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BBC Audio: Torchwood: Ghost Train
Mar. 10th, 2011 09:24 pmThis was a bit brilliant.
Most audio books, even when they get one of the actors to narrate, have a sort of detached narrator voice to go between the reported speech. This one was read by Kai Owen, and it was Rhys telling us a story. And it is so much fun. There are places where the SF reader/listener is going to be ahead of Rhys, and that's part of the fun.
I am so sleepy right now. I wrote this review in my head right after I'd listened but that was six hours ago. Mostly I'm remembering 'fun'.
This was set before Children of Earth, so the team is Jack, Ianto, Gwen and Rhys. Everyone gets their turn talking to Rhys and we get his views of them.
The major relationship is of course Rhys/Gwen, and we get a lovely Rhys-eye view on what it's like being married to a Torchwood agent. The Rhys view on Torchwood's Cardiff is great comedy, mixed with him dealing with his concern for his wife, and him knowing and being mostly content with being the bloke who doesn't save the world. I love how his version of Torchwood saving Cardiff has all these everyday details built in like what it does to the traffic, and how his expertise and local knowledge drags him in to the story sideways.
... this one is his story. So guess who gets to save the world...
Other relationships: Ianto is in a lot of the story, and Ianto/Jack is threaded all through it. Plus hints of Jack/Rhys and Ianto/Rhys. ( Read more... )
The plot was great, with an excellently tangled how do they get out of this cliffhanger at the disc change, iirc. ... I didn't stop for more than a moment at the disc change. I stopped a bit when the fire alarm went off at college, so unexpected delay there, but the story didn't suffer any for it. I wanted to know what happened next even when I was pretty sure what would happen next. And plenty often it surprised me, or did an extra flourish I hadn't anticipated.
I thought everyone was fun and in character, and Rhys was brilliant. Plus I liked all the voices, this time not as much for the skill in imitation but for hearing Rhys doing the voices. It's properly him in character knowing he's doing the voices - there's a bit where he stops and says he can't keep doing that voice and sums up instead :-)
Conclusion: 5 stars will listen again.
I'd still like an audio play but this one voice version made a virtue of its limitations.
Most audio books, even when they get one of the actors to narrate, have a sort of detached narrator voice to go between the reported speech. This one was read by Kai Owen, and it was Rhys telling us a story. And it is so much fun. There are places where the SF reader/listener is going to be ahead of Rhys, and that's part of the fun.
I am so sleepy right now. I wrote this review in my head right after I'd listened but that was six hours ago. Mostly I'm remembering 'fun'.
This was set before Children of Earth, so the team is Jack, Ianto, Gwen and Rhys. Everyone gets their turn talking to Rhys and we get his views of them.
The major relationship is of course Rhys/Gwen, and we get a lovely Rhys-eye view on what it's like being married to a Torchwood agent. The Rhys view on Torchwood's Cardiff is great comedy, mixed with him dealing with his concern for his wife, and him knowing and being mostly content with being the bloke who doesn't save the world. I love how his version of Torchwood saving Cardiff has all these everyday details built in like what it does to the traffic, and how his expertise and local knowledge drags him in to the story sideways.
... this one is his story. So guess who gets to save the world...
Other relationships: Ianto is in a lot of the story, and Ianto/Jack is threaded all through it. Plus hints of Jack/Rhys and Ianto/Rhys. ( Read more... )
The plot was great, with an excellently tangled how do they get out of this cliffhanger at the disc change, iirc. ... I didn't stop for more than a moment at the disc change. I stopped a bit when the fire alarm went off at college, so unexpected delay there, but the story didn't suffer any for it. I wanted to know what happened next even when I was pretty sure what would happen next. And plenty often it surprised me, or did an extra flourish I hadn't anticipated.
I thought everyone was fun and in character, and Rhys was brilliant. Plus I liked all the voices, this time not as much for the skill in imitation but for hearing Rhys doing the voices. It's properly him in character knowing he's doing the voices - there's a bit where he stops and says he can't keep doing that voice and sums up instead :-)
Conclusion: 5 stars will listen again.
I'd still like an audio play but this one voice version made a virtue of its limitations.