Elitist Book Reviews

Gideon Smith's father is a fisherman, and one day the ship returns to port in Sandsend, England, without his father or the crew. Determined to find out how a ship could lose its crew on a calm sea, Gideon begins to hear reports about monsters appearing in the local caves. He happens across a Mr. Bram Stoker, who is searching for inspiration for a new story. But Gideon's obsession with World Marvels & Wonders, a penny dreadful that recounts the heroic exploits of Captain Lucian Trigger, at first makes Bram wonder about the believability of Gideon's story.

They part ways: Gideon to London to look for Captain Trigger and Bram to investigate the arrival of a Russian ship without its crew. We are thrown into an adventure with vampires, mummies, automatons, dirigibles, and Egyptian artifacts. The characters are varied, with a cast of recognizable heroes: the inexperienced but enthusiastic youth, the cynical reporter, the mentor, the woman dirigible pilot, the pirate, and etc. The world terrain is different than we're used to, steampunk technology is everywhere, and yet much of it is still familiar.

GIDEON SMITH AND THE MECHANICAL GIRL uses these with flair in a pulp fiction style. The main character is likable, but even our heroes have their dark sides, who despite their foibles can overcome their weaknesses to save the day. It's a story of love, hope, redemption, and what makes a true hero.

So why did it take me so long to read this book? Why did I drag myself through each chapter and PoV?

GIDEON SMITH is not a bad story or poorly written. In fact the prose is pretty nice, the plot engaging and twisty enough to keep you guessing. There are so many cameos, such as Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Google her, seriously), Bram Stoker, Walter Jones (Henry's father), and so many more, many of whom I found amusing if somewhat distracting.

It's an entertaining enough read, but Barnett adds things that give it a dark edge which turned me off to the story. It's really a personal thing, you may not be bothered, and perhaps even like the realistic dark side of people and events. For example, the reporter was a crass, profane guy who was obsessed with the female form in a way that was juvenile and not funny. Or the married man knowingly being drawn into circumstances that hurt his reputation and strained his relationship with his wife. References to the automaton's sexual slavery. There are other examples. I guess I didn't see how such additions made the story better and all it did was make me want to put the book down because it caused me to distrust the characters when I should have been compelled to keep reading about them.

Another problem was the pacing, which suffered up until the end as characters move from place to place, make discoveries, cross paths, and etc. This is just the style of Barnett's storytelling, the prose more interested in detail of movement than actually moving the story along. I think the voice/prose/style is great for the genre, but because I felt that disconnect from the characters the story felt slow.

Barnett makes up for the pacing by the last quarter when events start snowballing and we make discoveries that build on what's come before. By the exciting end you are rooting for Gideon and you may even want to check out the sequel as a result.

Recommended age: 17+
Language: Yes
Violence: Fairly frequent, although not gruesome
Sex: Referenced, one character in particular is quite crass

Find this first book for a new series here:

GIDEON SMITH AND THE MECHANICAL GIRL

And the sequel is out:

GIDEON SMITH AND THE BRASS DRAGON

THE EXECUTIONER'S HEART is the fourth Newbury and Hobbes novel, and it takes place several months after the crazy events of the prior novel, THE IMMORALITY ENGINE. Veronica Hobbes' sister has been rescued, and now Sir Maurice Newbury is desperately trying to figure out the key to her prophetic visions, and why the Queen of England is after her.

In a way, this novel is the start of a new series. It's a new start that, while certainly building on the prior "trilogy", sets off in a new direction. With the backdrop of Newbury trying to help Hobbes' sister, a new threat runs amok. A series of brutal murders where the victims chests are torn open and the hearts taken. Along with it comes a vision that Hobbes may be the next victim.

This is pretty standard George Mann. The pacing is relentless, as usual, but is seems even more so with the "time bomb" that Newbury's vision of Hobbes' death sets into motion. The killer--The Executioner--is a terrific character herself. The weaving of her story into that of the other series regulars makes for fun fiction.

Really, that's what I've come to enjoy the most about George Mann's novels: the fun. I love how his glee for the characters and the world shine through in his writing. Every chapter has breathless momentum to it. There is no wasted space. Of course, when I say "fun" I don't mean everything is rainbows and clockwork kittens. Mann doesn't hesitate to put his characters into danger. These characters have been emotionally and physically worn down. Everything bad that can happen to them has happened, or happens in this novel. But the fun resides in the spirit both Newbury and Hobbes show. Beaten but never defeated.

The majority of this novel revolves around The Executioner. In a way this is a transitional novel. I got the impression that it is a novel to get the pieces into place before the real fireworks start. And talk about a cliffhanger ended. Sheesh.

So here's the deal. If you liked these novels before, you will love this novel. If you didn't, this novel won't change your mind. If you are a new reader yet to begin the series...well...I suppose I've spoiled a bit of it for you huh? Well you shouldn't have read ahead!

I love this series. I have loved it ever since reading THE AFFINITY BRIDGE. THE EXECUTIONER'S HEART just adds to the fun. It gives me steampunk, adventure, weird science, the supernatural, and the fun I need when I want to escape the seriousness of everyday life.

Recommended Age: 14+
Profanity: On par with the prior novels. So hardly any, and nothing super bad.
Violence: The Executioner rips out people's hearts. Nuff said?
Sex: Nope.

Get the series here:

THE AFFINITY BRIDGE
THE OSIRIS RITUAL
THE IMMORALITY ENGINE
THE EXECUTIONER'S HEART

I recently re-watched Back to the Future. A good movie, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) Though when it came time for Doc Brown's monologue about how he'd measured the distance from the “starting line” to the hanging wire he'd previously strung that Marty would need to start from at exactly the right time, so that at the precise moment that Marty's car reached 88 miles per hour, the lightning bolt would hit the clock tower, travel down the electrical line the doc had hung, through the long hook extending from Marty's car, and directly into the flux capacitor to send Marty back to the future...I had to take a moment to ask myself if I honestly cared that so much of the plot was based on ridiculously stupid timing and outright luck. And you know what I found? I didn't care. Not a lick.

THE LAZARUS MACHINE by Paul Crilley is the beginning of what appears to be a new series in the vein of Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne books, with an alternate England, historical figures of prominence, and gloriously fast paced. The difference in LAZARUS, however, is that Crilley's version of the England we know comes about because of the success of Charles Babbage (and his computing machine) and Nikolai Tesla (and his disbursement of electrical power), and the interesting science behind being able to capture the human soul and use it for various purposes.

Sebastian Tweed is the hero of the story. He's a seventeen-year-old con man who works with his father to bring the bereaved citizens of London happy messages from their recently passed dead, and perhaps more than just a few coppers to their own pockets. Sebastian is not happy with the situation, but the point quickly becomes moot when a mysterious group of individuals, supposedly headed by none other than the nefarious Professor Moriarty, kidnaps his father. From this point, all due chaos ensues as Sebastian employs every trick in his shallow bag to not only find out where his father has been taken, but why he's been taken at all. And, oh, you noticed the Moriarty bit? Yeah. Sherlock and Moriarty are also real characters in this story. So, it's not just historical figures. There are also some purely fictional ones added to the mix.

