
- in the possible future, Ianto's the only one of the team who doesn't betray Jack - he and Rhys (!) resist the other three and Ianto's killed trying to free Jack (though not before he kills Owen first). It's very shippy ("One last look at Jack. His Jack.") and dying in the illusion brings Ianto back to the real world - as the book puts it, "His love for Jack had brought him back." Meanwhile, still in the 'future', Jack somehow senses his death - "He knew then that Ianto was dead. Somewhere inside his head he felt something sever and die." - and goes a bit mental - "He was driven by something more powerful than good sense or logic. He was driven by the death of Ianto Jones."
- Oh, and when the rest of the team turns on him and he realises he's stuck in a prison, perpetually dying - "Jack smiled. Because he knew that Ianto would find a way. Because he was Ianto."
- And (this is still the future) Rhys names his and Gwen's son 'Jack Ianto'. It's insanely fanficcy. ETA: and I applaud the tie-ins being fanficcy, because fanfic is of the good. Especially this sort.
- Back in the present day, Jack finally forces himself into the street he's been trying to enter for a hundred years. Turns out he needed some incentive - "Ianto in trouble, in possible pain, was enough for Jack."
- The first chapter is set in 1941, when Jack's some sort of freelance agent for Torchwood - he sticks around because he's involved with a man called Greg. Bilis Manger points out that Greg's not very different from Ianto. He also says that Jack was in love with Greg, which Ianto reacts to, but Jack doesn't look at him.
- Jack gets a lot of action, actually - Ianto reads from a file about Jack and a (female) Torchwood driver having sex in the back of the company's Daimler in 1922, Jack reminisces about a threesome with a showgirl and a sailor, and he gets snogged by both a man and a woman during the story.
- there's a scene near the end with the team on a high building. Gwen remarks that she hates heights; Ianto says "you should go on a date with [Jack]", adding that Jack thinks that standing on roofs is a great time but he refused to go on a rollercoaster with Ianto on the grounds that it was a deathtrap. (Fic please?)
- to add to the stopwatch/hockey stick bizarre sex play reference catalogue, Jack makes a remark about Ianto with jumpleads and a pole. Gwen and Owen sarcastically thank him for the mental image.
And loads of other stuff, really, which I'll add in if I remember.
Trace Memory
Damn, I loved this book.
The plot's very simple compared to Twilight Streets; basically it's Torchwood does The Time Traveller's Wife and it's very much in the vein of Out of Time or Captain Jack Harkness. In 1953 a young Cardiff docker called Michael is exposed to radiation from an alien artifact and gets displaced in time, landing in one of Torchwood's basements in the present day. And every one of the team knows him already; Michael's going to continue moving back and forwards through time, drawn to the team because they've been exposed to the same type of radiation from the artifact. So Tosh met him when she was a little girl in Japan, Owen treated him as a junior doctor, Ianto was at Torchwood One when he caused a security alert there, Gwen arrested him on her first day patrolling with Andy - and Jack knew him for a short time in the 60s, when they were lovers.
There's much less Jack/Ianto than in the last book since this is more Random Shoes-like, focussing mostly on Michael and Jack, but Ianto's initially jealous of Michael and asks Jack where it leaves them, now that he has Michael back - but Jack explains that Michael's going to vanish again, that from his point of view he doesn't know Jack yet, and Ianto tells him to go to him for however long they've got. Aside from this angst there's a lighter bit early on in the book, with Ianto's James Bond obsession revealed and a rather cute conversation -
Ianto Jones was at his station behind the run-down Tourist Information Centre that served as a front to the clandestine goings-on in Torchwood. His bare feet were on the desk, his tie slumped like a crestfallen snake nest to an open pizza box, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
"Taking it easy, I see?" said Jack, stepping through the security door that led to the Hub itself. "Well, at least somebody has the right idea. Whatcha doing there, Sport?"
"'Sport'?" said Ianto. "Not sure I like 'Sport' as a term of endearment. 'Sexy' is good, if unimaginative. 'Pumpkin' is a bit much, but 'Sport'? No. You'll have to think of another one."
"OK, Tiger Pants. Whatcha doing?"
(If anyone's wondering, this is only locked because I get a bit weirded out when the authors google their stuff and then join in the discussions. Which they're perfectly in their rights to do so, but I'd rather my squeeing was done in private...)