Torchwood: Consequences by James Moran, Joseph Lidster, Andrew Cartmel, Sarah Pinborough and David Llewellyn


Five interlinked Torchwood stories on the theme of consequences of actions, my favourite Torchwood book / play to date

In the first book: 'The Baby Farm' we are in Victorian England.  A desperate mother is driven to give up her baby to the deliciously spooky Ms Blight and one of Torchwood's founding memebers: Emily Holyroyd places a mysterious book in Cardiff University Library.  The Torchwood team follow the fate of the babies to a Ragged School.  These were real historical institutions set up by philanthrophists to give boys training in skills such as shoe making, ironwork and tailoring and offer them a real chance of escaping the poverty they are born into.  But in this case something Rift borne is involved and those taking the babies have to pay a terrible price for exploiting an alien species.

In 'Kaleidoscope' we have moved forward to the time when Jack had disappeared leaving Gwen, Toshiko, Ianto and Owen rudderless.  Danny is a young boy terrorised by his physically abusive father.  When a piece of alien technology comes into his hands he looks through it at his father believing it to be an ordinary kaleidoscope, but this is a Rehabilitator.  They were used in prisons and when the viewed was seen through it they became the ideal according the person doing the viewing.  Danny's father becomes loving, gentle and a real father.  But the Rehabiliator is very addictive, and when Gwen removes it from Danny she causes terrible damage which Jack would have foreseen.

Jack is back in 'The Wrong Hands' and Torchwood's attention is drawn to the strange deaths of a number of drug dealers, one cut in half by a weapon that is clearly not terrestrial.  On a sink estate in Cardiff an alien child has taken over control of a young impoverished girl to take care of him.  As the alien child tries to take over Gwen Ianto and Jack struggle to get her back, and the local supermarket is destroyed in a ball of fire as the child's surrogate mother fights back.

James Moran's 'Virus' takes up the story, as the child's remaining parent fights their way through the Rift to find their child and mate dead.  They blame Torchwood and inject Gwen and Jack with a virus that leaves them in a catatonic state of living death, the worst possible fate for an immortal.  It is up to the remaining member of Torchwood, Ianto, to rescue them, drawing on the depth of his love for Jack to become the least likely action hero.

The final book 'Consequences' brings the story arc full circle.  It is narrated by Nina, an ordinary hard drinking student who is losing chunks of her memory but seems to be driven to follow a handsome man dressed like a World War 2 soldier.  The Torchwood team are drawn back to Cardiff University Library to solve this last finely written story.

A wonderful set of stories that include both great science fiction storytelling writing but also great heart and a real sense of the difficult dilemmas the dwindling Torchwood team face.