The chapters are written in the thriller style. For the most part, they're short, fast, and usually have a hook at the end to pull you into the next. Characterization is fairly light, with the greatest amount of time being given to the main character, Sebastian. World-building was really rough for me. Instead of being varied and nuanced like I enjoy seeing, nearly everything seemed to stem from Babbage machines and Tesla power. Even then, the “alternate” in this alternate history felt very light and almost more window dressing than anything of note or import. The main speculative element, the capturing of souls, had little to no explanation at all--it was just something that could be done.

While interesting and decently written, there really wasn't anything that grabbed my attention overly much. I wasn't very enamored with any of the characters. The typical shady-government scheming didn't surprise me. In this case, the inclusion of Moriarty and Holmes actually worked against the story, because seeing them made my expectations of the book so much higher. Thus, when I approached the climax of the book and things started getting ridiculous (like, for example, punch-card driven computers that could be accessed remotely, retinal scans and voice prints as security measures, or jumping out of the top of a building that dwarfs Big Ben into a river...and not being instantly killed) I really noticed them. Unlike my nostalgic viewing of Back to the Future, I wasn't so buried in the story that I could look past them.

That being said, if you find that you are easily sucked into fast-paced, thriller-type books, and can overlook some of Crilley's more over-the-top inclusions, it would be fairly easy to enjoy this read. I mean, loads of people like Dan Brown's books, and they seem to have many of the same characteristics as this one. If it were me though, on your side of this book-review equation, I'd appreciate the suggestion of a pass for this story. There's lots better out there. Mark Hodder's books for example. If, by some horrible twist of fate, I've failed to mention him to you before... you should try them. Ah, the goodness that is out there to be had. Unfortunately though, this one didn't fit the bill.

Recommended Age: 15+, though mostly just because of the age of the main character
Language: Very little, very mild
Violence: A few fight scenes
Sex: Essentially none

Link:  The Lazarus Machine

In THE FALLING MACHINE (EBR review) we were introduced to Sarah Stanton and her father's team of heroes called the Paragons. In the sequel HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM (EBR review) Sarah's life changes as she learns the difficult truth of what it really means to become a Hero. In Andrew P. Mayer's exciting conclusion, POWER UNDER PRESSURE, Sarah must become the hero, or else watch the people and the city she loves fall to the machinations of the villainous Lord Eschaton.

Lord Eschaton's plans are coming to fruition. He wants to see the human race realize its glorious potential using his fortified smoke, even if it means making martyrs of New Yorkers in the process. His first experiment is Nathaniel, Sarah's step-brother, captured in the battle for the Hall of Paragons. Meanwhile Sarah and Emilio are trying to rebuild Tom the automaton, because they won't survive Lord Eschaton's plans without him. Unfortunately, Tom is not the same machine he was in FALLING, even making the loyal Sarah question his stability.

Mayer's development of the technology shines in POWER. Lord Eschaton and Emilio's experiments are really what drive the story, and it's interesting to watch the technology develop and evolve. One wouldn't think that a machine could change much over a series, but despite not seeing much of him in book two, Tom's transformation in book three is clever and explores fascinating ideas and possibilities.

If you haven't read the first two books, POWER won't have much appeal--there's too much back story and character development in order for it to make sense. FALLING and HEARTS are both satisfying reads, with an interesting cast of characters, and a well-drawn setting. Sure, as a first-time author, Mayer's books aren't without their flaws, but on the whole the series has been enjoyable. And by book three, Mayer's storytelling should be improving, right?

As a reviewer I try to give new authors leeway as they progress in their writing, because even though they're published, writers are still honing their craft. I remember Brent Weeks' first series, Night Angel, was fun and enthusiastic, but had serious new writer issues. He's since improved considerably. While Mayer has great ideas and fun characters, I didn't see any improvement with POWER; in fact, all the problems from the first two books only got worse in book three. POWER felt like Mayer pounded out everything he had as fast as he could and didn't bother to go back and revise it for plot/consistency/characterization.

To prevent repeating too many of my complaints about books one and two, I will provide for you a Reader's Digest version of all the books' issues: painfully slow plot buildup, PoV changes in action sequences that overlap chronologically and thereby slow down important events, predictable fights, repetitive and sometimes confusing characterization, clunky prose and trite dialogue.

I got through the first quarter of the book and began to wonder if book three was the end of the series as planned. I got halfway through and began to despair that it wasn't. Where was this plot headed? I couldn't tell. All the new PoVs indicated to me that Mayer was expanding the story, making it head into many other potential directions. Sure the secondary characters are interesting and I like what he did with them (there are too many to explore here in detail in order to explain), but the extra PoVs made the book lose its focus. By the end I'd lost my interest in the main characters, the climax (while exciting) was on the whole unimaginative and predictable, and the resolution left enough loose ends to hint at possible sequels. Not really the best way to wrap up a series.

Despite all the extra information about the cast of characters, we get the opposite problem with the city since the story is limited to a few locales, which is unfortunate. We get a taste of the era, but by this point the setting feels more like repetitive gripes about society's attitude toward women and minorities, and less about what it was like to live in 1880s New York City.

I wanted to like POWER, I really did. Mayer has created an interesting world by exploring  how a new era of heroes rises from adversity and how personal ability and technology makes that happen--all while doing it in a fresh setting. Ultimately, though, Mayer didn't spend the time refining POWER UNDER PRESSURE to give the conclusion the series deserved.

Recommended Age: 16+ (more for the sexual references than for the violence)
Language: Not really any
Violence: Fighting, deaths, and torture, but not particularly graphic
Sex: Referenced

You can check out this series here:

1. THE FALLING MACHINE

2. HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM

3. POWER UNDER PRESSURE

Emma Bannon is a sorceress in the employ of the Queen herself, tasked with protecting Archibald Clare, an unregistered and failed mentath. Why? Because other mentaths all over Londinium are dying unexplainable and grisly deaths and there's more to it than a serial killer.

Set in an alternative Victorian England, THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR blends magic and steampunk with enthusiasm. Known for her Urban Fantasy series, Lilith Saintcrow tries something different with a steam-sorcery-mystery tale that threatens Britannia herself.

In chapter one our PoV characters meet through Clare's eyes as he deduces who Emma is as well as her Shield Mikal, her protector. Clare's character is interesting because he sees the world differently and Saintcrow paints him well (despite some later inconsistencies). Emma is a sorceress with a knack for darker magic, who is powerful enough to expect to get everything she asks for. Their PoVs aren't particularly disparate, and sometimes I even confused their dialogue. But they're likable characters well aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. Mikal could have been a more interesting secondary character if only his brooding glowers were less frequent. Saintcrow's other characters are fun to read and she gives them the details they deserve.

From the beginning we're thrown into Saintcrow's world of magic. There's Victrix, the vessel of Britannia, the soul of the kingdom itself. Magic-wielders with varying degrees of ability. Gryphons who are the protectors of Britannia, but love to eat sorcerer flesh above all. Young dragons who live in the shadows while their elders sleep. Mentaths whose abilities with logic and deduction border on the obsessive and require constant work or they go mad. Tideturn re-supplies magic-wielders the energy for creating their magic. I could go on but that would ruin the story for you--you'll have to discover Saintcrow's cleverness for yourself.

