October Books 1) Torchwood: Consequences, by various
This was the first, and I think only, book of short stories about Torchwood, and a fine collection it is too. We start with "The Baby Farmers" by David Llewellyn, set in the Victorian Torchwood era which generated so much fanfic from just a few mentions on screen, a lovely canonification of this setting; and then there's what will presumably be the last ever Tosh/Owen story, "Kaleidoscope" by Sarah Pinborough, set in the Jack-less interval between Seasons 1 and 2, where I can partly interpret the alien tech of the title as fannish gaze on the characters.
There are then two linked stories set after Season 2, "The Wrong Hands" by none other than long-ago Who script editor Andrew Cartmel, an excellent creepy tale about an evil alien baby, and "Virus" by James Moran, where the baby's father turns up and which I'm afraid I found by some way the weakest in the book.
And we finish with the title story, "Consequences" by Joe Lidster, which brings up front the experiences of a woman who has been a briefly glimpsed background character in several of the previous Torchwood novels, and how her life has been turned into a story written by someone else. I thought it was rather clever.
That takes me to the end of the original run of fifteen Torchwood books, though there are another three out there. I have been in general very impressed. These are grown-up stories written for grown-up readers, and I note that they are as popular on LibraryThing as are the most popular of the Doctor Who ranges. Presumably they will now start turning up second-hand with greater frequency; well worth grabbing any of them that you see (with the exception of Sarah Pinborough's Into The Silence whose ending disgusted me). It's a shame that tie-in fiction doesn't get a lot of wider attention; these books are in general a lot better than some I have read from award shortlists in recent years.
There are then two linked stories set after Season 2, "The Wrong Hands" by none other than long-ago Who script editor Andrew Cartmel, an excellent creepy tale about an evil alien baby, and "Virus" by James Moran, where the baby's father turns up and which I'm afraid I found by some way the weakest in the book.
And we finish with the title story, "Consequences" by Joe Lidster, which brings up front the experiences of a woman who has been a briefly glimpsed background character in several of the previous Torchwood novels, and how her life has been turned into a story written by someone else. I thought it was rather clever.
That takes me to the end of the original run of fifteen Torchwood books, though there are another three out there. I have been in general very impressed. These are grown-up stories written for grown-up readers, and I note that they are as popular on LibraryThing as are the most popular of the Doctor Who ranges. Presumably they will now start turning up second-hand with greater frequency; well worth grabbing any of them that you see (with the exception of Sarah Pinborough's Into The Silence whose ending disgusted me). It's a shame that tie-in fiction doesn't get a lot of wider attention; these books are in general a lot better than some I have read from award shortlists in recent years.