Customer Reviews

Torchwood: Bay Of The Dead

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am not really into zombies. Shaun of the Dead was as far as I will go with that type of movie. So this kind of grossed me out. Still, there was some joy and some happiness and a lot of head shots. Gamers and zombie movie lovers should love this book. It is one of a kind in the torchwood series - none of them have zombies!
While I do miss the characters of Tosh and Owen there was an advantage to having only three members of the team - the author was able focus all the details and energy on those three characters.
Get it used or new.

The Torchwood team have seen a lot of strange things, but when zombies swarm Cardiff, Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones feel as though they are living in a bad horror film. With Cardiff mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world, Torchwood and the residents of the bay city are on their own. Can Torchwood determine the source of their undead problem, and, more importantly, can they stop it?

Of all the Torchwood tie-in novels I have read (I think I have read all but three of them at this point), this was one of the most enjoyable. Zombies and Torchwood go together like bread and butter. Gwen's husband, Rhys, and her former police partner, PC Andy Davison, both play larger roles in this novel due to the absences of Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato. I am not a huge fan of Rhys, but I enjoyed him in this story. I also enjoyed seeing more of Andy; I hope we will see his role expand in future novels.

There is a fair amount of gore, as one would expect from a story centering around zombies. I was never bothered by this, despite my aversion to zombie movies as a whole. All of the Torchwood characters are portrayed well; there's quite a bit of banter between Jack and Ianto and some touching scenes between Gwen and Rhys. The story felt like it could be an episode of the show, which is my main criterion for these books.

Mark Morris has written two Doctor Who tie-in novels, Doctor Who Forever Autumn and Doctor Who: Ghosts Of India, both of which I enjoyed. I had high expectations for this book based on those two previous titles and I was not disappointed. Recommended for Torchwood fans.

So I really don't like zombie books much, in fact I'm terrified of zombies and can't even watch funny zombie movies without having nightmares, and yet I loved this book. I took a road trip with my family this past weekend and decided to read it and the whole four hours we were in the car I didn't put the book down. It was the first one of the Torchwood books I have read so I don't know how good it is in relation to the others but I did enjoy it a lot. I did find the ending kind of strange though but not bad at all.

It's a good story, but as usual for the books it seems to rush the ending. I just wish there were more books including Tosh and Owen, they were in 2 of the 3 series but seem to be in less than 50% of the books.

Okay, to be fair, if you are a fan of a never-ending flow of zombies, you'll probably love this book. I could stand it for about half the book and then the stream of mindless, flesh eating zombies chasing people just got, well, old. If you're a zombie fan and don't tend to get sick of them after awhile, totally get this book. If you're like me and actually get tired of the undead after awhile, skip it. I enjoyed all the non-zombie parts, so it is a good Torchwood book, in that respect, but once I hit my limit on the zombies, I just couldn't pay attention anymore to any of it.

Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris was a pretty mediocre Torchwood novel. It's a standard "zombie apocalypse" story, with a little bit of a twist in that the zombies are mostly simulcra created by a comatose, alien-infested ("Leet of the Dellacoi") guy who had been stricken at a horror movie festival. But basically, it's a very cliched story with little new to offer to the zombie genre or Torchwood. Nor is there enough humor or character development to gloss over the rather boring plot. The author seems to think that having the characters make a few knowing references to pop culture zombie movies suddenly makes this particular take a clever one, which simply isn't the case.

A couple of notes:

* We hear here that Captain Jack has a bit of a rivalry with a "tall, slim, beautiful black woman" police detective named Swanson (who apparently first appeared in They Keep Killing Suzie).

* We see PC Andy's new partner, Dawn Stratton.

* We get a first, brief look at a really fun character in The House That Jack Built, old man/alien Alexander Martin.

* Despite the title, nautical-oriented fans should know there's only one minor scene set on Cardiff Bay.

This is the first book I ever read from torchwood. I am a fan of the series and also I already knew the character's. I actually brought the book from the book store because I couldn't wait to read it. I not finish let with the book! It like a horror book with twist and turn's. So people who like horror book's you will enjoy the book or like torchwood series you like it also too. I won't spoiled it because it begin when two people go through the fog, end's going in circles and also see dead people who attack them. You have to figure it out when read on your. I never read the doctor who book's to critizen the book's but I watch the series to me it's kind of boring. But torchwood Capt. Jack is more a action hero then the doctor. And also I check on the viewer's point view about the doctor who book's that all like science, boring and to much of examine alien's.