But where WYRM's strengths of setting is what makes this a fun read, it's also unfortunately its weakness. Saintcrow has so much information of place, magic, verbiage, and people and she immerses us into the story so quickly we get lost amongst all the New Words. Not everything is explained. And while it's great when authors move a story along and reveal as they go, it's not so great when the reveals are choppy or arrive frustratingly late. Add to that transition issues between scenes and within action scenes, which made it hard to sometimes know what was going on. And alas I'm not sure I can bear to discuss Saintcrow's sometimes florid prose.

I almost gave this book a Like rating, it barely made it into Mediocre, the main reason being that I don't want to steer dear EBR readers wrong thinking that this book is without much flaw. But those who like the flair of typical Urban Fantasy but with a Victorian romantic twist will likely enjoy this addition to Saintcrow's body of work.

Recommended age: 15+
Language: A couple instances
Violence: Throughout the novel, and it's occasionally gory
Sex: A few references only, and without detail

You can find the start of this new series here:
THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR

The irony of the title of ALL MEN OF GENIUS by newcomer Lev A.C. Rosen is that the main character is 17-year-old Violet. While not exactly a tomboy, she's a scientist at heart and isn't afraid of the grime, oil, and dirt involved in her love of making machines. Unfortunately for her, the exclusive London-based science university, Illyria, doesn't accept women. Violet, however, is reckless enough to concoct a scheme that allows her to attend the university--posing as her twin brother Ashton.

ALL MEN OF GENIUS is Rosen's steampunk re-telling combination of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" and Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." It's more a comedy of manners than anything resembling the conspiracy mystery he prologues the book with. While fun, creative, and entertaining, I can sum up GENIUS with two words: heavy handed.

The ensemble cast revolves around our heroine, Violet. Violet and her brother are the children of a scientist who travels to America for a year, leaving them to their own devices. She enlists the help of her brother and friend Jack to see the scheme through. We meet classmates along the way, romantic interest Duke Ernest Illyria who is the headmaster, various professors, and other tacked on characters who don't seem to have much influence to the story at large. They are often shallow caricatures, with heavy-handed characterization that sometimes bordered on the silly--on purpose, I'm guessing, considering the comedy of manners angle. To me they just seemed odd. Others may find them more charming.

The majority of the story takes place in London and at the school Illyria itself. In its labyrinthine dungeons, the labs, the common areas, the gardens, and all that. I enjoyed London through the seasons, and Rosen paces the passage of time well. But I still had a hard time picturing Illarya itself anything other than a smaller Hogwarts.

The characters all broadcast early in the book their well-laid plans...and then almost everything happens the way they planned. This heavy-handed foreshadowing makes the resolution not very fun. Sure Violet, as the female lead, has her worries. What if people find out what she is before she can finish the year? What are the strange automatons in the basement? Will people still like her as a woman and not a man? There simply wasn't enough at stake and by the end I was skimming pages just to finish the book, since I already knew how everything works out.

The narrator attempts an old-fashioned voice, but it feels self conscious and awkward, with its tell-not-show info-dumps to quickly establish setting and characters. The prose has its quirky moments and is often charming, but stumbles over itself, thereby slowing the flow of the story. While the omniscient PoV focuses on Violet, it switches between characters in a scene and even sometimes within a paragraph. Rosen does get heavy-handed dealing with themes of one's sexual identity and gender expectations. And I can't help making a petty complaint noting that the frequent use of rather/quite/terribly/etc doesn't automatically make prose genteel.

Much of the science is creative and interesting, but sometimes it has issues. Jack, while clearly talented in his particular field, only takes ten minutes to graft snake skin onto a rat. Violet creates an invention that only requires two turns of a key to provide enough torque to run a large device for three days. Is Rosen stretching the laws of physics here a bit? Sometimes it all just seems too easy.

If you aren't the nitpicky type these problems won't affect your enjoyment of a creative story and its sweet yet mixed-up romances. Overall ALL MEN OF GENIUS is an entertaining bit of work, and I probably look too closely at it with a critical eye. But Rosen tries too hard, and it shows.

Recommended Age: 16+, despite the YA looking cover this isn't for younger audiences
Language: Crude language and a fair about of the harsher stuff, including one very profane rabbit
Violence: One violent scene at the end involving death, but little blood and no gore
Sex: Gay teen romancing and several references to 'inverts'; vague references to rape; frequent references to sex

Think you'd like to give it a shot?  Here's your link:

ALL MEN OF GENIUS

In THE FALLING MACHINE you were left with a cliffhanger: during the battle with Lord Eschaton, Tom is dismantled and Sarah leaves home after a fight with her father.

The continuation, HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM begins over a month later. Even though Tom was destroyed, Sarah was able to recover his heart in the chaos. Unfortunately it's broken, and she needs to find someone to repair the heart, but doesn't trust the majority of the people in New York who are able to do it. Her search leads her to Emilio Armando, an Italian immigrant and inventor—whose past, if Sarah knew it, would make her think twice about trusting him with Tom's secret.

In the meantime, the Paragons have lost two of their rank, and must find help, as the remainder of them aren't getting any younger. They interview new applicants—a strange and varied assortment—and discover King Jupiter, who appears to not only be able to create amazing technology, but who may just have supernatural powers. Don't forget, however, that in FALLING we learn that one of the Paragons is a traitor. The Paragons are in great danger, and as a result so is New York.

After a slow start, the action in HEARTS moves very quickly, even more than in FALLING. I read the books in succession, and after I was finished I had to sit on it for a while to absorb everything before I could disseminate how I feel about this series thus far. The action moves fast and is detailed, but like in FALLING the actual plot isn't much further than when we started; I could probably number the main plot events on one hand. This doesn't mean, however, that FALLING and HEART aren't lots of fun to read, because they are. I only wished there were more. (Hrm. Wanting more isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it?)

There are more PoVs here compared to the previous book, and the switching back and forth isn't strictly chronological. Mayer will move PoVs around in time in order to cover simultaneous character viewpoints in an important scene. While it's helpful for knowing all the events in a scene and each character's motivations, it does get confusing. Mayer did it in FALLING, too, but not as much as he does in HEART and it got frustrating when I was more interested in the forward movement of the plot.

Sarah must deal with the reality of being a working-class girl in 1880s New York, find a trustworthy repairman, and keep her identity secret from the Children of Eschaton who will do anything to retrieve the heart. She wants to be a hero like her father and the Paragons, but she's discovering that it isn't all adventure—it's dangerous and frightening work. But Sarah is determined, and works past her worries in order to restore Tom, which she believes is the only thing that can stop Lord Eschaton and his 'children'. Tom was the most interesting character in FALLING, but in HEART there's very little of him—and most of that is his disassembled parts. This was a frustration. The story is about him, and yet we see very little of him. Fortunately we are introduced to some new characters, including Emilio, who's trying to move past his complicated history. These new viewpoints add flavor to the storytelling.

