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minanonim's review
I found the prologue very hard to follow. Several times, I had to reread a sentence again and again to understand what it was saying. And by the end of it... I still didn't quite get what was going on, or what was described. Probably just not the book for me.
apas's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
The Langdon St Ives books are fun steampunk books. Don't look for too much character developments or deeper meanings. The characters are flat and especially the villain is a caricature. But the books are nice if you want a relaxed read.
hissingpotatoes's review against another edition
2.0
I'm giving up 80 pages in. The description would be lush and beautiful if the characters and plot counterbalanced it. Without that balance, the description is just slow distraction. I'm still not sure what the plot or hook are that I'm supposed to care about. The characters are flat, the women caricatures of actual people. There's decent humor, but not nearly enough to justify me continuing to slog through the book.
branch_c's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
ericbuscemi's review against another edition
3.0
It was my turn to pick for book club, and wanting to pick something different, I thought of this steampunk classic that I had already loaded onto my Kindle but hadn't yet read. It was short at around 250 pages, it was available for $2.79 on the Kindle, and it had won a Phillip K. Dick award for distinguished science fiction. So why then, out of seven people, did only two of us, myself included, manage to finish it?
Well for one, it had a hell of an in medias res opening. I mean the story really should have started fifteen years prior, and the prologue could have done more to set up the plot and expectations, and not just the tone and mood. That being said, about of the third of the way in, I started getting traction as to what on this alternate earth was going on and began appreciating the absolute lack of anything resembling an infodump anywhere in the entire novel. However, many of my fellow bookclubbers abandoned ship before this point, and I really can't blame them.
This read was not a typical 250 page breeze, which surprised me -- possibly because most steampunk novels I have read, such as [b:The Leviathan Trilogy|11563056|The Leviathan Trilogy|Scott Westerfeld|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328342601s/11563056.jpg|16446997] and [b:Boneshaker|1137215|Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century, #1)|Cherie Priest|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398725701s/1137215.jpg|1124460], are aimed at a YA audience? This read much slower, nearly as slow as the ultimate grandfather to the steampunk genre, [a:Jules Verne|696805|Jules Verne|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1322911579p2/696805.jpg].
The shame of most of my book club not finishing it, though, is that this story picked up steam in a parabolic curve, exponentially becoming more fun and exciting and leading to a spirited, and appropriately ridiculous, climax, which served to tie up almost all of the loose ends, as well as shedding light on any remaining mysteries accumulated during the process of reading the novel.
There is humor to be found in here. Although it is not a comedy, there are enough hijinks, oddities and playfully macabre antics to keep things lively, as one may expect in a novel where an airship driven by a skeleton is in low orbit around the earth for years. There is also an interesting MacGuffin shell game, where instead of having just one macguffin -- the one containing the homunculus -- there are four, and they get swapped around to a dizzying point where even the reader cannot keep track of which is which. What is not in this novel, however, is enough characterization of its ensemble cast, not even of the nominal protagonist, Langdon St. Ives. And the antagonists are each more of a caricature than the next -- Narbondo, the mad scientist that reanimated corpses, is a hunchback, for example.
To sum it up, if you can get into this novel, which takes some good amount of patience, there is a worthy payoff. But this is not the novel I would go about gifting someone thinking of exploring the steampunk genre, at risk of turning them off to it completely, as I fear I may have done with my book club.
Well for one, it had a hell of an in medias res opening. I mean the story really should have started fifteen years prior, and the prologue could have done more to set up the plot and expectations, and not just the tone and mood. That being said, about of the third of the way in, I started getting traction as to what on this alternate earth was going on and began appreciating the absolute lack of anything resembling an infodump anywhere in the entire novel. However, many of my fellow bookclubbers abandoned ship before this point, and I really can't blame them.
This read was not a typical 250 page breeze, which surprised me -- possibly because most steampunk novels I have read, such as [b:The Leviathan Trilogy|11563056|The Leviathan Trilogy|Scott Westerfeld|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328342601s/11563056.jpg|16446997] and [b:Boneshaker|1137215|Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century, #1)|Cherie Priest|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398725701s/1137215.jpg|1124460], are aimed at a YA audience? This read much slower, nearly as slow as the ultimate grandfather to the steampunk genre, [a:Jules Verne|696805|Jules Verne|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1322911579p2/696805.jpg].
