Customer Reviews

The Twilight Streets (Torchwood)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Of all the Torchwood books to date, this is my favorite! The characters were true to form, the plot was fascinating, and the writing was great. The ending felt a bit rushed, but sometimes the TV episodes end like that also. I actually enjoyed the character development and emotional delving more than the usual "action only" plots. Don't worry, there's plenty enough action for everyone. This book explored the nature of the character's souls, their weaknesses, and their strengths. The character of Gwen did not play as major a role in the book as usual, and actually that seemed a pleasant change. I prefer a plot that balances the Torchwood team's interaction - they're all fascinating in different ways. I loved that the author delved into the developing relationship between Jack and Ianto - everyone is always wondering what their true feelings are, the nature of their relationship, and if the affection is mutual. The ending leaves no doubt. If you're a Jack/Ianto fan, this book will leave you with happy tears.

By far the best book of the Torchwood series so far. It is in The Twilight Streets that we see the return on Bilis Manger, the time traveller from the end of Torchwood Series One. It is in this book that we find out truths about the strange man and why he did what he did. I won't give too much away, but this book has a great adventure in it and quite beautifully creates the relationships between the Torchwood members perfectly. As an avid Jack/Ianto fan, I found the moments between them to be sweet and completely in character. All characters are developed beautifully and it was a fantastic read. Definitely a book I could read over and over again.

This has got to be one of my favorite Torchwood stories. Gary Russell does a fantastic job getting the characters spot on.

The story opens with Captain Jack Harkness at a train station in Cardiff, looking for someone. Random, yes, but that's not the odd part. The odd part is that it's not 2008, oh no, but towards the end of WWII. I warn you now, this book will jump back and forth between past, present, and future and will get a bit confusing. Yet it is worth every moment of confusion, for Russell does a wonderful job at keeping up suspense while having the plot continue to develop. For you Janto fans out there, it has many cute, sweet, heartfelt, and domestic moments between the boys. This book also gives a little bit more insight into the mystery that is Bilis Manger, and further develops the mystery surrounding Jack. If you don't have this book you should buy it immediately.

I enjoyed this book very much. Being familiar with the TV series I knew right where I was while reading. But I wonder if people who have not seen the series might be a little lost because the book is based somewhat on an episode of the series.

As dedicated TW fans know when BM returns you know there is going to be a good time for TW, Not !

This is one of the best Torchwood books so far! Everyone is in character and the return of Bilis was very believable. The storyline kept everything straight and flowed very smoothly. The glimpse of a possible future was disturbing, yet it made perfect sense on how the future could have turned out the way it does in the book!

The interaction between the team member showed the differences in everything that affects them or what their weaknesses would be under the influence of alien's who interact with them mentally. It was very nice to read about the characters as they would have appeared in the show. You get in depth glimpses of Owen, Tosh, Ianto, and Jack that make you look at them with a little more perspective. Also highly recommended if you like the cannon couples and the possible ideas of what might have been.

Highly recommended and worth the money!

The fabulously creepy return of Bilis Manger. As much fun as the TV shows. I'm already reading for the second time!

The Twilight Streets features Torchwood Season One's only recurring villain, the mysterious Bilis Manger. The plot starts out centering on a mysterious neighborhood in Cardiff called Tretarri, that makes Captain Jack physically ill to enter (and has done ever since Jack arrived in Great Britain in the late 1800s). The rest of the plot is hard to explain as it's rather complicated, but basically we learn that the God/Demon/Alien entity named Abaddon (destroyed by Torchwood in the big climactic episode of Season One) was a necessary force to keep in check a rival God/Demon/Alien entity named Pwccm.

Bilis Manger, it seems, was the "Seconder" (helper?) for Abaddon, while Bilis' twin/doppelganger/relative (?) named Cafard Manger was the Seconder for Pwccm. Anyway, Abaddon's destruction upended the balance between Light and Dark, so the balance has to be put right and the details of exactly how that works is quite fuzzy in my head, but it involves kidnapping Torchwood, holding a big street party, and all kinds of other weird stuff. I think there's time-travel and metaphysics involved too, and how any of this relates to a consistent Torchwood mythos I have no idea.

