Torchwood: Border Princes
Feb. 9th, 2007 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethBorder Princes was exactly what I thought it was from the first 42 pages
Marty Stu fanfic with no redeeming features
your basic Superstar setup with a auto-reset ending.
He was everyone's best mate, the lover that Gwen really deserved, the person who thought up all the cool names for everything (so that's what he ate from Ianto! no fair!), secretly a prince, with super powers, and he had odd colored eyes. Basically if this wasn't a deliberate ironic use of the checklist it's deeply deeply sad.
It seems to have entirely missed the point of it being a Torchwood novel - it is not in fact about Torchwood. The newbie has sucked all the individuality out of the others so they only exist in his orbit. We learn nothing about them, absolutely bugger all, for they react solely to him. Ianto exists for about five lines. Most of them are mind controlled most of the time. And it isn't like any of it is a surprise.
Somebody just sat down and invented some cooler than thou character and his world, and then got paid money for it. And then *I* paid money for it, which is the part I'm slightly bitter about.
The sad part is there were some really interesting things happening around the edges. If they'd happened to Team Torchwood there could have been a bloody good story in there. The Amok, the recurring church, the Serial G, those are all solid plots. But they only existed to put Marty Stu in danger, and that's just deeply pathetic.
Marty Stu fanfic with no redeeming features
your basic Superstar setup with a auto-reset ending.
He was everyone's best mate, the lover that Gwen really deserved, the person who thought up all the cool names for everything (so that's what he ate from Ianto! no fair!), secretly a prince, with super powers, and he had odd colored eyes. Basically if this wasn't a deliberate ironic use of the checklist it's deeply deeply sad.
It seems to have entirely missed the point of it being a Torchwood novel - it is not in fact about Torchwood. The newbie has sucked all the individuality out of the others so they only exist in his orbit. We learn nothing about them, absolutely bugger all, for they react solely to him. Ianto exists for about five lines. Most of them are mind controlled most of the time. And it isn't like any of it is a surprise.
Somebody just sat down and invented some cooler than thou character and his world, and then got paid money for it. And then *I* paid money for it, which is the part I'm slightly bitter about.
The sad part is there were some really interesting things happening around the edges. If they'd happened to Team Torchwood there could have been a bloody good story in there. The Amok, the recurring church, the Serial G, those are all solid plots. But they only existed to put Marty Stu in danger, and that's just deeply pathetic.
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Date: 2007-02-09 05:42 pm (UTC)I agree with you so much!
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Date: 2007-02-09 05:44 pm (UTC)... wait, no, not quite what you meant ;-)
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Date: 2007-02-09 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 06:54 pm (UTC)doh!
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Date: 2007-02-10 07:34 am (UTC)The problem wasn't even the new team member is an alien prince thing. It was the way it was handled - the story might have been interesting if the author had managed to make it less about James and more about Torchwood. There is a reason why no one (except for the writer) likes Mary Sues/Marty Stus.
~ sera
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Date: 2007-02-10 10:03 am (UTC)