More Torchwood Books

[Andrew Curnow]

Some news here, that I've just nicked wholesale from OG:

BBC Books has released details on the second trio of Torchwood books. The Twilight Streets by Gary Russell, Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale, and an as yet untitled novel by David Llewellyn are currently due for release on March 6th, 2008.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER
by Trevor Baxendale
Dr Bob Strong’s GP surgery has been treating a lot of coughs and colds recently, far more than is normal for the time of year. Bob thinks there’s something up but he can’t think what. He seems to have caught it himself, whatever it is – he’s starting to cough badly and there are flecks of blood in his hanky.
Saskia Harden has been found on a number of occasions submerged in ponds or canals but alive and seemingly none the worse for wear. Saskia is not on any files, except in the medical records at Dr Strong’s GP practice.
But Torchwood’s priorities lie elsewhere: investigating ghostly apparitions in South Wales, they have found a dead body. It’s old and in an advanced state of decay. And it is still able to talk.
And what it is saying is ‘Water hag’…

[TITLE TBC]
by David Llewellyn
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1950. A mysterious crate is brought into the docks on a Scandinavian cargo ship. Its destination: the Torchwood Institute. As the crate is offloaded by a group of local dockers, it explodes, killing all but one of them, a young Butetown lad called Michael Bellini.
Fifty-eight years later, a radioactive source somewhere inside the Hub leads Torchwood to discover the same Michael Bellini, still young and dressed in his 1950s clothes, cowering in the vaults. They soon realise that each has encountered Michael before – as a child in Osaka, as a junior doctor, as a young police constable, as a new recruit to Torchwood One. But it’s Jack who remembers him best of all.
Michael’s involuntary time-travelling has something to do with a radiation-charged relic held inside the crate. And the Men in Bowler Hats are coming to get it back.

THE TWILIGHT STREETS
by Gary Russell
There’s a part of the city that no one much goes to, a collection of rundown old houses and gloomy streets. No one stays there long, and no one can explain why – something’s not quite right there.
Now the Council is renovating the district, and a new company is overseeing the work. There will be street parties and events to show off the newly gentrified neighbourhood: clowns and face-painters for the kids, magicians for the adults – the street entertainers of Cardiff, out in force.
None of this is Torchwood’s problem. Until Toshiko recognises the sponsor of the street parties: Bilis Manger.
Now there is something for Torchwood to investigate. But Captain Jack Harkness has never been able to get into the area; it makes him physically ill to go near it. Without Jack’s help, Torchwood must face the darker side of urban Cardiff alone…

I'm pleased to hear some more of these are on the way (presumably they'll be coming out partway during transmission of season 2). The three already released were all pretty good reads (generally more satisfying than the new Who books I have to say) and all adopted a kind of "A smoggy Thursday in a mean city" kind of style which worked well.

And... interesting to see Bilis Manger mentioned. I'm not sure whether that makes it more or less likely that Bilis will figure in season 2.

[Jon Masters]

Good news - I also found the books very enjoyable (prob more so than new DW books)

[Pip Madeley]

And here's the covers...

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm really looking forward to these; and even the covers seem to be more exciting than the Who books!

[Rob McCow]

Again, while the Doctor Who books I'd leave on the shelf, I'm quite happy to give these a look in!

[Si Hunt]

Someone's gone mad with photoshop on the Gary Russell book cover.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

More more more!

Pack Animals - Peter Anghelides

Shopping for wedding gifts with your fiancé is enjoyable, unless like Gwen you witness a Weevil massacre in the shopping centre. A trip to the zoo is a great day out, until a date goes tragically wrong and Ianto is badly injured by stolen alien tech. And Halloween is a day of fun and frights, before unspeakable monsters invade the streets of Cardiff and it’s no longer a trick or a treat for the terrified population.

Torchwood can control small groups of scavengers, but now someone has given large numbers of predators a season ticket to Earth. Jack’s investigation is hampered when he finds he’s being investigated himself. Owen is convinced that it’s just one guy who’s toying with them. But will Torchwood find out before it’s too late that the game is horribly real, and the deck is stacked against them?

Peter Anghelides wrote the bestselling Another Life for the first series of Torchwood novels. He has written more than a dozen Doctor Who novels, short stories and audio plays.

SkyPoint – Phil Ford

"If you’re going to be anyone in Cardiff, you’re going to be at SkyPoint!"

SkyPoint is the latest high-rise addition to the ever-developing Cardiff skyline. It’s the most high-tech, avant-garde apartment block in the city. And it’s where Rhys Williams is hoping to find a new home for himself and Gwen. Gwen’s more concerned by the money behind the tower block – Besnik Lucca, a name she knows from her days in uniform.

When Torchwood discover that residents have been going missing from the tower block, one of the team gets her dream assignment. Soon SkyPoint’s latest newly married tenants are moving in. And Toshiko Sato finally gets to make a home with Owen Harper.

