Another day, another demon for the men and women of Torchwood Institute, that secret, underground organization dedicated to protecting the United Kingdom against alien crime. In TORCHWOOD: BORDER PRINCES – the second original novel based upon the BBC’s popular TORCHWOOD series – Captain Jack Harkness and company find themselves battling “the Amok.”
It’s a geometrically symmetrical object that causes “cerebral flooding.” But that’s just a fancy way of saying its signal turns the nearby populace into George A. Romero zombies.
As the team learns, the Amok is a sort of intergalactic puzzle, and the latest to fall under its spell is one Mr. Dine, who moves about the city in hyperaccelerative speeds – like The Flash – unseen to all but a 3-year-old boy. Meanwhile, “active blobs” are examined after being pulled from Amok victims’ sinuses, and an old chapel reappears, having slipped through a “Rift-slip.”
What’s this mean? It means, according to Harkness, “something’s coming. Or something’s already here.”
If it all sounds a little schizophrenic, well, yeah. Of course it is. BORDER PRINCES is written by Dan Abnett, author of a kajillion WARHAMMER tie-in novels. He’s not one known for subtlety, but then again, neither is the outlandish, outrageous TORCHWOOD, which is why its fan base loves it so.
The foes Team Torchwood faces here are tailor-made for Abnett’s sensibilities (or nonsensibilities, as the case may be), and the easy patter means he lets the dialogue take the wheel. What he gets right is the interaction between the characters – particularly the love triangle set up between Gwen, her co-worker and her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. What he gets wrong is underexplaining his own ideas and events. Certainly he wrote with strong visuals in mind, but that kind of imagination doesn’t always translate.
BORDER PRINCES isn’t as good as the previous novel, Peter Anghelides’ TORCHWOOD: ANOTHER LIFE, but it’ll do for those awaiting the next episode of the TV show to roll around. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• TORCHWOOD: ANOTHER LIFE by Peter Anghelides
