Spencer's Bookcase

Torchwood

Title: Torchwood
Seasons or Series: 4
Episodes: 41
Year: 2006-2011
Studio: BBC Studios
Created by: Russel T Davies

Premise:

“Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on Earth, arming the human race against the future. The twenty-first century is when everything changes. And you’ve got to be ready.” – Captain Jack Harkness

Torchwood follows Torchwood Three, which’s headquartered in Cardiff, Wales. Torchwood is an Institution created by Queen Victoria after an encounter with the Doctor (this is a spinoff of Doctor Who btw). The Torchwood Institute is to protect Britain from extraterrestrial and other-worldly threats. The team in this show have to protect Cardiff, Wales from alien and otherworldly threats that come from “the rift”. “The rift” is a weakness in space and time through which people or objects could pass from one location and time to another. Torchwood Three has to monitor the rift and control and seize what comes through it. Torchwood Three is led by the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness who just recently recruited former Police Officer Gwen Cooper to the team. The show follows their adventures.

My Thoughts:

I’m just going, to be honest here: I loved this show! For me, this was the show that stood out to me the most throughout 2020! If I had a show of the year for 2020, it would be this show! I love this show from beginning to end!

This show had almost everything right with it: stories, characters, great action scenes, great aliens, great plots and it even has great lore to it as well (The Torchwood Institute itself is a mystery and it creates some really interesting lore)!! The characters even make mistakes and to me that’s ok! This show does not have The Doctor who can explain everything to them and has all the answers. It’s just a bunch of humans who don’t know what they are dealing with and they have to figure out together how to defeat the threat they are facing. One of the best things that I loved about this show is that it had more of a focus on the human condition: existentialism, the nature of human life, corrupting nature of power. It can get really deep.

For the first two seasons, it was more of a monster of the week type formula. Although Season 2 does have the monster of the week formula, there is a story arc going on throughout that season. From Season 3 onwards, they ditched the monster of the week formula for a more serialized approach with one main story arc per season. Surprisingly I really liked both approaches and show just how good this series is.

The show also seems to pay attention to its continuity. As all the episodes do matter in this show. Something that I feel it’s parent show Doctor Who could learn from, as it seems now they retcon the show whenever it suits the showrunner. The show has some of the best LGBTQ+ Representation, I have ever seen on a TV show.

The only real criticism I have about the show is that some of the episodes in Season One were pretty weak. Now I don’t hate Season One, as it did have a lot of stand out episodes. The problem was they were just trying to find its feet and for that reason, it was weaker. Episode 2 of the series was probably the worst episode in the entire series! However the show does get better as it goes on.

Regardless, Torchwood was my favourite show that I watched in 2020. And the interesting thing is that even though the show has not aired on tv since 2011, the show still continues! Through audiobooks that have been released through Big Finish Productions. And they are just as good as the TV series! I have a few of the Audiobooks, so expect a review of some of them in the future!

I decided to take Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge

Hello everyone! While you are all waiting for my next book review. I decided to accept Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge. When I started this year, I wanted to devote more time to reading. I am trying to set aside a few minutes each day to read. Given that I do work full-time, it may be a little challenging. However, since I have three day weekends right now, and with the lockdown happening, I think I do have the time to read. I made it my resolution for the year. I remember loving reading when I was young and now I want to go back and make reading a very important thing in my life again. I honestly wish if I had one or more hours in the day, I would spend it reading.

The reason why I accepted this challenge was so I can hold myself accountable on whether or not I succeed in this resolution. So I decided to set a goal that I think it can be done. I didn’t want to get too ambitious but I do want to make sure that I read more this year than in previous years. So I decided to set the goal of reading 35 books this year. Now, if I read more books than the stated goal then that’s great! That means that I succeeded in reading even more books than I was planning on!

I will be reviewing this post to see how well or how poorly I did with this challenge at the beginning of next year! Thank you all for reading. See you all soon!

The Shining

Title: The Shining

Author: Stephen King

Genre: Horror

Pages: 659

Synopsis:

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

(from Goodreads)

My Thoughts:

This book is often considered a classic, and one of, if not the best Stephen King novels ever made. It’s for good reason as I really enjoyed this book. I found myself unable to put it down, and if that happens to me then in my opinion it’s a great book.

One of the greatest strengths of this book is its characters. I just love how we dive into the minds of each of the main characters, we learn what and how they are thinking, their feelings, their past and we learn who they are as people. Jack in particular is a very complex character, we don’t know whether to sympathize with him or not. His descent into madness was terrifying.