If the balance isn't put right, a possible alternate future is shown where the Dark (or the Light?) will possess Tosh and Owen and lead them to create the "Torchwood Empire" which has almost unlimited power by harnessing the power of Jack's ability repeatedly rise from the dead. These scenes are interesting, much like the original X-Men Days of Future Past storyline.

Plot gymnastics aside, there are some other interesting things in the book.

* We get a look at World War II Torchwood, as Jack ferries a captured alien from Torchwood One (London) to Torchwood Three (Cardiff). Torchwood Three, at that time, seems to be made up of a woman named Llinos King, a very hard-nosed woman boss named Tilda Brennan, and a guy Jack has a big crush on named Greg Bishop.

*In the modern day, we meet an interesting new character named Idris Hopper, who works in the Mayor's office and is immune to Ret-Con pills (at least the first version, which only 1/80,000 people are immune too; Jack says they've developed a new version that works on all but 1/800,000). UPDATE: Wikipedia informs me that this is a character from the Doctor Who episode "Boom Town." Yay continuity!

*We learn that Torchwood Two (Glasgow) is helmed by a strange old man named Archie, who isn't very technologically proficient (touched on briefly in the Torchwood Magazine # 14's comic strip "The Selkie").

* There's a brief but well-written discussion between Gwen and Ianto on the latter's bisexuality.

Okay. The writing is good. However, the plotting leaves a lot to be desired. It's a mish-mash of verbiage that you find difficult to follow at best, hard to believe at worst. I realize Torchwood is a series that requires us to suspend disbelief while watching, but this story, though the author captures the characters well and true, is a mess. I bought the book based on a review that said it would be good for us Jack/Ianto lovers. Well...sorely disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I felt the reviewer's level of expectation was not high enough. We had maybe a paragraph of what Ianto means to Jack and that was near the end. Jack's relationship with Idris (character from UNIT, though I've not seen him in the series) was more focused on and even that was dry and unemotional except that Idris certainly had enough of Jack and did his best to steer clear of him. I suppose the author's style of plotting is what I'm complaining about most. He seemed to not know where this story was going and pulled things out of thin air, dropping them into the story-line because it went with the 'not making sense' tone. I honestly thought the guy was high when he wrote it. What was the purpose of all the Tertarri news articles? What was happening? I got some of the gist between light and dark, but it, again, seemed rushed and highly spur-of-the-moment answers just popping out of nowhere. At the end he gives acknowledgments and confesses to having to write this book in a ridiculously short period of time, but I just felt he 'reached' instead of 'planned' the plot. I gave it three stars because I feel the author has some incredible potential...and I would dearly love to see what he can do with a story-line where he can actually plan it and explain things in a non-ridiculously short period of time. I just felt pulled and pushed in every direction with no real destination for us to latch onto with this one.

And if you are a Jack/Ianto fan, be prepared...it's not as emotional as you may hope it to be. In fact, I didn't 'feel' anything worthy of their relationship at all. It's more a 'blink and you'll miss it' type of coverage. I read the book through to the end, hoping there would be some sort of Jack/Ianto inter-action waiting for us...but...nope. Very, very disheartened.

Violence breaks out in the Hub in 1941 and Jack receives an ominous message: "Revenge for the future".

In theory, The Twilight Streets sounded like it would be the best Torchwood novel yet. Penned by Gary Russell (no stranger to the world of Doctor Who and its spinoffs), it features Bilis Manger, an enigmatic character who appeared in the first television series as well as a blink and you'll miss him character who appeared in the Doctor Who episode "Boomtown".

I really expected to love this book.

But I didn't.

The story never really captured my attention. At first I thought it was just that I was in the wrong frame of mind. However after two weeks of trying to get into it, I'd only made it to page 163 and I was forced to admit that, no matter how much I love the Torchwood team, I just didn't care about them being trapped between the Light and the Dark. The plot seemed to lack clarity and was suffocated under a lot of small set-pieces that struck me as nothing more than page filler.

Another Amazon reviewer described the book as "boring" and I'm afraid I must agree.