Then something comes out of the wall…

Phil Ford has written scripts for both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures for BBC Television, and also wrote the Alternate Reality Game for the official Torchwood website. His extensive screenwriting credits include episodes of Taggart, Bad Girls, New Captain Scarlet and Coronation Street.

Almost Perfect - James Goss

Emma is 30, single and frankly desperate. She woke up this morning with nothing to look forward to but another evening of unsuccessful speed-dating. But now she has a new weapon in her quest for Mr Right. And it’s made her almost perfect.

Gwen Cooper woke up this morning expecting the unexpected. As usual. She went to work and found a skeleton at a table for two and a colleague in a surprisingly glamorous dress. Perfect.

Ianto Jones woke up this morning with no memory of last night. He went to work, where he caused amusement, suspicion and a little bit of jealousy. Because Ianto Jones woke up this morning in the body of a woman. And he’s looking just about perfect.

And Jack Harkness has always had his doubts about Perfection.

James Goss spent seven years working on the BBC’s official Doctor Who website and co-wrote the website for Torchwood Series One. In 2007, he won the Best Adaptation category in the annual LA Weekly Theatre Awards for his version of Douglas Adams’ novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

[Dirk Gently]

There's something not quite right about that tigers face. It looks grumpy or something.

[Rob McCow]

I love the 'trimmed down' team on the cover of the last book!

[Andrew Curnow]

Do you know, I never spotted that!!

One possible explanation would be that I was too busy drooling over the pictures of Gwen & friend, and especially the gorgeous Tosh, on the other two...

[NorthernStar]

Ianto wakes in the body of a woman? Hear that sound? That's the sound of fangirl's squeeing to death.

Honestly, are they publishing fanfic now?

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm finding these generally much more satisfying than the Who books, so we now have all of the Torchwood books on the shelf. Admittedly, I'm a bit behind and have only just started on Trace Memory, but I'm enjoying them. Maybe they don't get as much scrutiny from Cardiff as the Who stuff, but certainly they seem to delve into the characters a lot more, referencing stuff, and fleshing out details that we don't get on screen.

[Pip Madeley]

More on the way in May 2009...



Into the Silence
The body in the church hall is very definitely dead. It has been sliced open with surgical precision, its organs exposed, and its vocal cords are gone. It is as if they were never there or they've been dissolved... With the Welsh amateur Operatic Contest getting under way, music is filling the churches and concert halls of Cardiff. The competition has attracted the finest Welsh talent to the city, but it has also drawn something else - there are stories of a metallic creature hiding in the shadows. Torchwood are on its tail, but it's moving too fast for them to track it down. This new threat requires a new tactic - so Ianto Jones is joining a male voice choir...



Bay of the Dead
When the city sleeps, the dead start to walk... Something has sealed off Cardiff, and living corpse are stalking the streets, leaving a trail of half-eaten bodies. Animals are butchered. A young coupe in their car never reach home. A stolen tugboat is brought back to shore, carrying only human remains. And a couple of girls heading back from the pub watch the mysterious drivers of a big black SUV take over a crime scene. Torchwood have to deal with the intangible barrier surrounding Cardiff, and some unidentified space debris that seems to be regenerating itself. Plus, of course, the all-night zombie horror show. Not that they really believe in zombies...



The House that Jack Built
Jackson Leaves - an Edwardian house in Penylen, built 1906, semi-detached, three storeys, spacious, beautifully presented. Left in good condition to Rob and Julia by Rob's late aunt. It's an ordinary sort of a house. Except for the way the rooms don't stay in the same places. And the strange man that turns up in the airing cupboard. And the apparitions. And the temporal surges that attract the attentions of Torchwood. And the fact that the first owner of Jackson Leaves in 1906 was a Captain Jack Harkness........

[Andrew Curnow]

Finished Pack Animals last night - not quite as good as some of the other Torchwood books, but still a good solid read. The regulars are, as usual, very well handled.

[Jon Masters]

Read all three over the last few days - like Pack Animals and Skyline better than Almost Perfect (annoyed by the quirky writing style), but a definite drop in quality this time round.

Found some more interesting details on a booksearch website

Torchwood: Rift War - a comic book from Titan books due out in April

Consequences - by several authors, including Joe Lidster. At 10.50 - is this going to be a Short Trips for Torchwood ? Due out in October

Risk Assessment by James Goss
The Undertaker's Gift by Trevor Baxendale

These two are also due out in October at £10.50, but sound like normal novels - why the big price hike, I wonder ?

There's also some new audiobooks only coming out, and some Radio 4 dramas ? (see separate thread)

It all seems to have gone Torchwood-tastic !!

Edited to say: Having looked at the DW novels due out in September, they're also being listed as rrp £10.50.
No way I'm going to pay those sorts of prices...

[Pip Madeley]

The British Fantasy Society and BBC Books will be hosting a Torchwood event at The George pub on London's Fleet Street on the 3rd July 2009.

Authors of the Torchwood novels from BBC Books, Mark Morris, Sarah Pinborough and Guy Adams are joined by scriptwriter and Planet Skaro member Joe Lidster in an informal panel discussion hosted by Andrew Cartmel, fellow Torchwood author for BBC Books and onetime script editor of Doctor Who.

