Thursday, 29 August 2013

Reviews Army of One by DJ Forrest


Written by Ian Edginton
Read by Kai Owen
Audiobook
Running Time: 1hrs 10 mins
Publisher: AudioGo Ltd
Number of CD’s: 1
Release Date: 1/3/2013

This story centres on Gwen and Rhys who are holidaying in Washington DC.  After collecting money from the safety deposit box belonging to Torchwood funds, which are going to be given to Sarah Drummond, Rhys HAS to buy nappies for ‘her highness’ Anwen.  When he steps out of ‘Weissmuller’s’ shop into the ‘wet heat’, a red bee of light centres on his heart, then another and another and Washington DC’s finest law enforcement team descend on him, arrest him and bundle him off in the back of their troop carrier.  Gwen with Anwen puts a distance between her and Rhys in order to find out why he’s been arrested. 

Gwen has been suffering severe headaches much stronger than migraines and promises Rhys that she’ll have them checked out – later.  The headaches are linked to a creature known as ‘the cuckoo’ which appears to jump bodies.  But it can only jump so many times before it runs out of energy.  It’s only got a few more jumps left in it and it must find Gwen Cooper before then, as she has something belonging to the Cuckoo!  According to Jack Harkness, the creature is a ‘body jacker’ it steals bodies and lives in them, wearing them until they become old and decayed and they have to move on.

The cuckoo has planted something within each of the members of the Torchwood team from the time they intercepted her, in her core form, and to save herself, for when she needed it, somewhat in the same way as perhaps Voldemort would have a piece of his own soul in several places (Horcruxes) so that he may always come back in one form or another. So would the cuckoo.  But with the other team members gone, there is no mention of Jack Harkness at this point, although the creature was repelled by what it felt within Jack, and from the way the Miracle behaved, it appeared not just to mess with Jack’s bio structure, but also the Cuckoo’s, it meant that when the Miracle was reset, the Cuckoo was unable to hold its form for any length of time.  It was a matter of life or death!  And there were a lot of deaths along the way.

Kai Owen is a fantastic narrator, and I found his American accent for Lucas Avery very similar to that of Thomas C Howell’s accent for the assassin in Miracle Day.  Kai has a good grasp of accents and I want to hear more stories narrated by him.

The stories that feature Gwen and Rhys are always light hearted, although with the threat of something wishing to locate Gwen and take back what was planted, there is also that level of tense frightening moments, especially when during a severe headache she almost loses control of her car and puts Anwen at risk. 

Ian Edginton has a beautiful way of writing and this story had me fully focused all the way through.  He’s no stranger to Torchwood, he was also involved in the ‘Rift War’ the complete collected comic strip, plus three stories for the Torchwood magazines:
“Part Four: Dino Crisis” (with S.L. Gallant, for Torchwood Magazine #7, July 17th 2008)
“Part Seven: The Man Who Fell to Earth” (with D’Israeli, for Torchwood Magazine #10, 9th October 2008)
“Part Eight” (with D’Israeli for Torchwood Magazine #11, 30th October 2008)

Source information from Wikipedia Ian Edginton






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