Gods of Manhattan: Pax Britannia Series, Book 7
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Gods of Manhattan (Pax Britannia) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
'You re in New York. Protocol went out the window the second you arrived. This isn t a protocol kind of town. This is a town that breeds monsters and heroes, geniuses and madmen. This town makes gods, and heaven help you, you wanted to be one of us.' While his sidekick lies bleeding out in hospital, city saviour Doc Thunder and Maya, his beautiful companion, attempt to discover the identity of their friend's assailant. The clues lead to secrets altogether older and darker than they could ever have imagined. The Blood Spider - a name that strikes fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere. But unlike Doc Thunder, this vigilante is willing to kill, and it can only be a matter a time before the two heroes collide. Mexican masked swordsman El Sombra is visiting the Big Apple, but he s not just any tourist. El Sombra is on a mission of revenge that will take him all the way into the heart of the city's corrupt underworld.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
A little bit Philip Jose Farmer. A little bit Alan Moore. A little bit Grant Morrison. Tracking Al Ewing's influences in Gods of Manhattan would be worthy of a PhD. Set in a modern day parallel universe where history played out differently so that the world is run on steam instead of electric, Mr Ewing takes us into a version of New York that is a mashup of all the elements that define its pulp and super hero history with added kinkiness.
A vigilante called the Blood Spider, who references the Spider, Spider-man and the Shadow, visits bloody justice on Manhattan. His shoot first, don't ask questions policy is set to bring him into a collision with Doc Thunder, America's greatest hero who is equal parts Doc Savage, Flash Gordon, Superman and Captain America. Meanwhile Zorro-analogue El Sombra is searching for Nazis to kill, and his superficial resemblance to the Blood Spider draws him into a battle he may not survive.
This is a world of punkish Futureheads, of hidden Nazi criminals, of supervillains with malleable features, of jungle queens and simian reporters. And it is played with wit and panache and true love for the medium by a writer who is going to have a big impact on both comics and novels if his work to date is anything to go by.
There are a couple of story elements that feature word games that I guessed long before the story revealed the truth - I don't know if that was Al's intention, but it didn't really spoil my enjoyment of the twisty-turny plot.
It is all in all, the sort of literature that I am happy to pay good money for! More please!
A vigilante called the Blood Spider, who references the Spider, Spider-man and the Shadow, visits bloody justice on Manhattan. His shoot first, don't ask questions policy is set to bring him into a collision with Doc Thunder, America's greatest hero who is equal parts Doc Savage, Flash Gordon, Superman and Captain America. Meanwhile Zorro-analogue El Sombra is searching for Nazis to kill, and his superficial resemblance to the Blood Spider draws him into a battle he may not survive.
This is a world of punkish Futureheads, of hidden Nazi criminals, of supervillains with malleable features, of jungle queens and simian reporters. And it is played with wit and panache and true love for the medium by a writer who is going to have a big impact on both comics and novels if his work to date is anything to go by.
There are a couple of story elements that feature word games that I guessed long before the story revealed the truth - I don't know if that was Al's intention, but it didn't really spoil my enjoyment of the twisty-turny plot.
It is all in all, the sort of literature that I am happy to pay good money for! More please!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ewing has skillfully eschewed every traditional steampunk convention and carved out his very own take on the New World. Jon Green owns Europe (as well as the oceans and, most recently, the moon), but once you cross the Atlantic, that territory is all Ewing.
Ewing's first contribution to this series was El Sombra, in which he rewrote the Zorro myth to have a schizophrenic Mexican poet battle Nazi robot stormtroopers. El Sombra was wall-to-wall violence, with the occasional break in the bloodshed to point out how completely crazy the 'hero' of the book really was. The half-nude, all-bonkers El Sombra is the polar opposite to the dapper and well-composed Ulysses Quicksilver, Jon Green's recurring hero.
In Gods of Manhattan, Ewing's bloodthirsty creation returns, but, this time, he's merely a background character. El Sombra, on the hunt for more Nazis to carve up, hitches a ride to New York. The Big Apple of the USSA is a very different place - both from reality and from the steampunk London across the ocean. The States are still recovering from a series of violent Civil Wars, as well as from battles with overseas enemies. A vague ally of the Victorian Empire, the USSA is still sorting out most of its own problems. Still, New York is the place to be. Bohemian hedonism, artistic wildness and, of course... Doc Thunder.
See, the USSA has a superhero. Doc Thunder stop bullets, leaps buildings and battles evil - if it weren't for him, the USSA would be gone. More people wear his lightning bolt than the American flag, and, wherever he goes, he's welcome. But Thunder isn't the only super-entity in town. His own team (Monk, the gorilla reporter and Maya, the immortal goddess) are dealing with The Blood Spider (a lethal vigilante) as well as a horde of leftover bad guys from previous adventures. Then El Sombra arrives, and with him comes the spark that ignites the whole mess.
Ewing has written, in just shy of 250 pages, one of the best superhero pastiches I've ever read. From his dry take on the old pulp heroes stories to his disturbingly sinister version of Marvel's flagship hero, this is not something I ever expected to find outside of an Alan Moore graphic novel. He's used prose to describe comics (already something tricky), done so with a great deal of rewarding satire, and, most importantly, written an enjoyable book. Gods of Manhattan is a terrific, inescapable book - in which absolutely anything can happen and, quite often, does.