The majority of the setting is established in FALLING, but in HEART Mayer doesn't set it aside in favor of plot advancement. We still get to see new and exciting inventions, learn more about what life was like in 1880s New York, and discover some fascinating things about Tom and the true genius of Dennis Darby, his inventor.

More self-contained than the first book, HEARTS ends without as big of a cliffhanger...comparably. Not that Mayer doesn't like to leave you at the edge of your seat. He promises more adventure, and has set up for a spectacular continuation.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Very little
Violence: People get stabbed or shot, some death, but not detailed enough to be gory
Sex: Innuendo—there was none at all in FALLING, but here there's the potential for a romantic relationship, and the prudish mores of New York's high society are addressed; there are also references to erotic art

Want to give this series a shot? Below are the links:

1 - THE FALLING MACHINE

2 - HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM

Sarah Stanton is the only child of business magnate Alexander Stanton. She's a woman ahead of her time—her time being New York's 1880s, the Gilded Age of industry and technology, but otherwise behind on women's suffrage.

However, Sarah doesn't let her father or society's strictures slow her down. Sure she has to wear a bustle and corset, and her father wants to marry her off by the end of the season, but that doesn't stop her from trying to find Sir Dennis Darby's killer.

In the meantime, Darby's magnum opus, an automaton named Tom, is also trying to find his creator's killer. Unfortunately as a machine he's considered persona non grata, and the Paragons—the vigilante heroes of New York who use steam and technology to serve and protect, among whom is Alexander Stanton himself—refuse to follow Darby's last request to make Tom their new leader. They even go so far as to confine the automaton and refuse to repair him. Sarah sympathizes.

THE FALLING MACHINE by newcomer Andrew P. Mayer covers a lot of ground. What really makes a hero? Is it the mask and costume? Is it supernatural abilities? Is it their sense of morality? Steampunk fans—especially the YA variety—will enjoy this recent addition to the sub-genre. Not only are there superheroes and robots, but the steampunk tech plays an integral part of the story, there's a mystery to uncover, societal issues, aging superheros, and a villain who truly believes that he's doing the right thing—even if it means murder and the breakdown of their way of life.

Mayer does a good job explaining the story's machines and inventions, and he includes some fascinating concepts. Even though these descriptions can slow the pace, it helps develop the atmosphere, and since the tech is important to the story, it's worth the time to pay attention. We only get a taste of his portrayal of Industrial Revolution-era New York, its high society as well as the common man. Despite this brief glimpse, I still got a good feel for the time and place, and I suspect there will be more as the series continues, as there simply wasn't time to go into depth here.

Mayer creates the story's superhero crossovers with enough stereotypes to make them familiar, but without being lazy—they still feel like real people. I enjoyed both the main characters, Tom and Sarah. Tom is more than a machine, as he attempts to carry out his maker's plans. Readers will learn a lot about Darby and the kind of man he was from the machines he made. Sarah is barely into womanhood and discovering the kind of woman she is and wants to be. Her relationship with her father feels a little forced, but it isn't hard to believe that Alexander Stanton behaves as a result of his era and class.

Unlike the wealth of steampunk coming out today, there's no magic or vampires or werewolves in THE FALLING MACHINE. I can't say I'm too sad about it. The result is that the focus is on the tech itself and its importance to the story, and not simply tech for its own sake with the supernatural stealing the show.

While the pace moves forward consistently, revelations come slowly, and the story isn't much further along by the time we reach the end of the book. Most of the novel is told from Tom and Sarah's PoV (with minor references from Alexander Stanton and the Sleuth Paragon Peter Wickham), so the storyline involves following clues and trying to come to a conclusion. Another issue with the pacing involves the villain not even appearing until the end of the novel. While THE FALLING MACHINE storyline itself is mostly self-contained, the ending leaves the conclusion too open, and readers will have to wait until the second book, HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM , to hopefully find some answers to their inevitable questions.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: A handful of moderate uses
Violence: Tom and Sarah's sleuthing does lead to danger; there's blood, but otherwise it's not gory
Sex: Vague references; one of the Paragons is referred to as a sodomite a few times

Want to give this series a shot? Below are the links:

1 - THE FALLING MACHINE

2 - HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM

I've come to a point in my reading life where I start planning the books I'm going to read well in advance. A new Dresden Files novel in the Spring. New Erikson & Esslemont novels in the Fall/Winter. A new Joe Ledger novel around February/March. Since starting this whole review gig, I've added George Mann to my list. For whatever reason, he work always entertains me.

Now, I dig Mann's Ghost series, I really do. But I get REALLY excited for the Newbury and Hobbes novels. This series just pushes all the right buttons for me. A copy of THE IMMORALITY ENGINE finally came to my doorstep, and I ignored everyone and everything while I started and finished it in virtually one sitting.

I absolutely love the setting and the blatant parallels to Sherlock Holmes. Sir Maurice Newbury is one of my more favorite characters to read, and his assistant Veronica Hobbes is his perfect match. You'll recall (and if you don't, this is where I remind you) that one of my main complaints for this series has been the small amount of screen time given to Hobbes. She was such an interesting character, but I never really felt like I was allowed to understander her from a reader's perspective. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Mann was reading my mind (or my reviews...whichever makes more sense). This book is told almost primarily from Hobbes' eyes. And it is awesome.

There are a lot of questions for readers going into this novel. What is the Queen's real goal? What is the deal with Hobbes' sister? Can Newbury keep it together without falling completely under the spell of opium? For the most part all these questions are addressed and answered. It was quite refreshing actually. What the readers end up with is a fairly solid trilogy that answers a ton of questions while setting up further story.

Again, I can't stress enough how great it was for me to get a majority of PoV sections from Veronica Hobbes. I just find her character so extremely interesting. She is very much a woman ahead of her time, and in this specific Steampunk setting it works absolutely perfectly. Don't get me wrong, I love Newbury. I love his Sherlock Holmes persona. I love his toughness. But Hobbes? For me she is excellent. I could read another novel right now from her PoV and be totally immersed.

You'll notice I haven't said much about the actual plot. The thing is, readers want to know if a series maintains its quality through the whole ride before starting it. All of you awesome readers want to read a review for one of the latter books in the series without having the earlier books spoiled. I get it, I really do. For the most part I can make that work. So, here is what you need to know:

THE IMMORALITY ENGINE is terrific in every single way. Once you read this book, the whole series will take on a different light. The real villains will seem more intelligent and more frightening. The main protagonists will seem more human. Suddenly a ton of small details from the first two books will pop out. George Mann did an amazing job making this novel work.

And seriously, look at this cover of the US edition. A mechanical horse with a Gatling gun on the side? If that doesn't make you want to read the book you are dead inside, and I pity you.

What else can I say to get you to read this book and this series? THE IMMORALITY ENGINE (and the prior novels) is about pure enjoyment and fun while reading. You get mystery, action, a little romance, Steampunk and supernatural stuff all wrapped up in one novel. I love this book, and I will endeavor to give George Mann a huge hug should I ever see him.

