Torchwood First Born
Apr. 30th, 2023 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethAnother Torchwood book, this time one I haven't read before.
ETA after searching my journal: https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/2956277.html
I had in fact read it before, so, you know, that tells you what an impact it made. I just didnt buy it then. /ETA
It is set after CoE and after Jack leaves, which seemed to me likely to be just a bit sad.
Also Gwen is not my favourite, mostly for the times she is the show's favourite.
But, this was quite good.
Depressing of course, Torchwood being Torchwood, but quite good.
It's mostly set after Gwen's baby arrives, with Rhys and Gwen at the end of their tether as new parents, and it's like the author stirred up a cocktail of worry about screwing up your kids and or losing yourself when the baby arrives and suddenly you realise you've left all your old life behind, but then added Torchwood.
There were pod people, and they got a good twist, where the kids were trying their hardest to be alright, but their humans kept expecting them to be wrong so things went... poorly.
So it's got the elements of fear of being replaced by people unlike us, but instead turns out to be more about child abuse and exploiting people who are too trusting and never seem to grow up.
Turns the lens of the horror about.
So there were murders and horrible injuries and the potential for alien invasion, but in the end the worst of it was a toss up between a scientist reckoning she was just following orders and the one woman who was only present via emails ordering the worst things in the most bubbly management speak.
Also the flashbacks to Jack... were consistent with certain other elements of his story and hence left me deeply disappointed in him rather than angry with the writer.
Just following orders indeed.
So many layers of failure to parent.
The ending was striking but also really depressing.
Torchwood turns a mirror on the world from a very particular angle, but now I'm going to feel a bit grim until I find something entirely unlike this to read.
So, effective Torchwood story.
ETA after searching my journal: https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/2956277.html
I had in fact read it before, so, you know, that tells you what an impact it made. I just didnt buy it then. /ETA
It is set after CoE and after Jack leaves, which seemed to me likely to be just a bit sad.
Also Gwen is not my favourite, mostly for the times she is the show's favourite.
But, this was quite good.
Depressing of course, Torchwood being Torchwood, but quite good.
It's mostly set after Gwen's baby arrives, with Rhys and Gwen at the end of their tether as new parents, and it's like the author stirred up a cocktail of worry about screwing up your kids and or losing yourself when the baby arrives and suddenly you realise you've left all your old life behind, but then added Torchwood.
There were pod people, and they got a good twist, where the kids were trying their hardest to be alright, but their humans kept expecting them to be wrong so things went... poorly.
So it's got the elements of fear of being replaced by people unlike us, but instead turns out to be more about child abuse and exploiting people who are too trusting and never seem to grow up.
Turns the lens of the horror about.
So there were murders and horrible injuries and the potential for alien invasion, but in the end the worst of it was a toss up between a scientist reckoning she was just following orders and the one woman who was only present via emails ordering the worst things in the most bubbly management speak.
Also the flashbacks to Jack... were consistent with certain other elements of his story and hence left me deeply disappointed in him rather than angry with the writer.
Just following orders indeed.
So many layers of failure to parent.
The ending was striking but also really depressing.
Torchwood turns a mirror on the world from a very particular angle, but now I'm going to feel a bit grim until I find something entirely unlike this to read.
So, effective Torchwood story.