The New Torchwood Book Covers ...

[a_silver_story]

Okay, so The Undertaker's Gift, Consequences and Risk Assessment are all due for release in the UK on the 1st of October, and I just went over to play.com to see if they'd released the cover images yet. Lo and behold! - what a kick in the teeth!














Ianto doesn't even get his own cover this time around! Why does this annoy me so much? - aside from the fact these books are supposedly Ianto's final outing in the Whoniverse and he doesn't even get his own cover? Talk about kicking a fictional construct when he's down!


_{... and they cropped out his gun ...} THE GUN THAT HE NEVER FREAKIN' HAD!! ... come to think of it ... were any of you watching CoE thinking "Maybe he steals the gun from Johnson's men ... oh they're at an army base. Does he get his machine gun now? Okay the hand gun didn't burst the tank ... maybe he grabs his machine gun to do it ... WTF? He's dying and he didn't even get the big arse gun they've spent the past nine months drumming into us via publicity shots and photographs he's going to lay his hands on?" - anyone else, or just me?

*goes away to reminisce about Bay of the Dead and The Twilight Streets covers ... with a couple of passages from Pack Animals and Almost Perfect for good measure ...*


EDIT: Also ... in the bottom images of two of the books, Gwen is front and centre like she's the main character (something I've noticed on a couple of CoE promos). I thought Torchwood was Jack's series? Hmmmm


EDIT 2: Rile ye'selves! The original covers released in April had a Ianto cover!



Thanks goes to lawsontl

Comments

[woani21.livejournal.com]

Well now I'm just going to have to go through the day pissed off. And it only really just got started over here (east coast, USA). I'm not planning on buying anymore Torchwood books, since I won't contribute anymore money to the Torchwood franchise after Children of Earth and since I find that the books are often written by people who have seemingly never even seen the show. I wish that they would simply pick one or two authors who could write the books. I mean, hasn't it already become painfully obvious that the Torchwood screenwriters can't even seem to do consistent characterizations? I hate to think what further slaps to the face of Ianto's character and the Janto relationship they have in store for fans. Maybe will learn how Gwen became such an incredible shooter/soldier pre-CoE and why the others became so incompetent and careless.

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

*whispering* It happened so they could give Gwen the series, which is probably what RTD planned all along, not that I'm a conspiracy type or anything. :)

But WAIT! Don't you remember? One session on the Torchwood range with Jack, and she went from PC Cooper - who'd never held a gun and giggled when shown one - to lean, mean, shootin' machine. Two-fisting them, waving them in his face (good thing he was immortal, no wonder he didn't bother to teach her proper gun safety), shooting like she was from the 'hood (where is that in Wales...Splott?).

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

*ahem*

I believe Estate Agents pronounce it "Sploe"



_{... sorry ... couldn't resist ...}

[me-eat-drums.livejournal.com]

LMAO - I have to say, everytime I'm driving past Splott I always say Ianto's line...the reaction I get from the car at large tells me if I'm in good company or not...ie. laughter and Torchwood conversation = WIN, rustling silence = blushing and uncomfortable silence ;)

[woani21.livejournal.com]

Yep. I pretty much realized that Gwen's sudden acquisition of new skill sets and leadership attitude would never bode well for the rest of the characters or the cast in Children of Earth. In fact, it turns out that such a development in a TV series is a well established trope or cliche.

If Torchwood tries to come back with Gwen in the lead role, or with her and Jack trying to re-establish Torchwood then I'm going to really worry for the safety of Rhys and the baby. Really, I'm not entirely sure that the baby or Rhys will survive until the beginning of the fourth series, considering that Ianto was killed mid-series. As Russell T. Davies and the Torchwood writers have let us know, the deaths of fictional characters are necessary for advancing their narrative and we should just get over it. So why not kill the runt or the hubbie if it makes Gwen a super soldier (and conveniently frees her to fall into Jack's suddenly welcoming arms)? Either way, I feel that the Torchwood crew have just made stupid choices for the long-term sustainability of the story line, and they are going to have to do massive things to the story and the characters to avoid falling flat on their faces. I'll just wait for the synopses on Wikipedia and the particularly sad/hilarious clips of the disaster on Youtube.