Ewing's books make for strange roommates to Green's, but not uncomfortable ones. Quicksilver sips brandy while El Sombra shoots rum, but both of them throw a great house party. Similarly, both authors have an infectious sense of humor and a commitment to raw, unfettered joy that make Pax Britannia one of the best ongoing series today. This is a lunatic world where the imagination runs wild - where steam-powered squid co-exist with face-changing super-villains - and the reader can delight in it all.
Ewing's first contribution to this series was El Sombra, in which he rewrote the Zorro myth to have a schizophrenic Mexican poet battle Nazi robot stormtroopers. El Sombra was wall-to-wall violence, with the occasional break in the bloodshed to point out how completely crazy the 'hero' of the book really was. The half-nude, all-bonkers El Sombra is the polar opposite to the dapper and well-composed Ulysses Quicksilver, Jon Green's recurring hero.
In Gods of Manhattan, Ewing's bloodthirsty creation returns, but, this time, he's merely a background character. El Sombra, on the hunt for more Nazis to carve up, hitches a ride to New York. The Big Apple of the USSA is a very different place - both from reality and from the steampunk London across the ocean. The States are still recovering from a series of violent Civil Wars, as well as from battles with overseas enemies. A vague ally of the Victorian Empire, the USSA is still sorting out most of its own problems. Still, New York is the place to be. Bohemian hedonism, artistic wildness and, of course... Doc Thunder.
See, the USSA has a superhero. Doc Thunder stop bullets, leaps buildings and battles evil - if it weren't for him, the USSA would be gone. More people wear his lightning bolt than the American flag, and, wherever he goes, he's welcome. But Thunder isn't the only super-entity in town. His own team (Monk, the gorilla reporter and Maya, the immortal goddess) are dealing with The Blood Spider (a lethal vigilante) as well as a horde of leftover bad guys from previous adventures. Then El Sombra arrives, and with him comes the spark that ignites the whole mess.
Ewing has written, in just shy of 250 pages, one of the best superhero pastiches I've ever read. From his dry take on the old pulp heroes stories to his disturbingly sinister version of Marvel's flagship hero, this is not something I ever expected to find outside of an Alan Moore graphic novel. He's used prose to describe comics (already something tricky), done so with a great deal of rewarding satire, and, most importantly, written an enjoyable book. Gods of Manhattan is a terrific, inescapable book - in which absolutely anything can happen and, quite often, does.
Ewing's books make for strange roommates to Green's, but not uncomfortable ones. Quicksilver sips brandy while El Sombra shoots rum, but both of them throw a great house party. Similarly, both authors have an infectious sense of humor and a commitment to raw, unfettered joy that make Pax Britannia one of the best ongoing series today. This is a lunatic world where the imagination runs wild - where steam-powered squid co-exist with face-changing super-villains - and the reader can delight in it all.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Considering this is only the second of Ewing's entries into the Pax Britannia universe, he's doing a grand job of carving out his own distinctive segment of the world. Like his first offering, the story is fast paced, violent as exciting, but here the cast and setting are richer, the plot more fully formed, and if anything the whole thing is even more fun.
We continue to follow insane killing machine and bad poet El Sombra as he pursues his quest to rid the world of the Nazis. His journey takes him to New York, where he becomes embroiled in the lives of the pulp heroes and villains of the city.
Murderous vigilantes, immortal goddesses, cursed chefs and shapeshifting terrorists are all thrown into the mix as our antihero finds himself in the middle of a struggle for the soul of the city between its brightest light, Doc Thunder, and its darest nightmare, the Blood Spider.
The tale takes dozens of entertaining twists and turns, and Ewing still finds time to explain why we find ourselves in the USSA, why the phrase UnAmerican is still frightening to some, and just what happened to the world's most dangerous man.
Madcap, brutal, funny, delirious; once again Ewing has given us a tale ripped from the pulps that's so much fun, it should be illegal.
We continue to follow insane killing machine and bad poet El Sombra as he pursues his quest to rid the world of the Nazis. His journey takes him to New York, where he becomes embroiled in the lives of the pulp heroes and villains of the city.
Murderous vigilantes, immortal goddesses, cursed chefs and shapeshifting terrorists are all thrown into the mix as our antihero finds himself in the middle of a struggle for the soul of the city between its brightest light, Doc Thunder, and its darest nightmare, the Blood Spider.
The tale takes dozens of entertaining twists and turns, and Ewing still finds time to explain why we find ourselves in the USSA, why the phrase UnAmerican is still frightening to some, and just what happened to the world's most dangerous man.
Madcap, brutal, funny, delirious; once again Ewing has given us a tale ripped from the pulps that's so much fun, it should be illegal.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A minor disapointment, by previous standards
Having loved Al Ewing's previous three novels, giving them all 5 star ratings without hesitation, I awaited Gods of Manhattan eagerly. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Nigel Waspfinger
Spirit of Man please
Having read Al's first excursion into the Pax Britannica Steampunk universe (El Sombra), I was intrigued to see what he'd come up with for his next excursion to the lands of... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
