Something In The Water.

Books I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a Torchwood novel. Spin-off books if they’ve been publishing for long enough tend to develop a format of their own away from their original property, especially in the case of television tie-ins where the story will inevitably be longer than the average television episode. In Doctor Who, the best authors, even when writing about a past version of the Time Lord, often enjoy the opportunity to be fairly experimental, taking advantage of the flexibility of the format. If Trevor Baxendale’s novel is anything to go by, the approach in Torchwood books is to be as close to the television series as possible.

A mysterious virus is spreading through the population of Cardiff concurrently with the appearance of an equally mysterious woman and a not quite dead corpse. Much of the novel takes place in either the Hub, a suburban house, a medical centre and some marshland on the outskirts of Cardiff. None of the characters (as is usual in these things) really learns anything and counter to Jack’s annoying tv opening speech nothing changes. There isn’t actually anything wrong with that and certainly fans will probably be well served by what’s here. It’s just that there’s a lack of ambition which ultimately dulls your appreciation of the book.

Spoilers after the jump.

Baxendale isn’t really interested in big dramatic openings. His method is a slow burn, the characters strewn across the city following their own discrete narratives. Bob Strong, an English GP in the mould of A Very Peculiar Practice’s Stephen Daker is visited in his surgery by that mysterious woman, Saskia, an apparently recovering addict who has more on her mind than a simply check up, Jack and Owen chasing the Weevil equivalent of Jaws through a fish factory plus Gwen and Tosh investigating apparitions with one of Jack’s old flames. Regardless of arguments to the contrary between the characters, these threads are eventually tied together through the usual mayhem and co-incidences.

As with much of his Doctor Who writing, Baxendale’s skill lies in characterisation. Considering this was no doubt being written whilst the second series was still in production (the novel’s firmly set betwixt To The Last Man and Meat) he captures the new versions of all of the main cast brilliantly – Ianto’s wisecracks, Owen’s kinder heart, Tosh’s mechanisma, Gwen’s boggle eyed surprise and Jack’s inherent Jackness. The ‘guest cast’ are convincing additions too, particular Dr. Strong who ironically spends most of the novel incapacitated, the divorcee’s poignant sorrow at having no one to look after him and frankly wanting his mummy is a gloomy highlight.

Despite being one of those shouting and running stories, as with some of the best Torchwood episodes, it’s these moments of darkness which work best. Some of the few good scenes in the opening television series are recalled when Gwen realises she’s becoming desensitized by the carnage only for Jack to remind her that even one death has consequences which makes the predicament of the invader, survivor of a dying race something of a grey area. Like our favourite benevolent alien, she’s the last but unlike him, her continued existence threatens our planet and our endurance. Not that these weighty issues ultimately get in the way of the gunplay and jokes about Google and the Wikipedia.

In the end though, like the television series the book fails to find the right tone -- wanting so desperately to be adult without quite being able to commit. Some of this confusion possibly stems from the book having the same format and pagination as the new Doctor Who novels and because of this restricted word length like them it lacks the depth you'd expect for a work aimed at an older age group. Much more could have been said about Saskia, who in the end is less complex there an absence of thematic resonances the influence for which would really give the game away. At some point mysterious becomes anemic and when an infodump finally arrives if you're not too careful it can seem like an afterthought.

Similarly, we hear about the spread of the virus through News 24 and dialogue instead of actually reading about the civilians its effecting – imagine the film Outbreak without those amazing scenes in which we see a victim being processed or for that matter a Doctor Who and the Silurians in which we don't see Masters go to London. Certainly it's more dramatic for the regulars to be at ground zero of the problem but a novel has the facility to go beyond that, to give the story epic scope but instead we're left with the textual equivalent of the Roman Centurion from End of Days representing a global phenomena.

Despite a dramatic conclusion then, everything wraps up rather abruptly and considering everything that’s happened misses a moment of reflection. Unless it’s actually a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next book. But they're not allowed to do that are they?

Torchwood: Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale
ISBN: 978-1846074370
RRP: £6.99
Release date: 6th March 2008