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A review by souverian
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
1.0
Story:
Four factions are shaping the landscape of 1861 London: The Technologists, responsible for every new contraption that pollutes the city air; the Rakes, anarchists all; the Eugenicists, who breed animals to fill certain niches and provide unpaid labor; and the Libertines, who oppose repression and advocate creativity and vision. But there is far more going on here than meets the eye. Werewolves, or loup-garous, are terrorizing the slums and kidnapping young chimney-sweeps, and an outlandish apparition nick-named Spring-Heeled Jack is wandering London and assaulting young women, then disappearing. Sir Richard Francis Burton, a famous explorer, stands amidst the chaos and has been commissioned by Lord Palmerston to find out exactly what’s been going on, and go to any lengths to set things to rights.
Style and Technique:
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack is written in the third-person, following Captain Burton and occasionally his young friend, an eccentric poet named Algernon Swinburne. While the events surrounding these two have the potential to make a daring adventure of a story, author Mark Hodder seems intent on dragging his premise through the mud by relying on convenience and insipidity. The foreshadowing is clunky and unconvincing. The explanations given for the new technologies and the work of the Eugenicists are completely unbelievable and have only the very slightest grounding in anything real, which fails to give them credibility. Hodder stretches our suspension of disbelief to the absolute limits, and then shatters it with the appearances of dozens of famous names: Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Richard Mockton Milnes among them. Some of these familiar names are mentioned once and never again, and serve no overall purpose except to add just a dash of “What the hell is going on and why won’t it stop” to this smorgasbord of incredulity.
Things don’t get better as the novel proceeds. Every character speaks in a highly twee fashion, overly jovial and inane. Finally, despite the large amount of female characters involved in the story, every single one of them is one dimensional, flighty, stupid, or only there to be sexually assaulted. This is especially unfortunate because many of the female characters have great potential to become something actually interesting, but the potential is half-heartedly used, off-screen, or abandoned altogether.
While some exceptions must be made for these issues because the setting is steampunk Victorian England and the reader must take into account the times, Hodder maintains his trend of running away with what is acceptable, making the story rather like a painting done in only primary colors, with no subtlety or shading.
The saving grace of this novel—or rather, the part that everyone should skip to and not bother with the rest—is Part Two: Being the True History of Spring-Heeled Jack. This part is like a novella on its own, where Hodder’s talent, thought by now to be a myth, really shines. It’s fast-paced, fascinating, and obviously deals with the origin of Spring-Heeled Jack and how he’s affected Victorian London. Spring-Heeled Jack by himself is a very interesting character with strange and twisted motivations, making this section a bit grotesque but far more engaging than the rest of the novel.
Characterization:
To the writing world, the term “Mary Sue” is a curse, and to have one in your novel is anathema. A Mary Sue is a female character that is perfect in every facet, from personality and looks (invariably every man falls in love with her, and sometimes the women, too) to sometimes supernatural ability.
Sir Richard Francis Burton is the male version of this: a Gary Stu. He is incapable of being wrong, and so skilled with disguise that he was able to fool a group of pilgrims he traveled to Mecca with into believing he was an Arab. It’s also stated several times, at least once by almost every character, that his facial structure is savage and often makes men hostile to him, but it doesn’t in the least prevent him from being able to talk to anyone across social classes, or every eligible young woman from falling in love with him. Even his enemies seem affected by him, and when given the opportunity to kill him and be done with it, they choose instead to only wound him, or better yet, give a speech. Burton himself is headstrongly oblivious, makes some terrible decisions (which the book either excuses or uses as fodder for his dark and occasionally tortured demeanor), and a bit of a gender chauvinist.
Burton’s counterpart is Algernon Swinburne, a drunk and a follower of Marquis de Sade (which you will be reminded of at every turn). The novel tells us that he is a failed poet, making it difficult to discern how he pays for the brandy he drowns himself in. This is a man who doesn’t seem quite human, as he dances about, speaks in an exuberantly high-pitched voice that’s annoying even to read, and doesn’t react to fear. He is relatable only in the sense that everyone knows how irritating it is to have a mosquito buzzing in your ear.
Everyone else is used mainly as a vehicle for exposition or a sudden, fumbling flashback. Swinburne, who’s supposed to be Burton’s partner and the second main character, falls victim to this. The interests of the main antagonists seem to be less world domination and more monologues, and they likely would have succeeded (by this point, you’re nearly rooting for them to win out of sheer frustration) if they simply followed the plan instead of talking about it. The Strange Affair is not populated with characters; it’s populated with a variety of miniature Wikipedias.
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack is less steampunk mystery and more tragedy, due to the unfortunate pay-off of an otherwise incredible premise. 1 ½ out of 5 stars.
