Review of 'Burton and Swinburne in the Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack' on 'Goodreads'
3.0 stars
Reading the opening paragraph of this book, I very nearly put it down, and thank goodness for my book club or I would have.
"Oh hum," I thought. "Another sanitized faux-Victoriana piece about intrepid but annoying females and the manly but mannerly males who put up with them."
I.
Could.
Not.
Have.
Been.
More.
Wrong.
Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack is a wonderful, playful romp in an engaging alternate history which Mark Hodder uses to take figures from our Victorian age who were shortchanged and offer them new lease to live up to their potential. Or perhaps follow their heart's true desire...
Woven through Hodder's alternate England are the threads of dark, gritty detail I found absent in so many other Steampunk novels, not the least of which is how the marvelous science of such an age would be applied by an entitled and class-ist society.
Strongly reminiscent of …
Reading the opening paragraph of this book, I very nearly put it down, and thank goodness for my book club or I would have.
"Oh hum," I thought. "Another sanitized faux-Victoriana piece about intrepid but annoying females and the manly but mannerly males who put up with them."
I.
Could.
Not.
Have.
Been.
More.
Wrong.
Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack is a wonderful, playful romp in an engaging alternate history which Mark Hodder uses to take figures from our Victorian age who were shortchanged and offer them new lease to live up to their potential. Or perhaps follow their heart's true desire...
Woven through Hodder's alternate England are the threads of dark, gritty detail I found absent in so many other Steampunk novels, not the least of which is how the marvelous science of such an age would be applied by an entitled and class-ist society.
Strongly reminiscent of Tim Power's [b:The Anubis Gates|142296|The Anubis Gates|Tim Powers|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1344409006s/142296.jpg|2193115], this book should be at the top of anyone's 'to read' Steampunk list.