Present Books Conducive To The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
| Original Title: | The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack |
| ISBN: | 1906727201 (ISBN13: 9781906727208) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Burton & Swinburne #1 |
| Characters: | Sir Richard Francis Burton, Algernon Charles Swinburne |
| Setting: | London, England,1861(United Kingdom) |
| Literary Awards: | Philip K. Dick Award (2011) |
Mark Hodder
Paperback | Pages: 511 pages Rating: 3.68 | 6716 Users | 890 Reviews
Specify Containing Books The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
| Title | : | The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1) |
| Author | : | Mark Hodder |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 511 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 2010 by Snowbooks (first published 2010) |
| Categories | : | Science Fiction. Steampunk. Fantasy. Fiction. Alternate History. Historical. Historical Fiction. Time Travel |
Description During Books The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
London, 1861.Sir Richard Francis Burton—explorer, linguist, scholar, and swordsman; his reputation tarnished; his career in tatters; his former partner missing and probably dead.
Algernon Charles Swinburne—unsuccessful poet and follower of de Sade; for whom pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin!
They stand at a crossroads in their lives and are caught in the epicenter of an empire torn by conflicting forces: Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier, and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labor; Libertines oppose repressive laws and demand a society based on beauty and creativity; while the Rakes push the boundaries of human behavior to the limits with magic, drugs, and anarchy. The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.
Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!
Rating Containing Books The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
Ratings: 3.68 From 6716 Users | 890 ReviewsDiscuss Containing Books The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne #1)
This super debut novel is like a sweet, dainty cup of mild English tea...if it was spiked with Absinthe, poured into a heavy brass goblet and served with Laudanum-laced cookies shaped like medical experiments gone awry. In other words, a great blend of prim, proper and the freakishly bizarre...somebody pass the hookah, this ones gonna get weird. Set in 1861 in an Victorian Albertian England, Mark Hodder has created one of the most enticingly strange and intriguing steampunk worlds I have comeThis super debut novel is like a sweet, dainty cup of mild English tea...if it was spiked with Absinthe, poured into a heavy brass goblet and served with Laudanum-laced cookies shaped like medical experiments gone awry. In other words, a great blend of prim, proper and the freakishly bizarre...somebody pass the hookah, this ones gonna get weird. Set in 1861 in an Victorian Albertian England, Mark Hodder has created one of the most enticingly strange and intriguing steampunk worlds I have come
I had to create a number of shelves to accommodate this wacky novel. It's primarily a Steampunk Victorian Detective Novel and then you add all of these other elements in. Rogue geneticists, time travel, the assassination of Queen Victoria, a mad Marquess (very Victorian), a timeline that goes increasingly awry, and my favorite bit, part swashbuckling adventure. I swear this book made me want to whip out a rapier and dance around like a mad lunatic. Which is what I would look like if I tried
We are all told to not judge a book by its cover, but that is exactly what first put this exciting novel into my hands. With the antique-styled gold accents and decidely dangerous looking villain on the front, it practically screamed "read me!" And read it I did, finding it more and more difficult to put down as the story progressed.Mark Hodder has taken several distinct genres (Steampunk, alternate history, science fiction, time-travel, and plain old action & adventure) and combined them,
4.5pts rounded up to 5pts.PS Sorry if I missed any of you out on the Recomms :) Anyone loving Steampunk & Alternate History should have this on their trl!A grand insight into the world of Burton & Swinburne which we cant quite call "Victorian" Steampunk but all is very akin as various Gothic characters & notorieties of the time appear in various guises a la Tarantino style with their bit parts. Mr Hodder fare stokes up the atmosphere of the foggy coal infused East End with his
Hodder needed a different, meaner editor for his first novel. Anywhere from 20% - 25% could go. Every incident goes on a little too long. The second half of every compound sentence could be dropped. Conversations are over before Hodder cuts them off. He never got the memo on adverbs.This is the only steampunk novel I have read, and I am not the best audience. I don't care about the gadgetry, and the gadgetry seems to be much of the attraction here. On the other hand, I am a sucker for time
I suppose after consideration, that maybe I'm just not going to be a fan of "Steam Punk". I've tried several books, I'll read the synopsis and think "wow, good idea, I should like this". I get the book, I go in expecting to be interested and to like the novel....but I don't.Pretty much the same here. I considered giving the book 3 stars. I just couldn't justify going that high when by the end of the book I'd lost interest, didn't care much about the characters and was fairly glad to see it end.
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