Slow Decay (novel)

Slow Decay
Main character(s):	Jack, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Ianto
Featuring:	Rhys, Mitch, Janet
Main enemy:	Scotus, Alien tapeworms
Main setting:	Cardiff, mid 2000s
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Andy Lane
Read by:	Burn Gorman
Release details
Release number:	3
Release date:	11 January 2007
Format:	Hardcover Book, 251 Pages, 20 Chapters
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-48655-4
Memorable moment
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss
BBC Torchwood novels
← Previous	Border Princes
Next →	Something in the Water

Slow Decay was the third release in the BBC Torchwood Novels series.

Publisher's summary

When Torchwood track an energy surge to a Cardiff nightclub, the team finds the police are already at the scene. Five teenagers have died in a fight, and lying among the bodies is an extraterrestrial device. Next morning, they discover the corpse of a Weevil, its face and neck eaten away, seemingly by human teeth. And on the streets of Cardiff, an ordinary woman with an extraordinary hunger is attacking people and eating her victims.

The job of a lifetime it might be, but working for Torchwood is putting big strains on Gwen's relationship with Rhys. While she decides to spice up their love life with the help of alien technology, Rhys decides it's time to sort himself out — better music, healthier food, lose some weight. Luckily, a friend has mentioned Doctor Scotus's weight-loss clinic...

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Captain Jack Harkness
• Gwen Cooper
• Toshiko Sato
• Owen Harper
• Ianto Jones
• Rhys Williams
• Lucy Sobel
• Marianne Till
• Dr Scotus
• PC Jimmy Mitchell
• Craig Sutherland
• Rick Dennis
• Geraint Morris
• Dai Morris
• Idris ab Hugh
• Designer
• Martin
• Receptionist
• Jodie Williams
• Shaven-headed man
• Thug
• Goon

Worldbuilding

• The sky over Cardiff is compared to an Edvard Munch painting.
• Gwen states that they stopped wearing bowler hats in the Civil Service in the 1950s as they went out of fashion, like tea trollies and waistcoats. Jack compares the Civil Service to an administrative version of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Jack Harkness uses a two-year-old playing near poison ivy, rose bushes, hawthorn, spades and secateurs as a metaphor for humans and alien technology.
• Jack lists examples of small talk: fashion, politics, house prices, sport.
• Gwen goes on a date with Rhys to the Indian Summer.
• Jack once parked the Torchwood SUV in the middle of the Taff Bridge.
• Torchwood investigate an incident at a nightclub off St Mary Street. Five bodies are found with folding knives. The victims are Craig Sutherland, Rick Dennis, Geraint Morris, Dai Morris and Idris ab Hugh. Gwen theorises that there are three locals and two students from Cardiff University.
• Jack suggests getting Laurence Llewelyn Bowen to decorate the Torchwood Hub with swags and velvet and stencilled oak leaves.
• Gwen says that Torchwood has a responsibility not to disturb the crime scenes, "like the Country Code only a lot weirder".
• Owen wipes blood from his hands with a Kleenex.
• Owen questions whether a device found at the crime scene is an iPod.
• Tosh uses a hyperspectral scanner to confirm where the device comes from.
• Gwen quotes her old tutor from Hendon.
• The device is part of a batch which arrived on Earth sometimes in the 1950s. Own compares them to Apostle Spoons.
• Rhys includes swapping Radio 2 for Radio 1 among the radical changes he needs to make.
• Gwen cooked Rhys chicken breasts marinated in lime juice and orange juice and wrapped in parma ham with asparagus and parmesan. To drink they had white wine and for dessert was a coffee crème brûlée. They usually made do with pasta in sauce.
• Rhys and Gwen had CDs of The Flaming Lips and Suzanne Vega, which included the track Luka.
• Gwen and Rhys used to buy recipe books and go through the recipes. They made turkey with milk chocolate and chilli pepper sauce, noting they should have used dark chocolate instead of milk. They also made brie wedges in breadcrumbs, pork, paprika and pears, and barbecued Cuban lamb marinated in Coca-Cola. For a dinner party with Andy and Rebecca, Gwen once made peanut butter and apple soup.
• Owen mentions GQ.
• Heart disease is mentioned.
• The Red Dragon Centre is in Cardiff.
• A San Miguel is an alcoholic drink.
• Owen uses a Sig Sauer P226; Tosh uses a Walther P99.
• Torchwood Three uses Teflon bullets and Glock 17.
• Rhys goes shopping in ASDA.
• St Edmunds Pippin, Mère de Ménage, Catshead, Ribston Pippin, Ashmead's Kernel, Mannington's Pearman, Lodgemore Nonpareil, Devonshire Quarrenden, Cox's Orange Pippin and Golden Delicious are varieties of apple.

Notes

• The plotline of medical malpractice and treatment using an alien parastite is similar to the Torchwood television story Reset.
• In the novel, Owen Harper quickly comes up with Tapanuli Fever to falsely describe the condition of Marianne Till. Tapanuli Fever is fictional illness from the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Dying Detective.

Audio release

• The story was released as an audiobook on 3x CD read by Burn Gorman.
• The audiobook is also available as a download from the AudioGo website.

Continuity

• Gwen secretly takes an emotional amplifier from the Hub to use in her private life. Many of the team previously borrowed items. (TV: Everything Changes)
• Toshiko finds Ianto acting strangely around a chamber in the Torchwood Archive. (TV: Cyberwoman)
• Tosh again recalls Operation Goldenrod. (PROSE: Another Life)
• Jack asks Ianto to make a call to Jubilee Pizza. (TV: Everything Changes)
• Tosh knows its a touchy subject to talk about what happened to Torchwood London. (TV: Doomsday)

Gallery

• 

  Original cover

• 

  German edition

• 

  Audiobook cover

External links

• Official Slow Decay page at Penguin Books
• Slow Decay at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Slow Decay at The Whoniverse