Also, let me ask you this: Have you been stuck in one place for a long time and you can’t go out for a very long time, and you are stuck only with your family or sometimes all alone? Does this sound familiar to you at all? The fact that there is a pandemic going on and with stay at home orders going on, really helped me relate to the situation this family is going through. Well that and it’s winter here in Canada, and we can have some really bad winters here.

I’ve always believed that the best horror stories are the one’s that has a message behind it. I don’t just want to be scared for the sake of it, I want there to be a deeper meaning behind it too. The Shining is one of those books as it tackles the problem of Alcoholism and Domestic Violence. It explores the effects of Alcoholism on the Alcoholic and everyone around that person in a very effective way.

My only real problem with this book is more nitpicks. I didn’t quite get the musical references in the party scene. I had to look them up just to understand the musical reference. The Giant hedge animals coming to life and trying to kill people was pretty laughable. Giant hedge animals are not scary.

This is definitely my favourite Stephen King novel that I have read (and I’ve read a few of them) and I probably will reread the book in the future.

Rating:

Angels & Demons

So let’s begin with the book I most recently finished Angels & Demons!

Title: Angels & Demons
Author: Dan Brown
Series: The Robert Langdon Series
Genre: Mystery and Thriller
Pages: 616

Synopsis:

Robert Langdon, expert Symbologist is called by CERN Director Maximilian Kohler after one of his top physicists Leonardo Vetra is murdered with his chest branded “Illuminati”. Robert Langdon after determines that the “Illuminati” brand is authentic, and realizes that the Illuminati that was previously thought to be extinct, exists. The Illuminati stole a canister containing antimatter, a dangerous material intended to be used as a weapon to destroy Vatican City. Robert Langdon teams up with Leonardo Vetra’s adopted daughter Vittoria Vetra, a Physicist to try and recover the canister, as the canister is set to explode in less than 24 hours at Vatican City.

They make their way to Vatican City where the Pope recently died. Robert and Vittoria learn that the four Preferti, the cardinals who are most likely to be elected Pope, are missing. Langdon and Vittoria search for the Preferti in hopes of possibly finding the canister. They are in a race against time to save the Preferti and to find the canister before it’s too late.

My Thoughts:

If you are looking for a good mystery and thriller, you will find it here. This book brings strong characters in Vittoria and Robert, and a lot of the other characters are strong in their own right. One of the things I liked about the characterization of the main characters is the backstories given to them. The backstories help give us insight into who these characters are and how their experiences shape their character. The backstories do help the reader understand these characters and their motivations.

As for the plot, it’s pretty good and the pacing of the novel is just right. The book does keep you in suspense and it helps make the book more readable.

However, I do have an issue with some of the historical accuracies in this book. While Dan Brown rightfully states the Illuminati is factual, as the Illuminati did exist between 1776 to around 1785. His version of the Illuminati, however, is completely fictional as the Illuminati as far as we know did not exist in the 1500s. As a person who is very big into History, this does bother me a little bit. There are also several inaccuracies about the works of art and architectural locations of places in Rome.

Warning: The next paragraph is a spoiler: Skip this paragraph if you do not want to get spoiled!

One thing that bothered me was the part where Robert Langdon jumped over 10,000 feet from a Helicopter with nothing but a helicopter windscreen tarpaulin as a parachute into Tiber River. Somehow he survives with no major injuries and is totally fine. Now I’m no expert on this kind of stuff, but I found that extremely hard for me to believe. That is definitely some plot armor if I ever did see it.

**Spoilers have now ended**

It is the first book in the series however and I do hope it gets better from here. If you are into action, suspense, and mystery this book definitely delivers on that, and for that reason, I do recommend this book.

Rating:

Hello and welcome to Spencer’s Bookcase

Hello everyone! I am Spencer and Welcome to Spencer’s Bookcase! Where I show my reviews of the books I’m reading. I also include reviews for my favourite TV Shows, Movies, and sometimes even Anime and Manga. During the day I work full-time at a job, so blogging is a passion project if anything else. I don’t know how often I will be posting on this blog, it all depends on when I can finish the book and write it’s review. I will try to post though whenever possible.

The first few book reviews will be books that I have in my possession and will either be the first time I’ve ever read it or if it’s a reread.

I do have another blog called Mtgtheory, you can check that out by clicking here.

You can get involved with this blog by leaving a comment, send me an e-mail at SpencerBookcase@gmail.com. Let me know if you have any suggestions on what I should read next!

I love reading and I hope that I can guide you to reading by recommending books through this blog!