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Another new Torchwood book! Hurrah! Or not.
In "Skypoint", Gwen and Rhys find a shiny new apartment block that they think they might quite like to live in; but when they visit it, the estate agent disappears. In order to investigate, Owen and Tosh play like husband and wife, and move in. They find a monster living in the air conditioning, that can melt out of the wall and steal a person in the space of a heartbeat, leaving them as picturesquely hideous gunk post-digestion. So far so good. It's nice to see Owen (and especially Tosh) getting more to do; although even here somehow Tosh manages to get sidelined. It's her own story, for pete's sake, and she's getting upstaged by the guest cast. Most of them seem to get more to do than she does, and Owen gets more too. Yeah, we know he's dead. Really, we do. The angst was nicely done on the screen, so let's not repeat it - and really I do mean repeat it - in the books, please.
So much for the plot, then, but what of the execution? Somehow it gets so boring, so quickly. There's a lightening fast monster than can slip out of the wall and eat people, so where's the drama? Where's the tension? Meanwhile a small girl wanders about with a giant pixie doll, and they're so clearly at the middle of everything. Sadly the reader knows this, but the cast doesn't; so for the whole of the book the answer is bloody obvious to the reader, whilst the cast just flounders. There's a human bad guy who also knows what's going on - rather a fascinating character, with a lot going for him. He'd be a good focus for a book. Sadly, though, he's not the focus of this book. He threatens some people, hangs about in the background, and then never really does anything. He's built up to be a big threat, but he isn't. He should be, though. I'd like to see him back in the future, and this time being the Big Bad in his own right. Presumably Torchwood have retconned him, though. Damned shame.
Things nearly get exciting towards the end of the book. Said bad guy (Lucca) traps the Torchwood lot in the apartment building, so it's them against the beast - although, let's be honest, they had to fight it once they'd found it anyway, so trapping them was rather redundant - and it attacks people periodically. For some reason it's suddenly gone slo-mo, though. Earlier in the book it was repeatedly shown that this thing is fast. Really, really fast. Turn your back for a second and the person with you is gone. Now suddenly it's advancing slowly, and there's time to plan strategies. Huh?! Predictably enough it doesn't want to eat Owen, so at some point he figures out that he'll be bad for it, and injects it with a vial of his own blood, killing it. Yep, just like that. Nobody but he knows what's going on. In the middle of a scene he just comes up with the idea and wham, the story is over in a page. No build up, nothing. It's a hell of an anti-climax. A bit of talking to explain the bits that nobody could be bothered to explain earlier, and that's it. Add in an obligatory moment where it's pointed out that Gwen is the Best! Person! Ever! - even though she does nothing at all in this book - and that's pretty much the sum total of the plot. Superfast monster ceases to be superfast, largely for dramatic reasons, then gets injected and dies. Yeah, whatever.
In all honesty, an entirely pointless story.
In "Skypoint", Gwen and Rhys find a shiny new apartment block that they think they might quite like to live in; but when they visit it, the estate agent disappears. In order to investigate, Owen and Tosh play like husband and wife, and move in. They find a monster living in the air conditioning, that can melt out of the wall and steal a person in the space of a heartbeat, leaving them as picturesquely hideous gunk post-digestion. So far so good. It's nice to see Owen (and especially Tosh) getting more to do; although even here somehow Tosh manages to get sidelined. It's her own story, for pete's sake, and she's getting upstaged by the guest cast. Most of them seem to get more to do than she does, and Owen gets more too. Yeah, we know he's dead. Really, we do. The angst was nicely done on the screen, so let's not repeat it - and really I do mean repeat it - in the books, please.
So much for the plot, then, but what of the execution? Somehow it gets so boring, so quickly. There's a lightening fast monster than can slip out of the wall and eat people, so where's the drama? Where's the tension? Meanwhile a small girl wanders about with a giant pixie doll, and they're so clearly at the middle of everything. Sadly the reader knows this, but the cast doesn't; so for the whole of the book the answer is bloody obvious to the reader, whilst the cast just flounders. There's a human bad guy who also knows what's going on - rather a fascinating character, with a lot going for him. He'd be a good focus for a book. Sadly, though, he's not the focus of this book. He threatens some people, hangs about in the background, and then never really does anything. He's built up to be a big threat, but he isn't. He should be, though. I'd like to see him back in the future, and this time being the Big Bad in his own right. Presumably Torchwood have retconned him, though. Damned shame.
Things nearly get exciting towards the end of the book. Said bad guy (Lucca) traps the Torchwood lot in the apartment building, so it's them against the beast - although, let's be honest, they had to fight it once they'd found it anyway, so trapping them was rather redundant - and it attacks people periodically. For some reason it's suddenly gone slo-mo, though. Earlier in the book it was repeatedly shown that this thing is fast. Really, really fast. Turn your back for a second and the person with you is gone. Now suddenly it's advancing slowly, and there's time to plan strategies. Huh?! Predictably enough it doesn't want to eat Owen, so at some point he figures out that he'll be bad for it, and injects it with a vial of his own blood, killing it. Yep, just like that. Nobody but he knows what's going on. In the middle of a scene he just comes up with the idea and wham, the story is over in a page. No build up, nothing. It's a hell of an anti-climax. A bit of talking to explain the bits that nobody could be bothered to explain earlier, and that's it. Add in an obligatory moment where it's pointed out that Gwen is the Best! Person! Ever! - even though she does nothing at all in this book - and that's pretty much the sum total of the plot. Superfast monster ceases to be superfast, largely for dramatic reasons, then gets injected and dies. Yeah, whatever.
In all honesty, an entirely pointless story.