The shame of most of my book club not finishing it, though, is that this story picked up steam in a parabolic curve, exponentially becoming more fun and exciting and leading to a spirited, and appropriately ridiculous, climax, which served to tie up almost all of the loose ends, as well as shedding light on any remaining mysteries accumulated during the process of reading the novel.
There is humor to be found in here. Although it is not a comedy, there are enough hijinks, oddities and playfully macabre antics to keep things lively, as one may expect in a novel where an airship driven by a skeleton is in low orbit around the earth for years. There is also an interesting MacGuffin shell game, where instead of having just one macguffin -- the one containing the homunculus -- there are four, and they get swapped around to a dizzying point where even the reader cannot keep track of which is which. What is not in this novel, however, is enough characterization of its ensemble cast, not even of the nominal protagonist, Langdon St. Ives. And the antagonists are each more of a caricature than the next -- Narbondo, the mad scientist that reanimated corpses, is a hunchback, for example.
To sum it up, if you can get into this novel, which takes some good amount of patience, there is a worthy payoff. But this is not the novel I would go about gifting someone thinking of exploring the steampunk genre, at risk of turning them off to it completely, as I fear I may have done with my book club.
kat_smith24's review against another edition
2.0
I thought the first book in this series was wonderfully a combination of Ray Bradbury and HP Lovecraft. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the series isn't about the young heroes of the first book, but focuses on the evildoing of the villain. I guess I should have expected that from a series named "Narbondo".
keary's review against another edition
2.0
I'm sad to say that I found this a very unsatisfactory read. The characters were one dimensional and interchangeable and I'm not sure that there was a story. I won't be reading any more of this author's work.
tvisser's review
2.0
I would give 2.5 - the second half of the book was much faster paced than the first and did have some humorous parts. Read for a book club
bent's review against another edition
2.0
I had problems getting into this book. Partly it was the head space I was in, but the book also feels like you've joined it in progress. Characters are introduced as if you already know them, the plot seems as if you should already have a grasp on what's going on. I had to read the Wikipedia summary before I felt I understood the plot, and I was almost a hundred pages in at that point.
The book does pick up in the middle and I started to get into it, but then it loses momentum at the end again. There are too many heroes, too many villains, and the plot isn't that focused, meandering when it should be driving. It was hard to stay involved when none of the action seems to be building towards anything.
In the end, I would compare this book to an unsatisfying sandwich - the filling was good, but the bread was mushy and soggy.
The book does pick up in the middle and I started to get into it, but then it loses momentum at the end again. There are too many heroes, too many villains, and the plot isn't that focused, meandering when it should be driving. It was hard to stay involved when none of the action seems to be building towards anything.
In the end, I would compare this book to an unsatisfying sandwich - the filling was good, but the bread was mushy and soggy.
singsthewren's review
3.0
I picked this book up ages ago, when I signed up to teach a class on steampunk, and when the class fell apart I never did get around to reading the book. So as part of my project for the year (reading every second book from my endless to-read pile), I picked this one up.
Overall I enjoyed the story, though the writing was occasionally confusing. The number of characters and their unique plotlines was a bit overwhelming, and sometimes I felt like I was reading a sequel to a novel he had never published. (Goodreads lists this as a sequel to a previous book, but the two are only connected in that they share a similar universe; they take place in different centuries and on different continents). The villains were all a little bit madcap, without really clear motives, and the heroes were each head-down in their own plot and sort of accidentally intersecting with each other.
I did love the french-door-farce style of plot where things just happened, full of insane coincidences and hilarious run-ins. I think the novel was supposed to be funnier than it was, and wasn't sure if I was missing some of the voice that would have made it more so.
Overall I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't seek out any more of Blaylock's writing.
Overall I enjoyed the story, though the writing was occasionally confusing. The number of characters and their unique plotlines was a bit overwhelming, and sometimes I felt like I was reading a sequel to a novel he had never published. (Goodreads lists this as a sequel to a previous book, but the two are only connected in that they share a similar universe; they take place in different centuries and on different continents). The villains were all a little bit madcap, without really clear motives, and the heroes were each head-down in their own plot and sort of accidentally intersecting with each other.
I did love the french-door-farce style of plot where things just happened, full of insane coincidences and hilarious run-ins. I think the novel was supposed to be funnier than it was, and wasn't sure if I was missing some of the voice that would have made it more so.
Overall I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't seek out any more of Blaylock's writing.