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A review by kiwikathleen
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
4.0
I was about to write a decent review, but made the mistake of reading a number of the reviews already written here and have decided that there are so many excellent revews that I'm wasting my time.
So this is it:
This novel is a fascinating alternative history (several people are calling it steam punk, but that's not part of my working vocabulary so I won't use it myself) with time travel thrown in. It's set in Victorian England, or what would have been Victorian England if a time traveller hadn't caused an anomaly.
Great stuff! I love these time paradoxes. And Hodder has done a great job with placing it into context, with all the sensibilities of the age. For example, a lady can't cope with a swearing parrot, saying such things as "fardle-bottomed" and "puke-parking" (I've taken the book back to the library already, so can't quote correctly, but that's the gist of it), and a girl is sent insane from an attack by Spring-Heeled Jack, where he ripped open her bodice. Admittedly, he was a frightening character, but it's a reflection of the time to have such an extreme reaction to him.
All very entertaining, with mystery, the strangest characters, and plenty of action, all told in a style that, while it would never actually equate with the writers of the age, is reminiscent of it.
So this is it:
This novel is a fascinating alternative history (several people are calling it steam punk, but that's not part of my working vocabulary so I won't use it myself) with time travel thrown in. It's set in Victorian England, or what would have been Victorian England if a time traveller hadn't caused an anomaly.
Great stuff! I love these time paradoxes. And Hodder has done a great job with placing it into context, with all the sensibilities of the age. For example, a lady can't cope with a swearing parrot, saying such things as "fardle-bottomed" and "puke-parking" (I've taken the book back to the library already, so can't quote correctly, but that's the gist of it), and a girl is sent insane from an attack by Spring-Heeled Jack, where he ripped open her bodice. Admittedly, he was a frightening character, but it's a reflection of the time to have such an extreme reaction to him.
All very entertaining, with mystery, the strangest characters, and plenty of action, all told in a style that, while it would never actually equate with the writers of the age, is reminiscent of it.