In other series that I have watched that have done major changes to the story, like Battlestar Galactica at the end of the second and third series, I quickly realized once the next set of episodes started that the writers had a plan and dealt with the ramifications of their decisions. Even though it was science fiction, it showed that cause and effect were still intertwined. Nothing that I have ever seen from Russell T. Davies really shows me that he has that sort of skill to tie up lose ends effectively and show that the characters are profoundly affected by the events of the story. He has a tendency (is it really a tendency if it occurs 100% of the time?) of having the characters go through something profound or horrifying, deal with it in a matter of seconds, and then pick up the pieces as if nothing had ever occured.

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

*cough cough* Year That Never Was *cough cough*

I agree. RTD makes awful and horrifying things happen, says that they happen to keep the plot real ... then doesn't deal with the reality of what happened for the character - Jack was tortured for a YEAR and then just bounded back with a big Harkness grin on his face asking attractive young Welshmen out on dates!

Okay, so the Doctor could have taken him anywhere to recover for any amount of time and he'd still would not have been gone too long, but he never even touched the subject.

Ianto's recovery after Cyberwoman, for example, was only touched in the Captain's Log! Admittedly that was a Chibnall episode, but surely, as head writer, it's his job to say "In episode four Ianto loses everything that he's ever held as precious to him and has to watch the woman he loves die twice. Could we put undercurrents of this throughout the show, please?" One mention in episode 12 where he mentions 'letting go'? That'll definitely inform the viewer of how badly affected by Lisa's death he must have been ... oh no wait! They just filled the hole with a brief mention of it in the Captain's Log on the BBC site and were fine! - they drew out Owen getting over two-day-Diane longer than Ianto recovering from losing his long-term girlfriend.




... don't get me started on Countrycide ...





It's wonderful that RTD can come up with these ideas and genuinely intriguing situations, but really he needs a team of writers to help him follow them through with any sense of his oh-so-precious 'realism'.

[kirri1.livejournal.com]

We do not get "the Captains Log" in the UK so we never even got that much!!
I think that was just stuck in because they realised there was a ginormous plot hole and had to plug it for the states, frankly.
When did RTD come up with ideas and genuinely intriguing situations, I must have missed that......

[diggybear.livejournal.com]

I think the baby would survive...it would be Rhys who might have to worry. We get Gwen and Jack and the baby as one big happy family. Eventually by series 6 since Gwen CAN'T die either and is still alive, everyone will have forgotten that Rhys was the father because everyone knows only one daddy and that's Jack.

[woani21.livejournal.com]

And just when I thought that my idea couldn't any worse. I think I need to go drink some drain cleaner to get that vision out of my head.

[diggybear.livejournal.com]

lol And here we all thought Jack was the only one who could not die.

I decided to reread the books and just realized that in Twilight Streets (p. 223) - Rhys says to Gwen that they (Jack, Ianto, Tosh & Owen) are all gone and that they (Rhys & Gwen) will have to rebuild TW to make the world safe for their baby.

Doesn't the hub also get blown up in Twilight Streets? Now doesn't all that sound alot like some events from COE and how the future TW will be?

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

The hub doesn't get blown up, Tosh and Owen shut it down and move the Rift Manipulator, that, in turn, Ianto and Jack blow up.

But I deffo see your point. Was nothing in CoE original?

[diggybear.livejournal.com]

Was nothing in CoE original?

Only RTD thinks it is... lol

[saxgoddess25.livejournal.com]

OMG, that scene at the range. EVERY time I watch that I cringe and facepalm...and laugh my ass off. It's obvious nobody on the production crew has a bloody idea how to shoot a gun.