A Reader Is Me!

Author: Stephen Hunt

Number of pages: 608

Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction

Book Number/Goal: 3/15

 

I don't know if I'm disappointed or not by this novel. Basically it's a steampunk fantasy set in a world that is recognisably a quasi-Victorian England in conflict with a neighbour which is recognisably a cross between Revolutionary France and Marxist USSR. Throw in some quasi-Aztec evil gods, voodoo steammen and fae magick and you get - well, a hell of a mess really. Some people applaud the wealth of ideas crammed into this novel, but for me there were just too many of them, too scantily developed, and in the end they threaten to bury the story entirely.  Add to that a relentlessly fast pace and I ended up feeling like I'd fallen into a raging torrent and was just being carried along blindly by it.

 

The characters were poorly developed and one never really got to care for them or what happened to them. Although Hunt does occasionally lapse into passages of fluid and poetic prose, the dialogue is often cringeworthy. Yes, It's supposed to sound quaint and archaic, I suppose, but it just sounded creaky and artificial to me.

 

I wanted to like this book and had high expectations since it came so highly praised to me. And I did appreciate some of the imaginative concepts and rip-roaring action scenes. But ultimately it's over-ambitious. rambling and over-long, the result of a first-time author's tendency to cram in everything including the kitchen sink going unchecked by a firm editorial hand. I might try another of his books later on, just to see if he's learned to rein in the ideas enough to let a story shine through.