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timinbc's review against another edition
3.0
This has a very Ffordean (Ffordesque?) and amusing style when it's not casually killing people.
But for the audience it's aimed it, this one takes a VERY casual approach to death. Railway workers at war, everyone shrugging and accepting a predicted 50% death rate, several participants with an obvious death wish, ... Jasper, is there something you're not telling us?
Things given early in the story come back later with satisfying precision, which makes the ending all the more surprising. It felt as if the last page should have started with "Oh! Is that 400 pages already? OK, I'll wrap it up on this page."
I'll go further:. Many authors have been able to do "TO BE CONTINUED" much better than this.
The princess plotline is good, but her cutover from one personality to the other is implausibly abrupt.
Gabby is far too much of an deus ex machina and I fear he is going to bring disappointment in the next volume.
But for the audience it's aimed it, this one takes a VERY casual approach to death. Railway workers at war, everyone shrugging and accepting a predicted 50% death rate, several participants with an obvious death wish, ... Jasper, is there something you're not telling us?
Things given early in the story come back later with satisfying precision, which makes the ending all the more surprising. It felt as if the last page should have started with "Oh! Is that 400 pages already? OK, I'll wrap it up on this page."
I'll go further:
Spoiler
This is half a book. The plot doesn't even reach a decent partial ending.The princess plotline is good, but her cutover from one personality to the other is implausibly abrupt.
Gabby is far too much of an deus ex machina and I fear he is going to bring disappointment in the next volume.
jrmarr's review against another edition
4.0
Wasn't sure how to rate this one. Huge fan of jasper fforde and will read a shopping list if I knew he wrote it. Ultimately enjoyable, but I do eagerly anticipate a new instalment if one of his other series too.
alidottie's review against another edition
4.0
Such a fun series and it is definitely continuing. Great for people who enjoy a childlike imaginative break from reality!
kberry513's review against another edition
5.0
Ok, no fair!!! I thought this was a trilogy and this one ended on such a HUGE cliffhanger! I'm also a bit depressed by the devastation at the end. I was figuring, based upon his story of not stepping up during a key moment and that he was waiting to give his life for that, that Wilson was going to sacrifice himself to save everyone. But whyyyyy did Perkins have to die?!?! So sad! I know he was a Burner, and that Kevin Zipp the precog had told him that he would grow old in Cambria but I kept hoping something would change. Addie is just fantastic and the princess turned out to be pretty cool...I love her interest in finance. I'm glad Fforde expanding on the royal family's backstory since their brief but important appearance in book 2.
The main conflict in this one is that Jenny has been charged by the Mighty Shandar to get him the Eye of Zoltar (a legendary magic jewel that has been lost) or he will challenge her and the wizards of Kazam and the two remaining dragons, as her actions in the first book caused him to have reneged on his whole "exterminating dragons" contract. The Eye was last seen in the possession
of the Sky Pirate Wolff, who may or may not be real and who supposedly tamed Cloud Leviathans and hides amongst the Leviathan Graveyard in the Cambrian Empire. Cambria is where thrillseekers go to test their mettle, with an extremely high percentage dying during their journey. Meanwhile, Jenny is entrusted by the queen of Snodd to help her extremely spoiled and self-centered daughter, Princess Shazine, to become a better person, having switched her body with a servant girls so she won't be recognized. Jenny takes the princess and Perkins with her to Cambria with the outward mission of retrieving the Once Magnificent Boo from a Cambrian prison. One of the dragons Jenny is trying to save tags along to help, but almost immediately gets turned to rubber by Perkins to save him from being killed. Their party is posing as tourists and they hire a young girl called Addie to lead them. She tells them their party have a 50% survival rating (and she's never wrong about that) so she picks up some more tourists to add legitimacy and also to improve their own odds of surviving. Most of them die, but one of them gets turned into an Australopithecine. The princess turns out to know an awful lot about economics, which I thought was quite cool, and loses her hand in battle at the end. It turns out that Shandar has been exporting Cloud Leviathan bones and has drones in place to keep the secret, which is what Jenny and company end up fighting against and why Wilson the ornithologist they pick up on the way and Perkins (NOT PERKINS!!) sacrifice their lives, and the princess sacrifices her hand. They also didn't find the Eye where they expected, but realize it must be in the grave of the wizard who had spread the rumor of where it was. And, just when you think the book is wrapping up, they head back into the Kingdom of Snodd to find everything in ruins, the whole royal family has been killed - including the servant in the princess's body. What the hell?! And did everyone at Kazam die minus Tiger and the few trapped under rubble in the basement?!?! I have sooo many questions!! I hope this wraps up in the next book - I was not expecting this big of a cliffhanger. The others left open ended questions, sure, but the main problems were wrapped up.
