Customer Reviews

Torchwood: The House That Jack Built

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

 

 

I thought the narrative voice in this was very entertaining and the author's take on the Torchwood characters was engaging (especially as Alexander, the wheelchair-bound alien, was introduced). But as the story went on and the leaps from one character's point of view to another grew faster and with more events recounted multiple times, I found it a bit annoying. It made the last third of the book feel rushed. I'm not sure if the author was trying to convey a sense of the temporal anomalies he was writing about or if he was simply jumping around too much.

About time they had a book with a haunted house. You would think haunted houses and Torchwood went hand in hand? For Guy Adams to do his first Torchwood novel set in a so-called haunted house was, in my eyes, brilliant. Even if Captain Jack Harkness does not believe in ghosts he is going to have to handle this house with care. The rooms move, ghosts from the past pop up and, of course, people start to die for no reason. Well, no normal reason.
Of course Torchwood has to come see. Temporal surges seem to be the cause. Or are they?
Because it seems that in 1906 the house in question was owned by Jack. You see, Jack is the center, the cause, the effect, of the whole series of events. If that made any sense. Does it make sense to call a house Jackson Leaves?
But sometimes plots don't make sense. And neither do traps. And when you are setting a trap, you don't want anybody to notice it. Until it is too late.

The characters sound okay I guess, but they remain far too passive far too often and don't really display a lot of emotional depth as arbitrary bad things happen about them. Add that to the generally slow-paced sequence of events and a lot of repetitiveness as scenes are picked-up slightly rewound every time there is a shift in point of view and this is one book that not only can, but is, put down and picked up again with only a modicum of enthusiasm.

The House That Jack Built is, as you might manage to guess from the title, about a house built by Captain Jack Harkness. Except, it's no ordinary house: it's the place where some sort of time-travelling, paradox-eating, other-dimensional alien entity-thingies have set up shop and retroactively altered the timeline to make the house into an always-has-been site of horror and murder. As with a lot of Torchwood books, the ultimate cause of whatever is happening (aliens! aliens! aliens!) is usually secondary to the happening itself--in this case, the Poltergeist/Shining experiences of a new couple moving into the house. The author, Guy Adams, has a great grasp on the characters, a unique style of intercutting scenes so they pick up a little before the end of the previous scene (but from a different perspective), and a penchant for creating creepy goings-on. My favorite part of the book was the introduction of a new character, Alexander Martin, a stranded alien whom Jack recruits to be the fill-in doctor since Owen bit it. Alexander is a rascible, louche old man with an eye for the ladies--in other words, he's what Jack would be like if Jack were 80 years old and cranky. Suffice it to say, Alexander is a great character whom I would love to see again. Bottom line: another strong entry in the Torchwood series of novels.

I picked this book up needing a Torchwood fix now that the tv show is long gone and over. I was really missing Captain Jack Harkness. I normally don't read books based on movies or tv series, they never seem to quite measure up somehow. Yet this one was really fun and moved along at a nice crisp pace. The author clearly watched the show and did his research - he knew the voices and quirks of each of the main characters very very well. He had Jack's unabashed flirtiness and charisma down pat. Ianto's stiff upper lip common sense approach to the job interspersed with his simple true love for both Gwen and Jack was clear and solidly felt throughout the book. Gwen's relationship with Rhys was still strong and felt no different than it was on the tv show - kudos to the author, Guy Adams for pulling all that off! The story was solid as well, the only reason I'm not giving it five stars is because I am not a big fan of the change of perspective from one character to another with each chapter. (I find it disjointing, but that is my personal peeve) Overall, it did not detract from the story being told and it was nice to see things from everyone's eyes in the long run. I did like the introduction of the new alien character for the medical officer position - wonder if we'll see him again in future books?

I've read them all, or at least tried to read them all (a few of them were just too awful to finish). This, along with Trace Memory, is my favorite. I loved the glimpse into Jack's backstory and how he and Gwen worked together. The writing style is rich and compelling. The plot is complicated and rewarding. Yes, it's got a lot of layers, but they all make sense. The secondary characters are also great, and handled with sympathy: too many of the Torchwood books treated secondary characters like one-dimensional slasher film victims. The story of Alison and Miles is incredible. Not everything is perfect -- Ianto wasn't well-integrated into the plot, for example -- but all in all, this story has stayed with me in vivid detail, and I love it.

I enjoyed the time jumping in the house and Jack's history that is wound up with the house. It was an odd mix of a good read but an odd or warped plot that somehow didn't deliver the way it could have. If you keep your expectations semi-low and just enjoy the meandering of the story, you'll enjoy it a lot.

I usually am forgiving to books like this, but it was just too far of a jump from the canon. Many reasons, some of which were the re-classifying the author did for the Janto relationship, the fact he clearly wanted to add his knowledge of psychology without caring to make it in-character for whoever was spouting the knowledge, the characters were in general quite unlike we see them in the actual show. Also, the story jumped from point of views in a very broken way, literally repeating sections of dialogue to expalin where they were. The premise was alright on it's own though, I'll give it that, and if it had been done differently it could have been quite good. Alas, it was not.

if you like the Torchwood BBC series you will enjoy this book. It stays true to the characters and the writing style .

I bought this book last week. I enjoyed the story as much as I read. This review is not about the story but about the pages of the book. They smell terrible. The pages are dry, but if you've ever smelled old wet newspaper or cardboard, that's it. I stopped reading...yuck! I guess I won't buy any more of them, and I really enjoy Torchwood!