Torchwood: The House that Jack Built...

[fajrdrako]

Amazon finally sent me, mailed from France, a copy of Torchwood: The House That Jack Built by Guy Adams.

I don't think I've heard of Guy Adams before, but I really did enjoy his style.

The plot? There's a house in Cardiff, called Jackson Leaves, where Jack once lived. It was built in 1906. It's the site of mysterious and grotesque deaths, pseudo-ghosts, madness, murders, suicides. Jack is the house's only surviving occupant. But why?

I had some trouble putting this book down - cliché but true. Good bits:

1. The inclusion of PC Andy, who starts things off by introducing Gwen to the action.
   
   
2. The use of time-confusion. At first it starts with Jack's memory of his own past - fairly standard flashbacks to his own past at some indefinite time in the 20th century. Then we learn more and more, and the past and the present get mixed and conflated, which is a messy thing. I love that sort of plot.
   
   
3. I also loved the plot with Jack's two former lovers, Mark and Alison, who decide to marry. And how it all turns out for them. Oh, yes, a beautiful twisty plot on several levels. The coda to their story was particularly good.
   
   
4. The inclusion of a real, honest-to-goodness alien named Alexander - an amusing trouble-maker in a wheelchair. mad_jaks was distressed that there were no visibly disabled characters in Torchwood, but he was one - with no indication of why he was disabled, which I liked. Nice to know also that the invisible life offer wheelchair access at a wrist-strap command from Jack. A good line from Alexander on page 64:

   Alexander was determined not to appear impressed as he tried to get his head around the layout of [the Hub]... There was an ear-splitting screech from his left.
   
   'Oh,' he sighed. 'You have a pterodactyl. How quaint.'

5. And when Alexander meets Ianto:

   'Tell him if he's going to roger you, the least he could do is get you an office of your own.'

   And later on (page 67):

   'I like him. He certainly deserves his own office.'

6. Info about the parking of the SUV on pages 44 to 46: it's in the car park under the Millennium Centre, where there's a door marked 'Private' that leads into the Hub, with security retinal-scanning software. There's a tunnel that leads through the weapons store, then into the working are of the Hub.

   In the early days of Torchwood Cardiff, there had been access to the lower storage areas via submarine. Submarine... How cool was that? Who said things always improved with time?

7. Page 69: Ianto is eating fish and chips in a bus shelter, and tells a stray cat, 'You should try Brenda's on St Mary Street. Must tastier. The service isn't bad, either. Ask for Patrick.' I loved the continuity there with Almost Perfect.
   
8. Page 70: A scene that reminded me of some bits of Children of Earth. Ianto is walking in Cardiff at night, and sees a bunch of disreputable teens on the corner.

   'Look at that poof,' one of them said as Ianto walked past. He tried to think of something scathing to shout back, but he could come up with nothing that didn't sound desperate rather than witty... Ridiculous... He'd faced off alien invasions with a quip and a spring in his step, but put him up against a bunch of chavs and his nerve went. Pathetic.

9. On page 80 to 84, there's a wonderful, touching and funny scene between Gwen and Rhys, where he sends her back to work because she's concerned about the case, pretending he'll be fine watching TV on his own and that he won't miss her dreadfully.
   
   
10. Re Gwen's computer at the Hub: 'The database was composed of every conceivable registry: civil, law enforcement, even intelligence services - her computer access alone was enough to have her assassinated as a security risk in nineteen countries.'
    
    
11. Seems the Torchwood phone number is 000. Maybe that's just within Cardiff. (p. 92) This is connected with a lovely line: 'Hello... my name's Rob Wallace and I've just found someone named Ianto Jones in my airing cupboard.'
    
    
12. I loved Jack's moment of buying the house, long ago in the past. Page 109. The estate agent said:

    'Perhaps we should return to the office, where we can begin to make arrangements with your bank...'
    
    'Bank?' Jack shrugged. 'I'll just pay cash if that's all right.'

13. Ianto talks about Jack on page 134:

    '...There's not much about him that I don't know.... Actually, that's not true. I doubt I know a fraction of what's worth knowing, but what little of his life is on file I've found it, read it... learnt it. I'm like a stupid teenager swotting up with a copy of Smash Hits.'
    
    Gwen rested her hand on his shoulder. 'You do know that he's...'
    
    'Just a shag?' Ianto nodded. 'Yes, I know. I can't help it though, I've never been much good at casual. Don't tell him. I don't want to look stupid.'

    Then he lists names Jack has lived under: Robert Gossage, Alan Jones, John Smith. Borrowed that last one from a friend, I think.
    
    
14. Page 139: a conversation I liked:

    'I used to live here,' [Jack said to the current owner of the house]. 'Long time ago.'
    
    'It must have been,' Julia replied. 'Auntie Joan was here for... I don't know, thirty years.'
    
    Jack smiled. 'I'm older than I look.'
    
    'He works out,' said Ianto.

15. More about Jack, Ianto and sex. Ianto says to Julia:

    '...He prefers the term "omnisexual". It's the polite way of saying he'll sleep with anything - men, women... cephalopods. I must be the only boyfriend that's ever had to get jealous in a fishmongers.'
    
    'Don't knock the sensual embrace of the tentacle,' Jack replied with a wink.
    
    'Oh God...' Ianto replied. 'I could have died happy had I never heard you say that.'

    And a few lines later:

    'Isn't he wonderful?' Jack said to Julia, kissing Ianto on the forehead. 'What would I do without him?'
    
    'The same things you do with me, just to someone else,' Ianto deadpanned.

    That's exactly the kind of banter I wanted to hear between them in series 2 of the show, and didn't get.
    
    
16. Who is Joan Bosher?
    
    
17. Can't find the passage now, but I liked Jack's reflection on the self-directed homophobia of his lover Mark: "I wish he had been as happy inside his body as I was."
    
    
18. An alien says to Jack: 'You light up this continuum like a beacon... You're a force of nature, Jack, a temporal tsunami.'
    
    
19. From a 1906 Torchwood report written by Alice Guppy:

    Harkness proved little help - one had hoped his knowledge of futuristic methods might have helped to shine the light of clarity on some of the more outré elements of the incident, but he pleaded ignorance so well that one might be inclined to believe him, were it not for the fact that he lies with such ease.

20. Loved the last few paragraphs, too.
    
    
21. I think the events of this novel would give the Doctor a fit, and the Time Agency would go ballistic.