Another Life

Another Life has a great start, but it just slows down to a crawl and there's parts of it that really don't work for me. Everything to do with Second Reality just has that vibe of people who don't understand online culture trying to write about it, seriously, an in game item that reveals the real names and emails of people you look at in game, that's an extreme privacy violation. Also while I can believe Tosh using alien tech to make things more high-res for Owen, no way would it work for other people who use an an item Owen owns.

There is some really great character stuff in there, especially towards the start. The chapters from the Alien's POV give great insight into how it works and what it's thinking which I really love, and there's a great moment at the beginning where Owen is getting at Gwen for caring about people who die.... but it all falls flat later.

For a story that's meant to be focusing more on Owen, the elements you learn about his backstory don't quite gel with what you see on the TV show. To be fair, my main problem is with the idea that Owen was always like how he is now, running from a relationship because he didn't want to commit, which isn't the fault of the story because it was written pre-fragments when you see more of him pre-Torchwood, but it's an element that doesn't really work now. We also don't get enough time with him at all after Megan's death, which is a real shame given how much focus she's given in the story.

The ending also felt a little weaker for me with the use of Second Reality to stop Owen, and Jack's immortality stopping the alien (somehow?) (it's not really clear why the alien couldn't just stay in his body as he comes back?).

But overall, there was enough enjoyable here for me to give this a 5/10, I like a lot of the character stuff, and the mystery is pretty fun, but yeah, overall mostly 'meh'

Unlike the other ‘official’ TV spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood has spawned quite a lengthy range of novels. Another Life by Peter Angehelides is, arguably, the first; although the initial three novels were actually released at the same time.

It’s been a long time since I actually sat down and watched any Torchwood. In fact, I don’t think I’ve watched an episode since the rather disappointing Miracle Day series. Reading a novel featuring the original team of Jack, Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Ianto, though, brought the memories flooding back and I was immediately back in the Torchwood hub.

Pleasingly, this novel seems to sidestep, somewhat, the first series of Torchwood’s habit of throwing in sex and swearing to make it seem adult. There is more swearing, there is definitely more gore and there is a smattering of sex, but it all seems natural within the context of the plot and characters.
The story sees Cardiff Bay flooded (with a series of well-realised images) and a series of unexplained, savage murders. How these are tied together isn’t the most original of ideas, but it is a satisfying resolution and is well told throughout.

One aspect of the plot which is more or less abandoned half way through is the online virtual reality game being played by Owen. Much is made of Tosh improving the system and Owen using it to track down an old flame, Megan, but then it is forgotten about until the climactic scenes where it is suddenly brought back into play to trick the villain. There was a point in the story where I wondered whether the author had deliberately abandoned the whole idea because it has served its purpose of bringing Owen and Megan together. There is, of course, the parallel with the alien controlling humans by possessing their bodies in a similar way to the players of the game taking on avatars, but I didn’t feel like the two parts of the story gelled as well as they could. I also felt the whole game concept seemed a bit dated (although I had just watched an episode of Grimm from Season 2 with a very similar idea) and Owen was the last person of that team I would expect to be the ‘geek’ spending hours playing online (that’s more a Ianto or even Tosh kind of thing).

The inclusion of Megan as a potential new recruit from Torchwood ends, inevitably, with her death. As a way of developing Owen as a character it was interesting, but it was a shame that Megan’s fate was fairly obvious in the same way ‘surrogate’ companions in Doctor Who novels and audios are rarely to have a happy ending just because otherwise, their presence raises awkward questions for why they don’t appear or get referenced in the TV series (like how Erimem is absent from the roll call of companions in Resurrection of the Daleks).

All of the regulars are written well, although Tosh and Ianto don’t get a huge amount to do. There is a focus on the early relationship between Gwen and Jack and her difficulty with reconciling her new life at Torchwood with her old life with Rhys. It will be interesting to see how this changes in later novels when they start to reflect the development of the characters through Series 2. There are some nice hints to TV continuity as well such as a subtle reference to what Ianto has hidden in the basement.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read and a good start for the Torchwood novels. I look forward to reading more of them and it has actually made me eager to rewatch the TV series and become reacquainted with these characters.