Recommended Age: 15 and up.
Language: Very, very light. Almost none.
Violence: To me, this was the most violent novel of the series, but there still wasn't a ton. This series is about the mystery.
Sex: Nope.

Books in the Newbury & Hobbes Series:

THE AFFINITY BRIDGE
THE OSIRIS RITUAL
THE IMMORALITY ENGINE

There's a reason we like George Mann's work. It's all fast-paced, fun, and can be read without having to work at it. GHOSTS OF WAR is Mann's second Ghost novel, and follows up immediately after GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN. It has pretty much all the elements that made MANHATTAN fun, yet also seems to have more flaws than the first entry.

Mechanical, bat-like constructs are terrorizing the city of Manhattan. They swoop down and abduct random people off the streets, and those people are never found. The Ghost does what any good vigilante hero would and tries to solve the mystery. He is helped once again by Detective Felix Donovan—one of the few who know the Ghost's real identity.

There is something you have to understand about the Ghost novels. They aren't meant to be the pinnacle of literature. They are pure leisure reads and will be enjoyed by those who dig novels with pulp sensibilities. GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN was steampunk Batman with some Lovecraft thrown in at the end. We loved it. Others don't because they seem to be taking it far to seriously. GHOSTS OF WAR is the same thing. When describing this book (and really while writing this review), we feel like we should do it in that old-fashioned TV personality way. You know, with dramatic music and everything. Will the Ghost survive this encounter? Dun dun DUNNNNNN!!!

The good here is that Mann tries to give a little more weight to the Gabriel Cross/Ghost dynamic. Which one is the real personality, and which is the mask? It's the same question explored in every superhero comic/book/movie. Overall we felt Mann did a good job here. Cross/Ghost is still a good character, and Donovan remain excellent as well.

Unfortunately the other main character, Ginny, doesn't fare as well. We kept waiting for her to be revealed as someone important: a spy, a supernatural hunter...something. But she never was. She was oddly good with guns, and was kinda a love interest, but she never really took on any personality. She was more of an object that was made into a person. We still aren't really sure what her point was in the novel. She appears, does a couple things, then vanishes. Will she have a bigger role (and a more explained and less coincidental role at that) in future novels? She better, or what was the point?

There are also a few logic holes in the novel, mostly with how certain creatures are destroyed, and with how TOUGH the Ghost is. We lost track of how many times he was stabbed, battered, and bludgeoned...and yet he was always good to go. Normally these things get overlooked in long novels, but GHOSTS OF WAR isn't long. It's really short, so every flaw stands out and seems more glaring.

If you liked GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN, you'll like GHOSTS OF WAR. It's really that simple. The setting is a fun as ever. The extended information on the conflict between the British and the U.S. is pretty awesome. The action scenes are thrill rides of entertainment. This isn't Mann's best work, but it serves its purpose. It's fun, fast, loose, and action-packed.

We definitely look forward to the next one in the series.

Recommended Age: 17 and up.
Language: There is a bit of strong language, though it didn't seem like there was as much as in the first novel.
Violence: Well duh. You read the first one right? Flechettes, guns, explosives and monsters. This series is pretty violent. Again though, the pulp-nature of it kinda makes that a must.
Sex: No detailed scenes, but some conversations about it.

We rarely read any novels from Pyr that could be deemed a “miss.” The number of stellar novels put out by Pyr since its inception is astonishing. But every now and again even they miss the mark. THE HORNS OF RUIN, by Tim Akers, is Sword & Sorcery/Steampunk hybrid. Sounds cool on the surface. In fact a lot of this story sounds fantastic on paper…unfortunately that paper doesn’t include the actual execution of the idea.

We love Sword & Sorcery. We love Steampunk even more. So this love-child of the two was something we were extremely excited about. Our PoV character is Eva Forge, the last Paladin of a betrayed, dead god. She wields a revolver and a Steampunk-looking sword. The gist of the story revolves around her looking for the abducted leader of her dying cult, and protecting a girl who belongs to the tech-centric cult of the god who betrayed Eva’s own cult. Again, in theory it all sounds great.

The story is told by Eva Forge herself in 1st Person PoV, and this is where we have our first problem. To us, 1st Person is used to give us a more immediate and deeper connection to the main character of the novel. When it works—like with Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher’s series—readers automatically root for the character. We become invested in that character’s struggle. When done poorly, it makes reading the novel a chore. In THE HORNS OF RUIN, the latter is the case. We just don’t like Eva. We found it impossible to care about her or root for her. She is a typical female “tough-girl” written from a male’s perspective. She may as well be a guy. With the exception of another character mentioning Eva’s cup size, there is nothing in this novel that says, “the main character is an awesome chick, not a dude.” On TV the other day on The Human Target, one character says to another something along the lines of, “Look, I don’t want to hear your ‘bad girl’ resume. Just show me some actual competence.” That is exactly how we felt about Eva in this story. Rather than going around like a brainless barbarian saying “Hulk smash!” how about you show some freaking intelligence as befits your position?

The problem is that this is the attitude of the character for the entire novel. No matter what other characters say to her, she does it the stupid and hard way. People save her butt, and then she turns around and hits them in the face for getting in her way. It’s the tough-girl cliché to the extreme.

The other main issue we have with this novel is the lack of setting. 95% of the time, we felt like we were reading about characters in a white, formless room. This had potential to be an awesome showcase of setting much like in Alan Campbell’s SCAR NIGHT (we’ll be reviewing this shortly). Instead we rarely had any idea where we were, or why it mattered.

Dialogue is a mixed bag. Sometimes, mainly when dealing with male characters, everything goes smooth. Yet whenever it is two female characters talking, they get into constant verbal cat-fights. Since 90% of the book deals with two female running around together, you can imagine our frustration. The girl who Eva is “guarding” is Cassandra. She is some sort of super gifted tech-mage from the cult of the Betrayer. We have rarely read a character as wildly inconsistent in speech patterns as her—the other ones all had multiple personalities. Some of the stuff she says comes off as sounding like a woman-hating wife-beater. Really. Again, the problem here is another girl written by a guy as a cliché tough girl freed of her bonds.

The magic is also tedious and, to us, silly. In theory it sounds interesting. You Invoke the power of the god by Invoking its history. Yet in actual practice you get long-winded monologues that kill the pace of action sequences. You also endure the main character pausing every other page to renew her “buffs”. Yeah, we kept thinking, “WTF? Are we in the middle of a Raid in World of Warcraft? This is ridiculous.”

THE HORNS OF RUIN has so much promise that it fails to deliver on. Everything is so abstract that we felt like we were floating along in a void waiting for Eva’s next emotionally-stunted outburst. We’ll also mention here that the ending is way predictable and cliché as far as Eva’s personal journey, and it is inconsistent and disjointed for everything else. Things are seemingly added at random at the end to give half-cocked credibility to people’s intelligence. Ugh.

We didn’t HATE this novel—some of the ideas here were truly awesome—we just didn’t like it at all. So disappointing. Will anyone like it? No doubt. Probably the same people who really liked BONESHAKER. Be we aren't in that group.

