Book Review - Slow Decay
Jul. 9th, 2014 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99I picked up a bunch of Torchwood hardbacks from one of the local charity shows so there might be a few of these in the next few weeks.
One of the most fun things was trying to place the book into the TV show continuity. I'm presuming it's after Ghost Machine but before Cyberwoman, since Owen is almost bearable but things are still going clunk in the dark in the archives.
It's also interesting how it sets up things that happen later in season 1, like Owen's cage fighting in Combat and the thing that we all pretend never happened between Gwen and Owen.
On to the actual review:
A good solid book, which uses an interesting and plausible premise, and is pleasingly creepy in places. I loved a lot of the little details about the alien (and the alien tech). The characterisation of Toshiko was spot on and Jack, Gwen and Rhys were also very well done, even if a few of Jack's speeches made it clear we really haven't given John Barrowman enough credit for making some really bad dialogue sound like human speech. I thought the characterisation of Owen was a bit broad. The lack of Ianto made sense since the book is from the period where Ianto was just the teaboy.
Definitely worth a read.
Torchwood: Another Life by Peter Anghelides (80.1%)
Torchwood: The House That Jack Built by Guy Adams (78.4%)
Torchwood: Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale (78.1%)
Torchwood: Border Princes by Dan Abnett (77.7%)
Torchwood: Consequences by Joseph Lidster (77.2%)
Torchwood: Trace Memory by David Llewellyn (77.1%)
Torchwood: Risk Assessment by James Goss (76.7%)
Torchwood: Pack Animals by Peter Anghelides (75.1%)
Torchwood: The Twilight Streets by Gary Russell (74.8%)
Torchwood: Bay Of The Dead by Mark Morris (73.4%)
I suspect a couple of those are in the batch I bought.
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (expected 11.8, found 0)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (expected 11.6, found 0)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (expected 11.5, found 0)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (expected 11.4, found 0)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (expected 10.8, found 0)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (expected 10.1, found 0)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (expected 9.8, found 0)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (expected 9.8, found 0)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (expected 9.6, found 0)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (expected 9.6, found 0)
Less successful than usual because I have read one of these (Huck Finn), I want to read at least one more of these, and I've started one of the others. Admittedly Anna Karenina defeated me, but I was only 14 at the time.
One of the most fun things was trying to place the book into the TV show continuity. I'm presuming it's after Ghost Machine but before Cyberwoman, since Owen is almost bearable but things are still going clunk in the dark in the archives.
It's also interesting how it sets up things that happen later in season 1, like Owen's cage fighting in Combat and the thing that we all pretend never happened between Gwen and Owen.
On to the actual review:
A good solid book, which uses an interesting and plausible premise, and is pleasingly creepy in places. I loved a lot of the little details about the alien (and the alien tech). The characterisation of Toshiko was spot on and Jack, Gwen and Rhys were also very well done, even if a few of Jack's speeches made it clear we really haven't given John Barrowman enough credit for making some really bad dialogue sound like human speech. I thought the characterisation of Owen was a bit broad. The lack of Ianto made sense since the book is from the period where Ianto was just the teaboy.
Definitely worth a read.
Torchwood: Another Life by Peter Anghelides (80.1%)
Torchwood: The House That Jack Built by Guy Adams (78.4%)
Torchwood: Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale (78.1%)
Torchwood: Border Princes by Dan Abnett (77.7%)
Torchwood: Consequences by Joseph Lidster (77.2%)
Torchwood: Trace Memory by David Llewellyn (77.1%)
Torchwood: Risk Assessment by James Goss (76.7%)
Torchwood: Pack Animals by Peter Anghelides (75.1%)
Torchwood: The Twilight Streets by Gary Russell (74.8%)
Torchwood: Bay Of The Dead by Mark Morris (73.4%)
I suspect a couple of those are in the batch I bought.
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (expected 11.8, found 0)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (expected 11.6, found 0)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (expected 11.5, found 0)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (expected 11.4, found 0)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (expected 10.8, found 0)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (expected 10.1, found 0)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (expected 9.8, found 0)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (expected 9.8, found 0)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (expected 9.6, found 0)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (expected 9.6, found 0)
Less successful than usual because I have read one of these (Huck Finn), I want to read at least one more of these, and I've started one of the others. Admittedly Anna Karenina defeated me, but I was only 14 at the time.
