the set of Torchwood books, starting with this one, tells what happens before Miracle Day. I love reading these continuing adventures and in between stories. Recommended to fans of Torchwood & Doctor Who. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1865810.html

A prequel to this year's Torchwood: Miracle Day series, which fairly leapt off the online shelves at me when I realised it was by James Goss, whose contributions to the off-screen Whoniverse have been pretty impressive, and that two of the readers - the main two, it turns out, the other four getting only a chapter or so each - are Kai "Rhys Williams" Owen, who did such a good job of Goss's Ghost Train, and Clare Corbett, who likewise did well sharing The Hounds of Artemis and carrying Dead of Winter on her own.

I was not disappointed. Although the plot itself is a pretty straightforward cut-and-paste from The Midwich Cuckoos and Children of the Corn, Goss puts together a very compelling story of creepy children in a village where nothing is quite right, with the added factor of Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams and their very small baby trying to work out what is going on and also incidentally not get killed. I have been generally enjoying the Torchwood novels, which as a series are some of the hidden gems of Who fiction, but this is one of the best. The audio brings us Kai Owen's voice to do a warm, confused but courageous Rhys, with Clare Corbett doing a convincing interpretation of Eve Myles and carrying her chapters extremely impressively (she is really good at accents). Apart from the basic horror of the story, there's some bleak office humour about the bureaucracy of atrocity, and some tough teenagers who are central to the story. Very strongly recommended. ( )

First of the trilogy of Miracle Day prequel novels, and set between Children of Earth and Miracle Day. Gwen and Rhys have taken to the hills after the birth of baby Anwen, using a selection of Torchwood safe houses to hide from people who are much too interested in the last surviving piece of Torchwood. The latest one is a caravan park in a remote village -- and as they wryly note at one point, there had to be a reason why Ianto's keyring collection included the key for a caravan in the middle of nowhere.

It's just Gwen and Rhys in this one, but it's still a solid Torchwood story about the use and misuse of alien technology that has fallen into human hands. As usual Goss does an excellent job with writing Rhys, and I enjoyed this one a lot. ( )

Picked this up in the Supermarket and rushed it to the top of the TBR pile cos it said on the cover that it's a prequel to Miracle Day which is showing on TV at the moment. While it is set in the period between Children of Earth and Miracle Day it has no effect on the events of the latter. Set after the birth of Anwen it shows that Gwen and Rhys aren't as distanced from Torchwood as they would like to be.
Quick, easy and enjoyable to read like most Torchwood books. ( )