Four factions are shaping the landscape of 1861 London: The Technologists, responsible for every new contraption that pollutes the city air; the Rakes, anarchists all; the Eugenicists, who breed animals to fill certain niches and provide unpaid labor; and the Libertines, who oppose repression and advocate creativity and vision. But there is far more going on here than meets the eye. Werewolves, or loup-garous, are terrorizing the slums and kidnapping young chimney-sweeps, and an outlandish apparition nick-named Spring-Heeled Jack is wandering London and assaulting young women, then disappearing. Sir Richard Francis Burton, a famous explorer, stands amidst the chaos and has been commissioned by Lord Palmerston to find out exactly what’s been going on, and go to any lengths to set things to rights.
Style and Technique:
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack is written in the third-person, following Captain Burton and occasionally his young friend, an eccentric poet named Algernon Swinburne. While the events surrounding these two have the potential to make a daring adventure of a story, author Mark Hodder seems intent on dragging his premise through the mud by relying on convenience and insipidity. The foreshadowing is clunky and unconvincing. The explanations given for the new technologies and the work of the Eugenicists are completely unbelievable and have only the very slightest grounding in anything real, which fails to give them credibility. Hodder stretches our suspension of disbelief to the absolute limits, and then shatters it with the appearances of dozens of famous names: Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Richard Mockton Milnes among them. Some of these familiar names are mentioned once and never again, and serve no overall purpose except to add just a dash of “What the hell is going on and why won’t it stop” to this smorgasbord of incredulity.
Things don’t get better as the novel proceeds. Every character speaks in a highly twee fashion, overly jovial and inane. Finally, despite the large amount of female characters involved in the story, every single one of them is one dimensional, flighty, stupid, or only there to be sexually assaulted. This is especially unfortunate because many of the female characters have great potential to become something actually interesting, but the potential is half-heartedly used, off-screen, or abandoned altogether.
While some exceptions must be made for these issues because the setting is steampunk Victorian England and the reader must take into account the times, Hodder maintains his trend of running away with what is acceptable, making the story rather like a painting done in only primary colors, with no subtlety or shading.
The saving grace of this novel—or rather, the part that everyone should skip to and not bother with the rest—is Part Two: Being the True History of Spring-Heeled Jack. This part is like a novella on its own, where Hodder’s talent, thought by now to be a myth, really shines. It’s fast-paced, fascinating, and obviously deals with the origin of Spring-Heeled Jack and how he’s affected Victorian London. Spring-Heeled Jack by himself is a very interesting character with strange and twisted motivations, making this section a bit grotesque but far more engaging than the rest of the novel.
Characterization:
To the writing world, the term “Mary Sue” is a curse, and to have one in your novel is anathema. A Mary Sue is a female character that is perfect in every facet, from personality and looks (invariably every man falls in love with her, and sometimes the women, too) to sometimes supernatural ability.
Sir Richard Francis Burton is the male version of this: a Gary Stu. He is incapable of being wrong, and so skilled with disguise that he was able to fool a group of pilgrims he traveled to Mecca with into believing he was an Arab. It’s also stated several times, at least once by almost every character, that his facial structure is savage and often makes men hostile to him, but it doesn’t in the least prevent him from being able to talk to anyone across social classes, or every eligible young woman from falling in love with him. Even his enemies seem affected by him, and when given the opportunity to kill him and be done with it, they choose instead to only wound him, or better yet, give a speech. Burton himself is headstrongly oblivious, makes some terrible decisions (which the book either excuses or uses as fodder for his dark and occasionally tortured demeanor), and a bit of a gender chauvinist.
Burton’s counterpart is Algernon Swinburne, a drunk and a follower of Marquis de Sade (which you will be reminded of at every turn). The novel tells us that he is a failed poet, making it difficult to discern how he pays for the brandy he drowns himself in. This is a man who doesn’t seem quite human, as he dances about, speaks in an exuberantly high-pitched voice that’s annoying even to read, and doesn’t react to fear. He is relatable only in the sense that everyone knows how irritating it is to have a mosquito buzzing in your ear.
Everyone else is used mainly as a vehicle for exposition or a sudden, fumbling flashback. Swinburne, who’s supposed to be Burton’s partner and the second main character, falls victim to this. The interests of the main antagonists seem to be less world domination and more monologues, and they likely would have succeeded (by this point, you’re nearly rooting for them to win out of sheer frustration) if they simply followed the plan instead of talking about it. The Strange Affair is not populated with characters; it’s populated with a variety of miniature Wikipedias.
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack is less steampunk mystery and more tragedy, due to the unfortunate pay-off of an otherwise incredible premise. 1 ½ out of 5 stars.