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sreeves's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
septembrea's review
3.0
3.5 stars out of 5.
This was a good book but just too long and dense. The first half is 4.5 out of 5 while the last half is less. Still, great steampunk novel featuring real historical figures in an alternate future.
This was a good book but just too long and dense. The first half is 4.5 out of 5 while the last half is less. Still, great steampunk novel featuring real historical figures in an alternate future.
hank's review
3.0
This book was outrageous! It is hard to even describe the madness that went on. Alt-history, steampunk, sci-fi, lunacy. I both appreciated and did not appreciate knowing nothing about the book before starting. The beginning was rough to say the least, the writing is the worst part about the novel and since the story had not started I almost gave up in the first 40 pages.
From human-animal hybrids, mechanical, centipede like trash collectors,, and James Bond in the Victorian era, Hodder has jammed much into the story. Too much you say? Well it did start reaching farcical levels but for me that was part of the charm. Burton was kind of a Bond and James Kirk hybrid, no skill or language was too difficult and no situation deserved other than charging headlong into it. He too was a bit over the top but kept just this side of cartoonish.
I hated the writing. So much so I averaged my 3.5 down. There were too many smack you in the face passages where Hodder was telling you what to feel and then he would repeat himself. He got lost, as many authors do, in trying to capture the Victorian era speech without it adding anything to the book.
I am glad I read the book, it was quite enjoyable but will not continue with the series. It was a mad romp through the 1800s and fun if you keep your expectations low.
From human-animal hybrids, mechanical, centipede like trash collectors,
Spoiler
time travelI hated the writing. So much so I averaged my 3.5 down. There were too many smack you in the face passages where Hodder was telling you what to feel and then he would repeat himself. He got lost, as many authors do, in trying to capture the Victorian era speech without it adding anything to the book.
I am glad I read the book, it was quite enjoyable but will not continue with the series. It was a mad romp through the 1800s and fun if you keep your expectations low.
sandin954's review against another edition
2.0
Sir Richard Francis Burton must cope with a myriad of strange occurrences after being commissioned as a King's Agent in an alternative England. Lots of interesting ideas and uses of historical characters but the writing was not really up to the story. Info dumps abounded (with lots of telling not showing) and quite a bit of the weird and different technology just seemed to be garnishments and not really all that integral to the plot.
aunt13soc1al's review against another edition
4.0
It's been a long time since I read a science fiction time travel novel. I'm thankful that Pyr sent me a copy to read and review. Hodder 's well thought out and researched history go a long way to make this novel not only unique but also frightfully entertaining. I was drawn into the life of Burton as he goes from the recent news of his frenemy's death to being assailed by Spring Heeled Jack in the murk of London. From there he is pulled into the search for just who or what Jack is and how can they stop him from molesting young women.
Jack's time travel plays an important role in the lives of the characters as well as his own life. He's trying to make right what went wrong many years ago (current period for most of the book) and yet while he is trying to fix his past, he is not only changing things, but also screwing up his failed attempt to correct his mistake again and again. The book's timeline is not confusing at all and I believe that can only be credited to Hodder's masterful storytelling. He is able to create believable characters and make them come alive in a London that could have been had things happened the way Hodder's events unfold.
If you love a good sci-fi thriller/mystery or a good time travel book, I highly recommend this book. I have the sequel sitting in my TBR pile and I hope to get it to the top of the pile soon. I expect great things from the sequel and the upcoming third book in the trilogy.
Jack's time travel plays an important role in the lives of the characters as well as his own life. He's trying to make right what went wrong many years ago (current period for most of the book) and yet while he is trying to fix his past, he is not only changing things, but also screwing up his failed attempt to correct his mistake again and again. The book's timeline is not confusing at all and I believe that can only be credited to Hodder's masterful storytelling. He is able to create believable characters and make them come alive in a London that could have been had things happened the way Hodder's events unfold.
If you love a good sci-fi thriller/mystery or a good time travel book, I highly recommend this book. I have the sequel sitting in my TBR pile and I hope to get it to the top of the pile soon. I expect great things from the sequel and the upcoming third book in the trilogy.
michaelcattigan's review
4.0
Some books are born great.
Some books achieve greatness.
Some books have greatness thrust upon them.
This book is not one of them. It's not great. It's not beautifully written. It's not literary.
But it is immensely fun!
Mark Hodder propels us into Victorian London: the search for the source of the Nile, Stanley, Livingstone, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Oscar Wilde and Algernon Swinburne, Darwin, Babbage and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; smog, hansom cabs, Penny Farthings. And giant, genetically engineered swans pulling kites in which people can sit.
Yes, giant swans. Yes, genetic engineering. Huge elephantine megadrays. Trained parakeets for delivering verbal messages - spiced with additional swear words of the parakeets' own choice. Werewolves. Flying steam powered armchairs. Even the Penny Farthings are motorised.
There are two basic sects in Albertian London: Libertines who celebrate freedom, art, poetry and sexual experimentation and their slightly more extreme brethren the Rakes for whom every law is an undue limit on their freedom; and scientists who are split between Engineers and Eugenicists.
Hodder's London is a steampunk alternate history world which gives Hodder plenty of opportunity to be playful and inventive. At times, I felt he was at risk of becoming somewhat self indulgent in his creativity and re-interpretation of Victoria's London into Albert's but there is a cracking yarn at the heart of the story which knots it together.
