Torchwood saw a series of novels released between 2007 and 2012, beginning with Another Life and ending with Exodus Code. Unlike the TV series, these books were presented in a similar format to the New Series Adventures, albeit with a slightly larger page size.
Tropes in this series:
- Accidental Time Travel: In "Trace Memory", Michael is handling a crate off the Facklaträfat containing a sphere of tachyon radiation when it explodes, dousing him with the stuff and causing him to uncontrollably time travel through different periods.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Downplayed in the case of Ianto - in the show canon, whilst he had shown attraction to the female Lisa and the male Jack, he has claimed to this sister that he is not into men - Jack is just special. In contrast, although it causes him some Gayngst, he does accept the label "bisexual" in the novel "The Twilight Streets".
- Apartment Complex of Horrors: Skypoint may seem like a typical Sleek High Rise Apartment, but it soon becomes the feasting grounds for a vicious shape-shifting thought-form, to say nothing of the fact that it is funded and resided in by one of the most dangerous criminals in Wales. Before it went out of business, it was also damaged (and the residents killed) by a sentient form of oil called the Vam.
- Back from the Dead: In "Long Time Dead", Suzie, who had already died twice, is revived once again by a piece of alien technology concealed within her body. As with her previous resurrection, this one doesn't last too long.
- Backstory Invader: James Mayer in "Border Princes", an alien from another dimension who integrates with the Torchwood team by changing reality so that they believe that he has always been an important part of the team. Unlike the later TV example of Adam, James integrates himself using Reality Warper powers, and he can only do it within a hundred-mile radius.
- Bad Future: The Torchwood team are given a view of a potential bad future in "The Twilight Streets" where Torchwood (under the rule of a married Owen and Tosh) have trapped Jack, leeched his immortality off him to control the rift and have taken over the world, ending up corrupted by the Light and the Dark in the process.
- Call-Forward:
- "Another Life" and "Slow Decay" (both released after the first series, but set before the events of "Cyberwoman") make references to the fact that Ianto is hiding his cyber-converted girlfriend from the rest of the team - in the former, Ianto hears Owen use the word "cybersex", and briefly panics, whilst the latter has Tosh encounter Ianto acting strangely around a chamber in the archives.
- In "The Twilight Streets" (released after the episode "Reset", but set beforehand), several references are made by Bilis Manger to Owen's future death in the aforementioned episode, with the gun used to kill him even appearing in several visions.
- In "Pack Animals", vague references are made to Tosh making something to help Torchwood for when she's no longer around and she is at one point caught making her last message by Jack. Set between the events of "Dead Man Walking" and "Something Borrowed", the book was released after "Exit Wounds" (where Gwen, Jack and Ianto encounter Tosh's final message in the wake of her death) and "The Stolen Earth" (where her time-lock technology proves useful in preventing the Daleks from properly reaching the Torchwood base).
- Deadly Gaze: The Vondrax in "Trace Memory" can kill people by staring into their eyes. It doesn't work on everyone though, with their attempts to kill Jack by looking into his eyes instead killing them.
- Death of a Child: According to "Trace Memory", during his time at Cardiff Hospital, Owen once tended to a 9-year-old called Darren who had been ran over. Despite Owen's reassurances to the child and his parents that he would be fine, Darren ends up dying from a blood clot which could not have been picked up by neither the hospital or Owen.
- Downer Ending: "Border Princes" ends with James Harper, a beloved member of the team, discovering that he is in fact nothing than the false identity of an entity from another world and being forced back into his world. Gwen in particular is distraught over the whole matter, as she had loved him enough to consider breaking up with Rhys for him and is horrified at both the lies she had been fed and the prospect of forgetting him.Jack: It will be OK, Gwen. Trust me. It will be OK.Gwen: No, Jack. It's the End of the World.
- Drives Like Crazy: As "Slow Decay" reveals, Jack is not a very good driver, going the wrong way around roundabouts and parking the Torchwood SUV in random places, as well as having an inability to properly check for dangers.
- Emotion Bomb: The alien device found at a crime scene in "Slow Decay" functions as an emotional amplifier, which leads to the murder of several people at a nightclub when the device amplifies and feedbacks their aggression. Gwen later takes it and tries to use it to rekindle her romance with Rhys, only to find her anger amplified to the point that she wanted to kill him.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The Water Hag seen in "Something in the Water" breeds by spreading a virus throughout the human population which inseminates them with their offspring, which then grows within the throats of each human male before gruesomely emerging themselves out.
- Fake Relationship: In "Skypoint", Owen and Tosh go undercover as a married couple to look for something mysterious in Skypoint, a bit of an issue considering the Unresolved Sexual Tension between each other.
- Fictional Video Game: In "Another Life", Owen becomes addicted to the fictional Second Reality, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game which is in the same vein as the real world Second Life.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: In "Trace Memory", the team find a man in their basement who has apparently been sent forward in time from 1953 to the 21st century after being drenched in tachyon energy from an explosion.
- Foreshadowing: In "Something in the Water", mention is made of the Water Hag's home planet, Strepto, having mysteriously vanished. "The Stolen Earth", which came out after the novel was released, would go on to suggest that it was taken by the Daleks for their Reality Bomb project.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: "Consequences" differs from the rest of the range in that it is an anthology rather than a single story.
