レビュー要約

• 史実の人物と怪奇伝説を大胆に組み合わせる発想と、活劇としての勢いが評価されている。濃密な設定を楽しむ読者に向く一方、奇想の多さを重く感じる反応もある。

レビュー

• Mix the ingredients, light the touchpaper, and ...whoosh!

  I try to keep up with all the SF award-winners (this has just won the Philip K. Dick Award), but while they're mostly inventive and worthy, they're often not much fun. Well, "Spring Heeled Jack" is certainly inventive, and no doubt worthy, but most of all it's a ton of fun - an absolute delight from start to finish. This really was a book I couldn't bear to put down, and finished in two large sittings within 24 hours of its arrival on the doormat from Amazon. The plot is terrific, so I'm not going to give too much away. Suffice it to say: take a Victorian - no, make that Albertian, setting - and mix in large dollops of H. G. Wells, Conan Doyle, Philip José Farmer, Charles Dickens, Michael Moorcock (surely the book's Godfather, and acknowledged by Mark Hodder), Jack Finney, Robert Heinlein, and lots and lots of others, get your history right so that you can change it with impunity and keep the reader with you, stir it all together into a potent mix, and whoosh! When you get (all too quickly) to the end, you can only take your hat off to the author - a bravura performance, and a worthy award-winner. And it's so funny too: see if you can stop yourself laughing out loud at the messenger parakeets. Yes, messenger parakeets. Great stuff: get it now!

• STUNNING Steampunk Tale of Detectives, Time Travel, Possibilities

  This is a great story about Sir Richard Francis Burton and his assistant Algernon Charles Swinburne Set in the Victorian period Burton is an explorer whose biggest quest was the find the headwaters of the Nile. Unfortunately one of his fellow explorers, who accompanied him on this trip, John Hanning Speke has taken that away from him by claiming to have found the headwaters while Burton was taken sick. While Burton is preparing to debate Speke about this so called discovery word comes that Speke has accidentally shot himself in the head. While out drinking one night Burton is accosted by a man in a suit with blue electricity all around him standing on stilts. The man tells Burton to "Leave me alone". This a mystery to Burton who has no idea who the man in the electrical suit is. The man jumps into the air and promptly disappears. Burton is hired by the Prime Minister to investigate the potential of a spy at the senior levels of government and also the case of Spring Heeled Jack who has been attacking young girls over a period of 24 years. Burton is soon on the trail dragging his reluctant assistant Swinburne who is a drunk and a poet, in that order. Burton soon runs into werewolf like creatures and all sorts of human machine combinations in his quest to track down Spring Heeled Jack and determine what he is up to. At the same time there is a rash of kidnapping involving young chimney sweeps. Some are returned and some never come back. The ones that are returned have no idea where they were but each has a puncture would on their forehead. The use of steam powered transportation and automatons are pervasive in the book. Time travel also enjoys the majority in the middle of the book. This is a very well defined Steampunk novel with a compelling and exciting story arc. Recommended

• All the way from the States

  As advertised and relatively speedy delivery.

• Wild romp backward and sideways

  This is certainly not your everyday read, although it's certainly a good one. Set in 1861, the protagonist is Sir Richard Francis Burton, the explorer, not the actor. The first fifty or so pages feel like engaging historical fiction. Then all hell breaks loose. In a good way. This version of 1861 isn't what we read in the history books. It includes steam powered flying chairs, insulting messenger parakeets, genetically engineered werewolves, robotic street cleaners and all sorts of goodies. Most of the characters are famous Victorians, or in this world Albertians given that Victoria was shot to death in 1840 (a real life attempt that was fatal in this alternate history). The voice of the novel is third person, medium tight and usually riding with Burton. It does, however, jump over to some others occasionally like his side kick the Marquis-de-Sade-loving poet Algernon Swinburne and the title character. The tone is slightly flip, as the inventions and wackiness is just left of possible. Yet things remain consistently period and the characters are well researched and full of era-appropriate dialog, but also clever and engaging. About midway, the book, already getting weird, goes totally off the the deep end. Enter Spring-Heeled Jack, crazy time traveler, and a host of steampunk altered villains including a double-brain grafted Charles Darwin and an Iron Golemized Isambard Kingdom Brunel. But this zaniness only makes the novel better. I'm reminded of one of my all time favorites, The Anubis Gates, but TSAOSHJ is less magical, more grounded in technology. Bravo! This book really shows off tremendous world building and research while remaining fast paced and easy to read. If it has anything that holds it back from being a complete classic, it's that the characters, while well developed, don't really illicit any significant pathos. Things are just a little too distant and weird for that. It's not a huge book, and Hodder crams in an enormously distinct world, so it's no surprise this isn't a character study. Still, I do feel that the complex character of Burton was well profiled, almost like in a good biography. Impressive. I read this right after putting down another steampunk book, Clockwork Angel, just 20% in. Wow, what a difference. Both are set in alternate 19th century Londons, but other than a couple random "period words," CA feels exactly the same as the author's contemporary paranormal YA, with all its forced faux-romance. TSAOSHJ, on the other hand, is an adult book, and makes use of one's babbage augmented, steam-powered, glass jar encased, cybernetic brain. Andy Gavin, author of The Darkening Dream

• Nice.

  I've given this four stars as I've not yet read it also the book was a lot larger than I imagined for a paperback and a bit creased around the edges other than that I am quite happy.

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