Recommended Age: 15 and up.
Language: Here and there. Not over-done.
Violence: There is some, but like the storytelling it is often disjointed and abstract.
Sex: Nope.

Professor Amelia Harsh has lost her tenure at the last university in Jackals that would hire her (after being fired by the other seven...). Why? Because instead of studying and writing papers like a normal university professor, she's out hunting relics of Camlantis, which everyone knows is a myth.

Enter Abraham Quest, the richest man in Jackals, who has been doing his own archaeology on the sly, and found proof that Camlantis exists. Unfortunately, the clues point the way into the heart of darkness itself, the source of the Shedarkshe river in the wilds of a jungle from which no explorer has returned. Camlantis was a utopia, with untold engineering feats, a society of pacifists, and Amelia and Abraham are convinced that it holds the key to making their own war-torn society a better place. But it means risking lives in order to see that goal realized.

Hunt spends the first half of THE KINGDOM BEYOND THE WAVES setting up the story, and because there's a lot going on, several characters to introduce, and a world to build, the time it takes to do this isn't unreasonable. However, it does make the first half slow-going. His prose can be dense, which also slows down the pacing and flow, but does make for a richer world. I love Hunt's metaphors. He is truly clever with his descriptions, adding depth to the world at the same time.

Finally at about the halfway mark everything goes wrong for our protagonists. And not just wrong, I mean horribly, how in the heck are they going to get out of this without dying, wrong. It's a series of life-threatening events that lasts the entire second half of the book. Hunt spins threads between all the characters deftly, so that when everything begins to collide, the weaving stories makes sense despite the chaos. Awesomeness on many levels.

Set in an Earth that could have been, Hunt mixes machinery, magic, and a dizzying assortment of races with alacrity. There's the race of mechanical steammen, who, while they have no country to call their own, still have autonomy wherever they live. There's the amphibian craynarbians, which unfortunately don't get as much face-time as the others. Also, the flying lizard lashites, who turn out to play an important role. In a story like this the races could have been gimmicky, but the cultures of humans and non-humans alike were all integrated into the plot in satisfying ways.

Hunt's steampunk world is ambitious, and while he does an excellent job of introducing it without overwhelming the reader, about 5% of the time I didn't remember or understand a name, race, or piece of equipment. On the whole for such a steep learning curve, only forgetting a small percentage is a petty complaint, and says a lot about the author's world-building, which is complex and fascinating. KINGDOM is Hunt's second book about this particular world, and while it isn't a sequel, I wonder how much more I would have retained if I had read the first. Trust me, I will go back to read THE COURT OF THE AIR. Even then, KINGDOM is readable as a standalone.

Magic plays a secondary role to the mechanical, which made me sad because Hunt hints at interesting possibilities he simply doesn't have time to explain or explore. Also, while the pacing is consistent, the flow of action can be jarring, and sometimes I had to re-read a few paragraphs to grasp everything that happens when the action switches. The biggest problem I saw, which could be minor considering the other strengths of the novel, is that with such a large cast it is difficult for the main characters to have any real depth. While the characters have their interesting quirks and motivations, there's no question that for KINGDOM, it's the setting here that's on display--and what a vision it is.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Only made-up words.
Violence: Plenty of it, but not excessive or over-the-top.
Sex: None.

Stephen Hunt founded http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/, a fan-run science fiction and fantasy website. You can also find information about the author and his books there.

George Mann is awesome. That is all.

OK, that really isn't all we are going to say, but it covers our opinions nicely. George Mann has given readers quite the year. If you were late to the party, you got THE AFFINITY BRIDGE. You also got GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN. In the UK you got THE IMMORALITY ENGINE. And now here in the US, THE OSIRIS RITUAL has finally been released. How great is that?

THE OSIRIS RITUAL is the second of Mann's Newbury & Hobbes novels, and it fits perfectly with the theme and quality of the first novel (which we reviewed here). Newbury, as you will recall, is very reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, and Hobbes is his Watson...only female. The main plot of OSIRIS revolves around a series of murders taking place after the unveiling of a recently discovered mummy. To get much more into the plot would reveal too much, so we will leave it at that.

Mann's Newbury & Hobbes novels seem to follow a formula of sorts. We have an interesting beginning, a large chase scene in the middle, an action-packed ending, followed by and epilogue that introduces and continues an over-arching conflict. So, there is your warning. If you read THE AFINNITY BRIDGE (which you SHOULD have), the structure of OSIRIS will be very familiar, as will the pacing.

Newbury himself is devolving further into opium addiction, further making him familiar to the Sherlock Holmes readers of the world (who know of Holmes' cocaine addiction). It is a terrific conflict, especially with how it spills over into his professional life, and his interactions with his friends. Hobbes gets more "screen-time" in this novel, but still manages to feel a tad underused until, like in book one, the epilogue. The cast of side-characters are fantastic, and serve the story well. One thing we do wish, however, is for a bit clearer-cut interaction with the Osiris Ritual itself (you'll know what we mean when you read it). At times, it seemed almost irrelevant.

These novels aren't got to make you stop an reconsider the world. They are Sherlock Holmes Steampunk mystery novels. If you know that going in, you will love every bit. If we have one desire for this series, it is that in future installments, the line between science and the occult becomes even more murky.

Recommended Age: 14 and up.
Language: One word the entire novel.
Violence: Yeah, these books never lack for it. It is well executed, and not near as extreme as in Mann's GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN. Essentially, expect more of the same from THE AFFINITY BRIDGE.
Sex: No, not in this series.

If you have been following our not-so-humble blog, you know we like George Mann. So when we got our paws on his GHOSTS IN MANHATTAN, published by Pyr, we knew we were in for a treat.

GHOSTS is set in America during the roaring 20's, but with a Steampunk bent, and as if that isn't cool enough, George Mann inserts enough Urban Fantasy elements to create a sweet mesh of the two genres. Actually, the genre almost does a complete swap in the last third of the book. It was a little jarring, but the pace of the book swept us along, without giving us time to let the change bother us.

Let us say, right up front, this book won't be for everyone. The violence is just brutal. The opening scene was quite violent even for us, and we love a good action scene. The titular character uses a flechette cannon and shreds bad guy's heads. There is plenty of swearing and talk about sex. One of our close friends, read the opening chapter and didn't finish it. He heard that Nick liked the book, and said, "Yeah, that sounds about right." Your sensibilities will largely determine whether you like this book. If you have to ask yourself whether you will or not, you will probably be offended.

However...the action scenes were SO awesome. They were very clear, immediate, and visceral. There wasn't an action scene to be found that didn't make us wonder, just for a minute, exactly how the Ghost would be maimed or crippled, and yes, he was injured PLENTY of times. Also, to Mann's credit, there wasn't any indication of "Butcher syndrome" where the protagonists were exhausted, injured, and spent, and somehow managed to reach inside and find some well of energy left. We hate that. When the characters in GHOST were presented with a challenge, they had to actually meet it. No Deus Ex here folks! Woohoo!

