Customer Reviews
attack of the morning people - By: Paul Tapner, 01 May 2008 
This is a totallly original story involving torchwood, characters from the bbc show about a secret group in cardiff that protects the world from aliens & dangerous technology that comes through a rift in time in the city. It's written as a short novel & read by actor burn gorman, well known for his role as owen harper in the show. It runs for roughly two & a half hours, & is spread out over two discs, each of seventy five minutes in duration.
The story involves torchwood investigating why people are suddenly doing nothing but talk non stop to complete strangers. as the city dissolves into chaos as a result of alll this, can torchwood find the cause & save the day?
As a torchwood story this is a pretty decent one, & as a novel not bad. there are a lot of very well drawn supporting characters. although regular character ianto & tosh don't get very much to do.
Actor burn gorman is a very good reader & enjoyable to listen to. It's initiallly quiet disconcerting to hear someone say torchwood over the theme & for it to not be john barrowman! He does the vocal mannerisms of alll the characters, especiallly the regulars very well, although doesn't quite manage to recreate the voices of alll of them.
The story is divided into six chapters, each running roughly twenty five minutes. chapter four is split between discs one & two. & this is the one flaw with the whole thing, as it's paced more like a novel than an audio so it does get a bit much to listen to in one go. I recommend taking breaks in between chapters. added to which, chapter five is rather padded & could easily have been cut down, & the whole resolution in chapter six feels a bit rushed.
Also please note that like the show it contains adult scenes & situations & language.
Not bad, but I agree with the reviewer who gave it 3.5 out of 5
Everyone Says Hello - By: dogbarkssome, 12 Apr 2008 The Torchwood team find themselves up against a rogue alien communications device in this exclusive audio story read by Burn Gorman (Owen Harper).
'Everyone Says Hello' has a pleasantly offbeat central premise, with the inhabitants of Cardiff forced into exchanging banalities with each other leading to the virtual collapse of the city. It's a nice idea, but it has to be said that stretched out to approx 2.5 hours it does become a little wearing. Like sister audio story 'Hidden' this adventure feels very S-L-O-W, as what may have felt like a pacy adventure on the page becomes bloated by the audiobook format, with reallly only enough plot to cover 1 CDs worth of action.
Burn Gorman does a reasonable job of the reading, throwing himself into passable impressions of the rest of the Torchwood regulars & a whole host of Welsh accents, though he seems incapable of capturing Captain Jacks American twang.
All in alll this is an interesting story, & slightly superior to 'Hidden' in that ut has a more satisfying ending, but I still feel that the producers of these CDs need to work on the pacing of stories written exclusively for audio.
3.5 out of 5
Burn Gorman's Performance is Outstanding! - By: ANTHONY A. ZEHETNER, 02 Apr 2008 
Burn Gorman is outstanding in this exclusive audio book from Torchwood series two. He doesn't narrate the story but actuallly PEFORMS it with alll of the mannersisms, inflectures & vocal energy he would use if he were performing this for TV or the stage. It's obvious that he has read the book himself before the recording (not alll Torchwood audio plays can make that claim!) & his enthusiasm makes the story more engaging & maintains interest.
Dan Abnett's script is entirely suited to the realm of audio. It's more accessible than the other Torchwood stories available & begins on a lazy summer's day. Gone is the need for knowledge of the show's underlying plotlines & continuity. It's alll in with fun interplay between characters & strange takes on life's ordinariness. How many people will listen to this on the bus or whilst standing in a queue & feel for the protagonist's emotions? If "Everyone Says Hello" unfolded on the printed page it would lose its impact & enjoyment.
Its sister volume, "Hidden", the other exclusive Torchwood audiobook released at the same time, fares less well. Despite a polished reading by Naoko Mori (although she enunciates her "g"'s softly, such that the "g" in "aged" is pronounced like the second "g" in "garage" instead of the first!), Hidden seems to have been a Torchwood novel simply translated to CD.
"Everyone Says Hello" doesn't have the plot to sustain three CDs like the first run of Torchwood audios, though fills the two discs admirably. Gorman does a first rate job in breathing life into the most incidental of characters & after a million different ways of saying the word "hello" he still finds ways of making it refreshing & never staid (though he must be sick of the word by the end of the CDs!)
Burn Gorman expresses talents here that are at times overshadowed by the moody, self-absorbed, & at times unlikable, Owen he portrays on TV (and occasionallly obnoxious, dour stereotypes on other shows like Marple). These CDs showcase potential that is hopefully capitalised on the show in the future, makes for more interesting viewing & would be more enjoyable to play.
Ianto is in series one form in "Everyone Says Hello" with his role reduced to a cameo. All we need now is an Ianto-centred Torchwood narration by Gareth David-Lloyd to complete the set. Currently Burn Gorman, followed by Eve Myles, leads the way in strong audio presentation.
Watch out for the "Have you seen the light?" beer pun on disk two!
Good enough for me - By: A. Timson, 15 Feb 2008 
Everyone Says Hello is a pretty good Torchwood story with an interesting presentation.
Burn Gorman does a good job bringing most of the characters to life; the exception being Captain Jack Harkness, who proved beyond Gorman; I'm not sure if it was just the accent, or something else. But he did a pretty good job bringing Dan Abnett's story to life otherwise.
This isn't Abnett's first Torchwood story, & he proved here again that he has a good grasp of the show's characters. The story fell victim to the same tendency towards the grandiose that some of the more recent Torchwood stories on-screen have, but as long as the story is well-executed that's not a problem. And I certainly think that the story was well-executed.
While a new Torchwood novel would've been my preference over a new audiobook, I still enjoyed Everyone Says Hello. And that's good enough for me.
