|
There comes a moment in everyone's life when the ravages
of time gives you pause. The pounds that you once so readily
lost seem to be superglued to your belly. You hair starts
to thin and you start to worry that you are no longer attractive
to your partner, sucking in your belly every time she inadvertently
sees you naked. And so it is that Rhys is worried that his
relationship with Gwen has come to a crisis paunch point.
Of course for every problem there is a solution, so when he
discovers that his friend Lucy seems to have discovered a
miracle clinic, which guarantee to shed those love handles,
he grabs at it with both hands,. But even beauty has its cost.
Across town, Gwen and the Torchwood team are investigating
a series of particularly gruesome murders, partially consumed
corpse are starting to become a regular event on the streets
of Cardiff...
Slow
Decay,
written by Andy Lane and read by Burn Gorman, is another BBC
audiobook from an original novel. Lane is no stranger to this
genre having previously released five Doctor Who novels
as well as a number of television and film tie-in books.
The
neurosis that springs up with the passing of years and the
cost of beauty is a fairly common universal theme, most recently
explored in Fruit Chan's Gaau Ji (Dumplings
2004). So anyone over a certain age will empathise with Rhys's
dilemma - it even popped its head up in an episode of Star
Trek: Enterprise with Phlox swallowing a symbiotic creature
who consumed any nutrition allowing him to slim down. When
Rhys attends Doctor Scotus's weight-loss clinic he is tempted
by a proposition that seems too good to be true, just one
pill to start slimming and another to stop and like all such
propositions the price that he ends up paying nearly kills
him.
This being a book aimed at a more mature audience, Lane has
followed the lead of the show and explored some elements of
sexuality. It has not escaped Gwen's notice that a little
of the spark appears to have gone out of their relationship
and what better than an alien sex machine (not the band) to
put things right. Obviously the old adage of turn up naked
and bring beer seems no longer to be working.
The third and interrelated plot strand is Torchwood's investigation
into the partially consumed corpses. The descriptions that
Lane uses are not for the faint hearted as he revels in finding
more and more inventive ways of turning your stomach.
I have to admit that I though that this was going to be the
weaker of the three audio books as it is read by Gorman, who
plays the character Owen Harper in Torchwood, whose
general on-screen persona is one of cocky wide boy. How wrong
could I have been? You have to give the actor his due, as
he reads the book extremely well. There is the odd dodgy on-off
Welsh accent moment, but nothing which detracts from his presentation.
Overall,
these have been very good presentations of the novels and
well worth the pennies of any Torchwood fan.
Charles
Packer
Buy
this item online
We
compare prices online so you get the cheapest
deal! Click on the logo of the desired store
below to purchase this item.
|
|
|
£15.19
(Amazon.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£9.49
(Play.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£13.99
(HMV.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£10.99
(BBCshop.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£12.07
(Thehut.com) |
All prices correct at time of going to press.
|
|
