Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Torchwood - Border princes , 15 Jan 2007
I've just finished reading the latest installment from the Torchwood series, and I have to say I am impressed at the way it sucked me in.
Several small tales are all explored throughout the book, all of which seem quite unrelated until they all neatly come together, weaving a complex and quite enjoyable storyline.
The plot mostly revolves around the well known members of the Torchwood team, including new addition James, who has more to him than meets the eye. This leads to the numerous twists and turns throughtout, and even thought the ending becomes quite predictable it is still an enjoyment to read.
I am now looking forward to reading the other releases in the series, and if this book is anything to go by I won't be able to put those down for a while either!
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining - for Torchwood , 13 Feb 2007
After having finished this book and more than half of the third book of the set, I think I have read the books in the right order. "Another Life" is giving the basics of the series and also introduces the known background of the characters at the time of early Torchwood well. "Slow Decay" is looking at the Gwen/Rhys relationship more closely. Reading it after "Border Princes" gives that aspect of the book more impact. Nevertheless, all three books can be read in any order. They are stand-alone novels.
"Border Princes" is the least dark of the three novels. Some parts are surprisingly funny, sometimes in a twisted, sick way, but more than once I had to smile. Having a bad cold at the moment, especially one part of the book left me half amused and half disgusted. I enjoyed that but on the other hand, the book also contains more swearing than I would have liked sometimes, especially at the beginning. I know, Torchwood is aimed at adults, but nevertheless, I don`t consider excessive swearing to be clever or "adult".
What I mainly liked about the book is the idea that there are other, kind of Torchwoods. Mr. Dine is a great character and I kept hoping that he won`t be killed off. I wish Torchwood, the TV series, would have something like that: An alien who is basically a good guy, an ally but who is obviously coming from a very different world and is still learning to understand how our society works. I could also appreciate how powerful these people are and how dangerous they can be. The vast majority of Torchwood is about dangerous, often outright bad aliens and artefacts that cause death and misery. We get the dangerous artefacts also in this book but this was a refreshing change: If there will be more Torchwood books, I am hoping very much that we will meet Mr. Dine again.
That James is not who he seems to be is obvious from the beginning because he never was a member of the Torchwood team on TV. That also meant that the relationship between him and Gwen had to end badly and I didn`t expect him to survive the book. Soon after the first appearance of Mr. Dine I had a pretty good idea of what will happen next but nevertheless, there were a few surprises and the book never stopped to be an entertaining read.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than the telly?, 9 Oct 2007
Disclaimer: This review was written before the much more enjoyable second series of Torchwood was put on telly and addressed many of the issues I had with the show.
I should point out, that while I watched Torchwood all the way through, it was more in the hope that it would all come together at some point than because I was really enjoying it. So why read one of the books? Well both Andy Lane (who wrote Slow Decay) and Dan Abnett have proven themselves fine writers and I approached Border Princes as a Dan Abnett novel instead.
So I was mildly surprised (though not that surprised) to find that Dan's novel presented the version of Torchwood I'd been expecting and hoping for. A group of paranormal investigators, normal people, who deal with crimes using alien artefacts and incursions from other realms. The interactions between the team, which I'll admit don't mirror the television show that well beyond the first episode, make you feel like they're a good team, as opposed to the backstabbing, callous bunch of cheats and liars the show featured. When watching the show I could never understand why they all kept working together when they would shoot each other, bully each other etc. Captain Jack particularly feels closer to how Russell T Davies writes him than what we saw in the show and is a lot easier going and willing to share his mysteries.
The writing is well paced and quite gripping. Even though you'll probably see where it's all going, it's a pleasant trip getting there. There's plenty of humour and the relationship writing for Gwen is particularly strong, even if Rhys does get short shrift (but then Gwen had an affair with Owen in the show, so why should we believe her relationship with Rhys is particularly strong). James, the mysterious new Torchwood member, is a nice chap too.
If you're a big fan of the show, it isn't quite so faithful as you might hope, I guess. And it is hard to figure out where it fits into the timescale. I'm tempted to suggest it may fit better in the second series, depending how that turns out. (Edit: And whaddayaknow? I was right!)
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