The main conflict in this one is that Jenny has been charged by the Mighty Shandar to get him the Eye of Zoltar (a legendary magic jewel that has been lost) or he will challenge her and the wizards of Kazam and the two remaining dragons, as her actions in the first book caused him to have reneged on his whole "exterminating dragons" contract. The Eye was last seen in the possession
of the Sky Pirate Wolff, who may or may not be real and who supposedly tamed Cloud Leviathans and hides amongst the Leviathan Graveyard in the Cambrian Empire. Cambria is where thrillseekers go to test their mettle, with an extremely high percentage dying during their journey. Meanwhile, Jenny is entrusted by the queen of Snodd to help her extremely spoiled and self-centered daughter, Princess Shazine, to become a better person, having switched her body with a servant girls so she won't be recognized. Jenny takes the princess and Perkins with her to Cambria with the outward mission of retrieving the Once Magnificent Boo from a Cambrian prison. One of the dragons Jenny is trying to save tags along to help, but almost immediately gets turned to rubber by Perkins to save him from being killed. Their party is posing as tourists and they hire a young girl called Addie to lead them. She tells them their party have a 50% survival rating (and she's never wrong about that) so she picks up some more tourists to add legitimacy and also to improve their own odds of surviving. Most of them die, but one of them gets turned into an Australopithecine. The princess turns out to know an awful lot about economics, which I thought was quite cool, and loses her hand in battle at the end. It turns out that Shandar has been exporting Cloud Leviathan bones and has drones in place to keep the secret, which is what Jenny and company end up fighting against and why Wilson the ornithologist they pick up on the way and Perkins (NOT PERKINS!!) sacrifice their lives, and the princess sacrifices her hand. They also didn't find the Eye where they expected, but realize it must be in the grave of the wizard who had spread the rumor of where it was. And, just when you think the book is wrapping up, they head back into the Kingdom of Snodd to find everything in ruins, the whole royal family has been killed - including the servant in the princess's body. What the hell?! And did everyone at Kazam die minus Tiger and the few trapped under rubble in the basement?!?! I have sooo many questions!! I hope this wraps up in the next book - I was not expecting this big of a cliffhanger. The others left open ended questions, sure, but the main problems were wrapped up.
gabalodon's review against another edition
4.0
The plot in this volume was a bit slower than in the first two. Still quirky but not as light-hearted rompy. Sometimes the quirkiness comes off as chaotic aimlessness in the narrative which can interfere with what is sometimes otherwise a compelling and somewhat heavy (sometimes unsettling) plot, which makes it difficult to emotionally invest in a way I think it deserves. Some new characters to love and some new characters to hate. A lot happens at the very beginning, and then there is a steady (somewhat sloggy) progression with a lot of hints and very brief adventures with world-building tidbits and then a LOT happens in the last 7ish chapters and dramatically changes the scope of the stakes going forward. Looking forward to what I hope will be a lot of magical ass-kicking and out-maneuvering in the fourth one.
rollforlibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
I was looking forward to reading another book with Fforde's fantastically bizzare sense of humour and was not disappointed. I'd love to say more but I fear I'd rapidly head off into spoilers...
liketheday's review against another edition
3.0
One of the weirder things about this book is that it gets downright educational. It turns out that the princess is some kind of economics genius and she explains things like futures and options and goat trade in a way that seems, to this reader with little knowledge of economics, to be pretty factual and useful if I ever want to rid myself of a goat surplus.
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