Aside from the pacing and strong writing, if we were to pick out a strength of the novel, it would be Mann's ability to make these characters all believable and likable. All except the love interest of the protagonist. She remains largely a mystery, with a fairly shallow characterization until the end. But by then we didn't care quite as much about her as we should have. The rest of them are Ah-Mazing, though. Gabriel is the perfect jaded playboy; the Ghost is menacing, dangerous, yet 'heroic'; Donovan, while having a slightly cliche cop story, was enjoyable the whole time. The villain(s) were just as intriguing. Bravo, Mann!

One of the cool things that was done in the book was the attempt to keep us guessing at the true identity of the Ghost. We both actually wished this aspect had been pressed harder. It was obvious right from the start who he was, but there were constant moments of "Wait...is he really...or is he someone else...?" We could have done with more of those.

As soon as Steve finished the book he called Nick (who luckily got to read the book first). As if the website wasn't proof enough that we are linked at the brain, we both said at just about the same moment, "Could have been 150 pages longer." We really wish this was true. The fast pace works both for and against the book. Ever eaten a meal so fast you barely got to taste it? That's a little bit how the book felt. It was too fast and too short, with extremely likable and interesting characters, that ALL deserved a lot more screen time than they were given. The book didn't just leave us room for dessert, but another course when we were finished. That's a little annoying.

GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN is a bit cliche-ridden, quick, a little on the light side of plot, a bit heavy-handed at times, but is just plain fun. It hurls the Steampunk and Superhero genres at each other with full force, and somewhere in between the two Urban Fantasy/Horror gets caught in the Melee. We like the recipe that was created here. A lot. We want more, and are looking forward to the next installment. Is it the best book you will read this year? Not even close, but it is completely entertaining.

Recommended Age: 18 and up.
Language Ayep. Rated-R here.
Violence: Oh wow, yes. The first chapter is a very good indication of what the rest of the book contains. In said chapter bad guys kept disintegrated by flechettes, burned and boiled by jetpacks, and a lady gets stabbed. It was...an interesting choice to start the book with that much graphic violence.
Sex: A few acts committed and mentioned, nothing graphic or explicitly shown.

P.S. - Also, the cover art, by Benjamin Carre, is soooooo rad. Nick is determined to get a giant print of it to hang in his room.

Steampunk. You can hardly go wrong with it. It's that genre that is filled with airships, goggles and adventure. With the novel BONESHAKER, Cherie Priest tries her hand at the steampunk genre.

We had heard a lot about this novel. Authors, editors, and readers everywhere called it amazing. We had heard it called one of the best steampunk novels ever written. Do you see where this is going? Yeah. We were let down. WAY down.

We'll start with the premise. BONESHAKER takes place in Seattle during and after the gold rush in the Klondike. It is an interesting period in US history, and a great place to introduce a steampunk technology. The idea here is that a contest was held to see who could invent a machine that could easily tunnel through the snow, ice, and rock to excavate the gold. Leviticus Blue, living in Seattle, invents such a machine--the Boneshaker. The first time the machine is turned on, however, it destroys nearly the entire town. In the aftermath of the destruction, the deep diggings the Boneshaker uncover a gas that essentially turns people into zombies. Seattle is walled off, and chapter one starts 15 years after the described events. Out main characters are Briar and Zeke Wilkes, the wife and son of Leviticus Blue. It is a cool mesh of ideas in theory, but the execution was lacking in nearly every aspect.

What let us down with this novel? Well, nothing was really developed. There were times where we felt like we were reading an outline of ideas rather than a fully developed story. Think about it. We have all the steampunk tropes; adventure, airships, clockwork and gear based machinery, and goggles (you can't have steampunk without goggles). We have some cool alternate history that is set during the gold rush and the Civil War. We have zombies, Native Americans, and sky pirates. The list goes on. Yet the book is a short 400 pages. There just wasn't enough time to give any depth to the awesome mesh of ideas. By not having too many interesting, but shallowly described ideas yelling for our attention, we found it difficult to connect with anything. BONESHAKER may have benefited from being longer, and more detailed.

The characters in the novel should have been interesting, but instead left us feeling rather "meh." Zeke runs into the walled city of Seattle to find proof that his father and grandfather were good people. Briar follows him. The worry they feel, and their relationship should have drawn us to the main PoVs. Instead, their relationship was devoid of the details that normally would draw us to them. We just couldn't make ourselves care about them. The side characters felt mostly like cardboard cut-outs that were just there for scenery. The sky pirates/smugglers are lame, and the Native American Princess felt tacked on and random. In short, the characters were impossible to connect with, and were boring. They were random bits of filler that did more harm than good.

Now, in a steampunk novel, some shortcomings can be overlooked if the adventure aspect or the technological aspect of the novel is executed well. Neither was the case in BONESHAKER. The action was so muddled, that at times it took a few re-reads of the pages just to determine what was actually happening. The steampunk technology? There really wasn't any. Really, it was all limited to people wearing gas masks. There are very brief mentions and showings of airships, a chick has a mechanical arm, and the breathing systems people use get fancy at times. That's it. No clockwork robots. The actual Boneshaker machine is never shown in action. In fact, the novel is barely steampunk at all. The zombies? Shown maybe three times, and they don't manage to lend any sort of menace or scare to the story. Again, filler.

With all the bad, surely there must be something good, right? Well yeah. The moments between muddled action sequences are well written, if lacking in detail. The idea of how Seattle became a walled-in disaster was excellently done. The book itself is awesome looking. The cover is great, and the ink color of the text is a brownish color that perfectly fit the time-frame of the story.

A lot of people liked BONESHAKER. A lot of people will pick up this book and love it. We, however, just felt is was mediocre. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't anywhere close to the awesomeness that were were led to believe. Maybe that was part of why we were so underwhelmed.

If you are a die-hard reader of steampunk, then you could probably find something here to like, but it won't live up to the other novels of the same genre that you have already read. If you are a complete newbie to steampunk, this book could serve as an introduction to the genre that you may find decent.

Recommended Age: 15 and up.
Language: Some. And fairly strong in the short bursts when it happens.
Violence: There is some violence, but it is described poorly.
Sex: Nope.

Scott Westerfeld is perhaps currently best known for his YA SF novels. He recently decided to try his hand at Steampunk in an alternate version of World War I. LEVIATHAN is a good entry into the genre, but it isn't without drawbacks (depending on your point of view, of course).

LEVIATHAN follows the PoV of Alek, the son of Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand (in case you didn't know before, now you know where the band gets its name--that's your useless piece of trivia for the day). In Westerfeld's story, the assassination of the Archduke and his wife incites World War I, just like in actual history. This differences are the Steampunk and Biopunk (this term will make more sense in a moment) settings. The two major factions are the Clankers (the Austrians, Germans and such), and the Darwinists (England and other "Allies"). The Clankers are based in machinery, and lend to the Steampunk stylings that the book promotes. The Darwinists, frankly, are much cooler. They manipulate biological creatures into war machines, ships, and anything else they have need of. As a counterpoint to young Alek's "Clanker" PoV, we have the PoV of Deryn Sharp. She is a fifteen year-old girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service aboard the Leviathan--a huge biologically created ship that resembles a flying whale.

