Torchwood: Another Life

Written by Peter Anghelides

Narrated by John Barrowman

Thick black clouds are blotting out the skies over Cardiff. As twenty-four inches of rain fall in twenty-four hours, the city centre’s drainage system collapses. The capital’s homeless are being murdered, their mutilated bodies left lying in the soaked streets around the Blaidd Drwg nuclear facility. Tracked down by Torchwood, the killer calmly drops eight storeys to his death. But the killings don’t stop. Their investigations lead Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato to a monster in a bathroom, a mystery at an army base, and a hunt for stolen nuclear fuel rods. Meanwhile, Owen Harper goes missing from the Hub, when a game in Second Reality leads him to an old girlfriend... Something is coming, forcing its way through the Rift, straight into Cardiff Bay. Read by John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness, this gripping adventure features Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones, as played by Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd in the hit series from BBC Television. Contains adult themes and language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BBC Digital Audio
• Release date: Apr 2, 2007
• ISBN: 9781405679640

Reviews for Torchwood

[redfiona_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

'Another Life' is another Torchwood book, set at the start of the first season. So I'm not going to say anything about parts where the characters's backstory departs from what's later revealed in Season 2. The plot is interesting and I like the alien's thing (I know that's vague but I'm trying to avoid spoiling things). Jack's eventual plan is very Jack and the character's are well done. Anglehedes's Owen is significantly nicer, or at least less cruel, than TV-Owen is, but some of the ways Owen describes things are very him.

A solid read and worth the time.

[viragoreads · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was pretty good. Slow in a few places. Well...maybe not slow but more technical. But that is Torchwood, so it's to be expected. I think the characterizations were pretty spot on; the way the characters interacted with one another was very much like on the show. The story was good and I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

[melydia_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cardiff is flooding and people are dying horribly and Owen is reconnecting with an old flame via a cross between Second Life and World of Warcraft. It was fun to see the old gang back together again, even back to before Rhys knows anything about Gwen's new job. If you like the early seasons of Torchwood, you'll like this little adventure, but like many books based on a TV program, it does not stand on its own.

[omf_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fast flowing and verry visual wiriting.
A good extension of the tv-series.

[julesjones_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First of the Torchwood tie-in novels, and set a few weeks after the start of the series, i.e. after the second episode and before the fourth.

The book opens with a second-person role-playing game scenario -- except this game's not in the computer, and when the "you" loses a life and hopes for better luck next time, it's a real body that dies. Of course, it takes Torchwood a little longer to work out why their serial killer has just cheerfully committed suicide...

In a second story strand, Owen's been spending a lot of time in a more conventional multi-player game, though he's taking advantage of Torchwood technology, and Toshiko's technical skills, to ramp up the online experience a little. When he runs into an old girlfriend in the game and discovers that she's living in Cardiff, he sees it as both a personal and professional opportunity -- he wants to prove his theory that the game is a good initial screening tool for potential Torchwood recruits, and Megan's just the sort of person who would make a good recruit for Torchwood.

While Jack, Gwen and Tosh are tracking down who their serial killer was working with and what he's done with a set of stolen nuclear fuel rods, Owen and Megan stumble across part of the solution quite by chance. And all the while the rain pours down on Cardiff, as the Rift's latest problem plays havoc with the local weather system...

The mirrored plotlines make it obvious early in the book what's going on (intentionally so). But the real puzzle is who's doing it, and what their motive is. Anghelides carefully weaves the different strands together so that the reader can see the pieces falling into place, as what seem like separate stories start to interlock. By the end, what seemed like pieces of characterisation and scene-setting turn out to be crucial to Torchwood winning the day.

This is a nicely constructed novel, with an interesting story and good characterisations. There's a good spread of scenes across most of the characters, and even Ianto gets some nice characterisation vignettes, even though the book's set at a point in the series timeline when he was mainly a background character. Notably, that includes a fair bit of the flirty banter between Jack and Ianto that was in the tv episodes at this point in the timeline.

I liked this book a lot, and think a fair number of my friends would too. While it's a tie-in, Anghelides does a good job of working the universe set-up into the first few scenes, and I think the book should also work well for someone who hadn't seen the show, although obviously you'd get more out of it if you're already familiar with the characters.

It's also available as an audiobook read by John Barrowman, which I haven't heard.

[adelate_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I bought this book along with the two other Torchwood books, "Border Princes" and "Slow Decay" and the Doctor Who book "Made of Steel" from the Stansted airport Borders where a very friendly lady agreed to hold them for me while I went to withdraw more money from my account.

When I started reading it I was a bit worried (well, worry is maybe a little bit strong, but anyway) that the author wouldn't really go for the slashy aspects of the show, but I was happily proven wrong, because there were several bits of flirtation between Jack and Ianto and, well, Jack and other people too. [g]

I'm not that squeamish when it comes to books usually, but this author really managed to do descriptive in a way that I actually felt a little bit nauseated at one point. The dialogue seemed right in relation to the show and it was an enjoyable read. If you like the show, I think you'd like this book too. :)