The discussion will last approximately one hour and will be followed by an opportunity for people to buy books and have them signed by those attending. The event will start at 19.30.

Mark Morris is the author of 17 novels. In 2006 he compiled and edited Cinema Macabre, a collection of essays on horror films. In the world of Doctor Who he has written four novels featuring the fifth, eighth and tenth doctors. He has also written scripts for Big Finish's range of Doctor Who audio dramas. Bay of the Dead is his first novel for the Torchwood range.

Sarah Pinborough is the British author of five horror novels and her sixth, Feeding Ground, is due out from Leisure books in October 2009. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and she is currently working on A Matter of Blood, the first of a supernatural thriller trilogy for Gollancz, which will be in book shops in 2010. Into the Silence is her first Torchwood novel.

Guy Adams trained as an actor before accidentally becoming an writer instead. He is the author of books about Life On Mars, including the spoof police manual Rules of Modern Policing. When not pretending to be DCI Gene Hunt he pretends to be John Watson MD, working alongside the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write a facsimile scrapbook of his time flat sharing with Sherlock Holmes. The result has been published by Carlton Books to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Doyle's birth. He is currently working on two original novels due to be published next year. The House that Jack Built is his first Torchwood novel.

Joe Lidster has worked for audio production company Big Finish, writing scripts for a variety of their ranges including Doctor Who, Sapphire & Steel and The Tomorrow People. In 2008 he made his TV debut with A Day in the Death, an episode in the second series of Torchwood. He also wrote The Mark of the Beserker for the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures and Lost Souls a Torchwood drama for BBC Radio 4 that celebrated the switching on of CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Andrew Cartmel is a television writer, novelist and playwright. He worked for BBC television for three years as script editor of Doctor Who. He became senior script editor on Casualty and was subsequently head writer and script editor on Dark Knight, for Channel Five. His stage plays, produced on the London fringe, include End of the Night and Under the Eagle. His novels include Warlock and The Wise (Virgin Books) Atom Bomb Blues (BBC) and, most recently, Miss Freedom (Powys).

Good stuff.

[Dirk Gently]

Where is that quoted from?

On a related note, has anyone asked Joe if he'd like to listen/contribute a script for the PS audios? May be he has an unused/unwanted BF script* that could be adapted?





ETA *or even an original script?

[Si Hunt]

It's a nice idea and we could ask him for the future, but we're looking at slowing down a bit now we've just completed a season that has taken over a year to write and produce - and the plays we do have planned are already written or baggsied!

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

I would say Joe is too busy writing things he is being paid for.

[Pip Madeley]

Further to Jon's post:

Saving the planet, watching over the Rift, preparing the human race for the twenty-first century... Torchwood has been keeping Cardiff safe since the late 1800s. Small teams of heroes, working 24/7, encountering and containing the alien, the bizarre and the inexplicable.

But Torchwood do not always see the effects of their actions. What links the Rules and Regulations for replacing a Torchwood leader to the destruction of a shopping centre?

How does a witness to an alien's reprisals against Torchwood become caught up in a night of terror in a university library? And why should Gwen and Ianto's actions at a local publisher's have a cost for Torchwood more than half a century earlier?

For Torchwood, the past will always catch up with them. And sometimes the future will catch up with the past...

Featuring stories by writers for the hit series created by Russell T Davies for BBC Television, including Joseph Lidster and James Moran, plus Andrew Cartmel and David Llewellyn.

'Are you trying to tell me, Captain Harkness, that the entire staff of Torchwood Cardiff now consists of yourself, a woman in trousers and a tea boy?'

Agnes Haversham is awake, and Jack is worried (and not a little afraid). The Torchwood Assessor is roused from her sleep in only the worst of times - it's happened just four times in the last 100 years. Can the situation really be so bad?

Someone, somewhere, is fighting a war, and they're losing badly. the coffins of the dead are coming through the Rift. With thousands of alien bodies floating in the Bristol Channel, it's down to Torchwood to round them all up before a lethal plague breaks out. And now they'll have to do it by the book. The 1901 edition.

The Hokrala Corp lawyers are back. They're suing planet Earth for mishandling the twenty-first century, and they won't tolerate any efforts to repel them. An assassin has been sent to remove Captain Jack Harkness. It's been a busy week in Cardiff. The Hub's latest guest is a translucent, amber jelly carrying a lethal electrical charge.

Record numbers of aliens have been coming through the Rift, and Torchwood could do without any more problems. But there are reports of an extraordinary funeral cortege in the night time city, with mysterious pallbearers guarding a rotting cadaver that simply doesn't want to be buried. Torchwood should be ready for anything - but with Jack the target of an invisible killer, Gwen trapped in a forgotten crypt and Ianto Jones falling desperately ill, could a world of suffering by the Undertaker's gift to planet Earth?

[Jon Masters]

Good new for TW book fans - Amazon has three new books listed, due out in July and all apparently as prequels to Miracle Day (as shown here)