- Gayngst: As "The Twilight Streets" reveals, Ianto has some issues with his bisexuality.Gwen: Oh come on, smile. Lisa, Jack… being bisexual is hardly a crime. Best of both worlds, isn’t it?’Ianto: No, Gwen. No, really it’s bloody not. It’s the worst of any world because you don’t really belong anywhere, because you are never sure of yourself or those around you. You can’t trust in anyone, their motives or their intentions. And because of that, you have, in a world that likes its nice shiny labels, no true identity. For Torchwood’s “Little Miss Sensitive”, you don’t half talk crap sometimes. So do me a favour and shut up about it, all right?
- The Game Come to Life: In "Pack Animals", Gareth Portland creates a card game called Monstaquest, using the alien species he found in a Vandrogonite Visualiser to create the characters. This causes a connection between the visualiser and the cards, allowing the species within to come to life. Whilst initially accidental, Gareth eventually utilizes this to kill people he doesn't like.
- Gender Bender: In "Almost Perfect'', the male Ianto is given the form of the dead woman Christine through the Perfection's machine. Some exploration is made of the reality of Ianto becoming a woman, such as being sexualised, before he starts gaining stereotypically feminine traits such as cleaning and watching his weight.
- Invisibility: In “Pack Animals”, Ianto comes into contact with a device that turns him completely invisible. This invisibility is eventually reversed after Jennifer Portland catches him using this invisibility to go undercover.
- Invisible Streaker: In “Pack Animals”, Ianto Jones is invisible for about half of the book. At one point he must sneak into a secret facility and is forced to do so nude, since his invisible clothes were ruined. His teammates also bar him from eating anything beforehand, as a floating blob of digesting food would be noticeable (not to mention disgusting).
- Meat Puppet: The Brudyac race seen in "Another Life" would invade planets by embedding control boxes in the brainstems of the local population and controlling them. Whilst some of the memories and the personalities of the host are retained, the control is otherwise complete. One Brudyac used this ability to control several people, including Owen, into finding materials to repair his ship.
- Mistaken for Insane: In "Trace Memory", the accidental time traveller Michael ends up as a patient at Cardiff Hospital during the time when Owen worked there as a doctor. None of the doctors believe Michael however when he claims to have been born in 1929 and that he saw the London Blitz in 1941 and put him down as having a case of schizophrenia, with Owen even suggesting that Michael be taken to St Helen's Psychiatric.
- Mister Seahorse: Whilst the Water Hag in "Something in the Water" procreates by spreading an inseminating virus to as many humans as possible, it's noted that only the offspring who develop in men end up having successful births, as there is a lack of the needed testosterone in women.
- Our Zombies Are Different: In the case of "Bay of the Dead", the zombies seen there are artificial creatures brought into existence from the memories of Oscar Phillips, with their purpose being to find the life-shell of an alien named Leet. They can use a form of hypnotic suggestion by biting people, turning them into zombies as well.
- Parasite Zombie: The Water Hags seen in "Something In The Water" procreate by infecting others with a virus, causing them to get weaker before dying. The host would then briefly reanimate, long enough for the growing Water Hag to drain testosterone from their host before bursting from the host's throat.
- The Plague: "Something In The Water" deals with a mysterious epidemic of coughing symptoms spreading throughout Wales, with all members of the Torchwood team getting it. Good thing that an antidote was found very quickly, as males who have the virus are incubators for a race of Water Hags, and eventually drop dead by having their head gruesomely torn apart by the growing Water Hag.
- Robot Soldier: "Border Princes" briefly features the Serial-G, a race of robotic soldiers deliberately designed by the Melkenes to have no inhibitions, compassion or morals to win a war they were losing badly. They won, but the condemnation that the Melkenes faced from the galactic community was severe enough that they attempted to decommission the Serial-G - needless to say that they were extinct within six weeks.
- Rubik's Cube: International Genius Symbol: In reflection of her status as being the Asian and Nerdy computer genius of the team, Tosh is mentioned to be capable of finishing a Rubik's cube within just a minute in "Another Life". She's even capable of finishing it after Owen messes with the cube by peeling off and replacing several of the stickers on it.
- Show Within a Show: Played with in Border Princes. Throughout the novel, frequent mention is made of the band Torn Curtain, the animated series Andy Pinkus, Rhamphorhynchus and the science fiction drama Eternity Base. It turns out this is all created by a subconcious Reality Warper, evidenced when Gwen leaves Cardiff, and suddenly a magazine article about Glenn Robbins of Eternity Base becomes about Jolene Blaylock and Star Trek: Enterprise.
- Sleek High Rise Apartment: Skypoint, first seen in its titular novel, is a high-rise apartment building with high levels of technology installed within it, such as fridges that orders food, HD T Vs, and remotes that operate the lights, TV, and window blinds.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Perfection in "Almost Perfect" are, as they admit to Jack, "just conmen with good technology", but have managed to construct a machine that serves as a belief system in that it allows them to become perfect and make perfect other worlds and people, to the point that they could be considered god-like.
- Unusual Chapter Numbers: "The Men Who Sold The World" has six Chapter Nineteens, each (except the last one) ending with Mr Wynter activating the time-gun and travelling back to the start of Chapter Nineteen. It also has flashback chapters headed "X Years/Months/Weeks Earlier..." and a prologue and epilogue headed "100,000 BC".
- Weight Loss Horror: In "Slow Decay", a Doctor called Dr. Scrotus promotes special pills which can help people lose weight. Trouble is that these pills are actually the eggs of an alien tapeworm, and anyone who consumes them gains a severe case of Horror Hunger.