The PoVs are both entertaining, if a bit juvenile. We had it in our minds that LEVIATHAN would be geared (no Steampunk pun intended) to the older end of YA. In reality, it is towards the younger end. Once we understood this small piece of info, any measure of initial disappointment faded quickly away. The characters, especially Deryn, won us over quickly. As we follow Alek's escape from Austria in his Stormwalker (think of it as a Steampunk Mechwarrior), and as we follow Deryn's adventures on the Leviathan, we are treated to a very imaginative, uh, re-imagining of WWI, and how the paths that Alek and Deryn each follow inevitably merge.

Where LEVIATHAN really shines is in the Steampunk and Biopunk elements. The way Westerfeld imagines warfare in this setting is nothing short of fabulous. The Steampunk in the novel is actually fairly light, with most of the focus on the Biopunk. Some may argue that this is bad, while others rejoice in it. We wish that we could have seen a bit more of the Steampunk area of the world, but we aren't terribly upset about the lack of it. The Darwinist ideas in the novel more than made up for the lack of more machinery.

Ultimately, the thing that most disappointed us was discovering it was a series. The next novel, BEHEMOTH, won't be released until Oct. 2010. Considering how quick of a read this novel is--the pacing is terrific, we should add--waiting another year for the sequel seems a long way off.

However, is it worth the $20 price tag? Oh yes. Allow us to gush with regards to the beauty of the book itself. Just seeing the cover in person made us both drool a little. It is one of the best designed covers to come out this year. It hints at a stronger Steampunk element than is really in the novel, but it is a stunning cover regardless. There are dozens of internal illustrations by Keith Thompson that give a fantastic visual aid for the beasties and machines described in the book. The production quality of this book is top-notch.

LEVIATHAN is a good book. Not incredible, but good. We liked it. We fully intend on reading the sequels, and buying them assuming they look as awesome as the first novel. LEVIATHAN is marketed towards a younger crowd, and serves as a good intro into the Steampunk genre. We still think that Philip Reeve's MORTAL ENGINES is a better introduction into Steampunk at the YA level, but Westerfeld has done a fantastic job. Let's face it, Steampunk is a genre that more people should be reading, and it is typically a pretty safe genre content-wise. Go out and pick up LEVIATHAN. You'll enjoy it, and it will make you want to read more Steampunk.

Recommended Age: 12 and up.
Language: Nope.
Violence: There is some, but it isn't a focal-point.
Sex: Don't be absurd.

So check out Westerfeld's website. He doesn't exactly need any help from us, but every author likes to hear they've done a good job.

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/

If you are like us, when you go to a bookstore you let your eye wander. If you already know what you want to buy, and you walk right to it and pick it up, you've missed a golden opportunity. When you let yourself browse the bookstore, you get the opportunity to let books choose you, in a sense. This is how we discovered THE AFFINITY BRIDGE by George Mann. The art design on the cover is incredible--some of the best we've see this year, in fact--and we knew right away that we wanted to read it. So, we each picked up a copy...

...and remembered that, unfortunately, we are poor. So we put the copies back, and went to the library. It was a bummer.

The second anyone sees this cover, they will know that it is Steampunk. For the uninitiated, there is only one thing you need to know about the sub-genre. Steampunk = awesome. THE AFFINITY BRIDGE is no exception. Airships, automatons, steam-carriages, tea, and zombies (wahoo!!!). Yeah, this has all the good stuff.

But you know what really made this novel great for us? The feeling that it was a Sherlock Holmes novel. In a Steampunk setting. Where Watson is a chick. And the Queen is a Steampunk monstrosity. Geez...it's exciting and cool just thinking of it.

There are several plots afoot (we've always wanted to say 'afoot') that are happening all at the same time in Mann's novel. A mysterious glowing policeman is killing people. There are zombies running around the streets of London (once again, WAHOO!). However, the main investigation taken by our PoVs Newbury (the Holmes character) and Hobbes (the female Watson character), is an airship that crashes Hindenburg style, killing all of its occupants. The plots, and their resolutions, are completely fantastic. In all seriousness, THE AFFINITY BRIDGE is a standard mystery novel, yet...if feels so fresh. Maybe it is the nostalgic Sherlock Holmes feel, or maybe it is the Steampunk setting. Perhaps it is even the simple added possibility that the supernatural actually exists in this world created by Mann. Whatever the cause, we loved every minute.

This story would have failed terribly without good characters. Newbury, the main PoV, is perfectly written in our opinion. From his drug addiction to his obsession to the occult, he his a flawed and real character. Hobbes--Newbury's assistant--is a strong female character who really deserved more "screen-time." And just wait until you read the epilogue. It really made the Hobbes character awesome for us, and we imagine it will give her more PoV time in the following novels. The side characters were well done, as are the villains (thankfully, the villains weren't crazy over-the-top like in most mystery-like novels). One of the side characters, The Fixer, was fabulous. His small section in the story illustrated perfectly how to show off "cool-stuff" in a story without it feeling tacked-on. Budding authors, take note.

There were a few issues we had. The PoV switches were very poor in some places. There were times where you had two or three different PoVs in a single paragraph. It didn't happen all the time, but often enough to make note of. In addition, setting description was very light at times. We would have liked some time dedicated to showing us the differences in this London from the real historic one. But hey, all of the good plot and character made up for these small problems.

Like so many novels lately, this one has been out in the UK for a bit now, and the sequel already came out as well. If the price for importing wasn't so high, we would consider sending for the second one. But once again, we are poor. It makes us sad pandas. That being said, we fully intend to read everything that George Mann releases. He has his next Newbury & Hobbes novel coming out next year (book 2 for the US, book 3 for the UK), as well as another novel titled GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN coming out through Pyr SF&F in April (looks like the UK gets it in May). Go grab a copy of THE AFFINITY BRIDGE (it is worth every penny of the cover-price), and while you are at it, preorder Mann's next novels.

The Affinity Bridge - A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation Book 1
The Osiris Ritual - A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation Book 2 - UK EDITION
The Immorality Engine - A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation Book 3 - UK EDITION
Ghosts of Manhattan

Simply put: we can't wait to read more George Mann!

Recommended Age: 13 and up. This novel is perfectly accessible to all ages.
Language: Nope.
Violence: Yeah, there is some, especially towards the end with the zombies and such. It's great.
Sex: Nope.


Steve's Note: I'm a big sucker for mystery novels, and I tend to read quite a bit in the mystery/thriller genre. Lately, however, the genre has gone stale, and I've looked for my mystery fix in other areas--namely horror or classics. Mann's THE AFFINITY BRIDGE was picked up strictly based on its cover, but the mystery novel inside really made me excited for mystery again. It also made me pick up the Complete Annotated Sherlock Holmes collection. Three huge hardbacks with every Sherlock Holmes short story and novel. They look pretty, but my wife won't let me read them until Christmas.

Seriously, give Mann's Steampunk novel a try. Not only will it give you an appreciation for the awesomeness of Steampunk, but it might restore your belief in mystery novels again.