At work recently, I received two of the three new Torchwood<\/i> novels. :tardis:<\/p>\n
New, of course, is a relative term. This particular batch of three — Into the Silence<\/i>, The House that Jack Bult<\/i>, Bay of the Dead<\/i> — released in the UK several months ago, probably April or May. On this side of the pond, they’re brand new, out for just a month or so.<\/p>\n
I’ve finally taken them home. The two books (the only one I didn’t get was Into the Silence<\/i>) have sat on my desk, staring at me. I’ve had no interest in reading them. I’ve had no desire to touch them.<\/p>\n
The reason? Children of Earth<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake. I thought the mini-series was brilliant. It raised the bar for what was possible in a Doctor Who<\/i> story. It was harrowing. It was gutwrenching. It was moving. It was powerful.<\/p>\n
These books, out in the UK for months when Children of Earth<\/i> aired, have taken on a strange cast in the light of Children of Earth<\/i>. There on the covers — Jack, Ianto, Gwen, all happy. Ianto looking sardonic, Jack with a wry smile, Gwen content. Seeing them like that feels, for all the world, like nothing less than a betrayal.<\/p>\n
The books could be brilliant (and I’ve heard great things about The House that Jack Built<\/i>). But I don’t want to know. The adventures will doubtless feel too small. The characters of Torchwood<\/i>, always damaged to some extent in the series, aren’t the shattered hulls that emerged from the wrecked of Children of Earth<\/i>. They would be happy and lively, when the shadow of tragedy lurks just beyond the horizon. And that just seems wrong to me.<\/p>\n
Maybe, in time, I’ll feel differently, and I’ll come back to these books. But for right now, I don’t want to read them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At work recently, I received two of the three new Torchwood novels. :tardis: New, of course, is a relative term. This particular batch of three — Into the Silence, The House that Jack Bult, Bay of the Dead — released in the UK several months ago, probably April or May. On this side of theContinue reading “On New Torchwood Novels”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4082,9],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-who","tag-doctor-who","tag-torchwood","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}