Our hero is Sir Richard Burton - soldier, explorer and linguist - scarred physically and mentally from expeditions in Africa and the debate with his friend John Speke over the source of the Nile - adrift in a world that seems to be turning its back on him. Until he is offered the position of King's Agent with the brief to investigate the weird and unusual. Yes, there are weirder and more unusual things in the world than giant swans. Werewolves or loup-garou for example; and Spring-Heeled Jack.
Burton is accompanied and assisted by Algernon Swinburne, the poet whose incarnation here is a libertine influenced by de Sade but small and childish he gives the infamous and deadly Burton something of a foil ... and an opportunity to infiltrate the chimney sweeps of London. He was the weakest character in the book for me: he didn't offer much and the humour he added was a tad puerile and focused on his sexual enjoyment of some of the beatings he received. Whereas the were elements of Holmes about Burton; Swinburne didn't balance him the way Watson balances Holmes.
The explanation for Spring-Heeled Jack was one that I guessed pretty quickly but is, I guess, a spoiler. Perhaps it will suffice to say that 10th of June 1840 is the critical date in the novel: the day in (true) history when Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. It has to be true: its in Wikipedia! Imagine the effect of that assassination attempt on his descendants, the shame forever attached to the family. Imagine them wishing that he had never made that attempt...
As I said at the beginning, this was not a great book; it was a fun, well imagined, romp through a steampunk alternative universe. It is creative and well paced; it works as steampunk and it works as an action/thriller.
Good. Clean. Fun.
No real thinking required.
And there's nothing wrong with that!
This is a debut novel and clearly - whilst self contained - anticipated to be part of a series: not all the antagonists are captured or disposed of and it is a rich world full of potential and two further books have been written The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man and Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.
Worth a look?
Hell yeah!
Some books achieve greatness.
Some books have greatness thrust upon them.
This book is not one of them. It's not great. It's not beautifully written. It's not literary.
But it is immensely fun!
Mark Hodder propels us into Victorian London: the search for the source of the Nile, Stanley, Livingstone, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Oscar Wilde and Algernon Swinburne, Darwin, Babbage and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; smog, hansom cabs, Penny Farthings. And giant, genetically engineered swans pulling kites in which people can sit.
Yes, giant swans. Yes, genetic engineering. Huge elephantine megadrays. Trained parakeets for delivering verbal messages - spiced with additional swear words of the parakeets' own choice. Werewolves. Flying steam powered armchairs. Even the Penny Farthings are motorised.
There are two basic sects in Albertian London: Libertines who celebrate freedom, art, poetry and sexual experimentation and their slightly more extreme brethren the Rakes for whom every law is an undue limit on their freedom; and scientists who are split between Engineers and Eugenicists.
Hodder's London is a steampunk alternate history world which gives Hodder plenty of opportunity to be playful and inventive. At times, I felt he was at risk of becoming somewhat self indulgent in his creativity and re-interpretation of Victoria's London into Albert's but there is a cracking yarn at the heart of the story which knots it together.
Our hero is Sir Richard Burton - soldier, explorer and linguist - scarred physically and mentally from expeditions in Africa and the debate with his friend John Speke over the source of the Nile - adrift in a world that seems to be turning its back on him. Until he is offered the position of King's Agent with the brief to investigate the weird and unusual. Yes, there are weirder and more unusual things in the world than giant swans. Werewolves or loup-garou for example; and Spring-Heeled Jack.
Burton is accompanied and assisted by Algernon Swinburne, the poet whose incarnation here is a libertine influenced by de Sade but small and childish he gives the infamous and deadly Burton something of a foil ... and an opportunity to infiltrate the chimney sweeps of London. He was the weakest character in the book for me: he didn't offer much and the humour he added was a tad puerile and focused on his sexual enjoyment of some of the beatings he received. Whereas the were elements of Holmes about Burton; Swinburne didn't balance him the way Watson balances Holmes.
The explanation for Spring-Heeled Jack was one that I guessed pretty quickly but is, I guess, a spoiler. Perhaps it will suffice to say that 10th of June 1840 is the critical date in the novel: the day in (true) history when Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. It has to be true: its in Wikipedia! Imagine the effect of that assassination attempt on his descendants, the shame forever attached to the family. Imagine them wishing that he had never made that attempt...
As I said at the beginning, this was not a great book; it was a fun, well imagined, romp through a steampunk alternative universe. It is creative and well paced; it works as steampunk and it works as an action/thriller.
Good. Clean. Fun.
No real thinking required.
And there's nothing wrong with that!
This is a debut novel and clearly - whilst self contained - anticipated to be part of a series: not all the antagonists are captured or disposed of and it is a rich world full of potential and two further books have been written The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man and Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.
Worth a look?
Hell yeah!
manzabar's review against another edition
2.0
Bit of a train wreck really. It's not particularly good, interesting or believable but it had enough moments that it was hard to put down.
pnw_afox's review against another edition
3.0
I wish there were half-stars on goodreads because I would like to give this book two and a half stars. I enjoyed much of this book,; however, the continual assaults on young women in search of birthmark irked me. Was there really no other way to construct a plot for a time traveler seeking out a certain ancestor?
Aside from the above-mentioned criticism,I liked the pulp feel of the story and the mad science.
Aside from the above-mentioned criticism,I liked the pulp feel of the story and the mad science.
tigerb99's review
4.0
Very good alternate history and steampunk mix. The story rollicks right along until it has to step off to the side and explain Jack, which I think hurt the pace a bit, but the ending was as cinematic and action-packed as one could hope for.
lilyisreadingsomething's review
3.0
Interesting exploration of cause and effect.
-Overlong mechanical descriptions.
+Clever alternate version of historical figures.
-Overlong mechanical descriptions.
+Clever alternate version of historical figures.