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Product Description
Review
Fantastic. Somewhere between Dickens, Sherlock Holmes and Rider Haggard. I was in seventh heaven (Kate Mosse, Author Of Labyrinth )
A page-turner, a rollicking ride. As stupendous as it is stupefying (Giles Foden Guardian )
An erotically charged, rip-roaring adventure for adults with scarcely a dull moment to be had, which defies its great length to keep the reader on the edge of his seat (Daily Mail )
A page-turner, a rollicking ride. As stupendous as it is stupefying (Giles Foden Guardian )
An erotically charged, rip-roaring adventure for adults with scarcely a dull moment to be had, which defies its great length to keep the reader on the edge of his seat (Daily Mail )
Giles Foden, The Guardian
`As stupendous as it is stupefying - you become immersed. A
page-turner and a rollicking ride'
page-turner and a rollicking ride'
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First Sentence
From her arrival at the docks to the appearance of Roger's letter, written on crisp Ministry paper and signed with his lull name, on her maid's silver tray at breakfast, three months had passed. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
From her arrival at the docks to the appearance of Roger's letter, written on crisp Ministry paper and signed with his lull name, on her maid's silver tray at breakfast, three months had passed. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 59 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Yes, it is long, yes it could've been shorter, considerably shorter, and yes the fact that the author clearly didn't know where the story was going is obvious. But, my goodness, what a book?!
If anything, the perambulatory nature of the plot is one of this books delights. Some books lose you because the plot unravels in your hand like paper in the rain. This plot slowly reveals itself. It teases you. It leaves you aching for more.
And I haven't mentioned the varied and colourful characters, or the city and it's environs. The environment itself is reminiscent of Hardy (in terms of the delight the author takes in laying the streets, fields and buildings before the reader), while the characters are beautifully conveyed and reminiscent of Dickens.
There is also something of Tolkein in the structure of the 'volumes' or chapters. While you see events unfold around one of the key characters you are desperate to know what is happening to the others. This is one of the reasons behind the "Just one more page" factor that this book has in spades.
This leads me to the timelessness of the book. Time seems to stand still on the page and around you in 'real world'. It should come with a health wanring: "Reading this book on a train could result in many missed stops!"
I am not surprised by the love it/hate it reviews so far. This book was never going to be scoring 2 or 3 stars. It takes risks, challenges literary norms and breaks all the acceptable rules. I hated it at first but was reassured that it would pay to keep going. Within five chapters I was in a sort of daze, finding myself drifting off during meetings to the streets and hotels of this imaginary world, wondering what was happening to my beloved characters. Rarely does a book stick with you as much as this one.
This book is not just a collection of pages with a very pretty face (and my, what a pretty face it is, too). This is book with many, many hidden depths. Dive in. Explore. Enjoy.
If anything, the perambulatory nature of the plot is one of this books delights. Some books lose you because the plot unravels in your hand like paper in the rain. This plot slowly reveals itself. It teases you. It leaves you aching for more.
And I haven't mentioned the varied and colourful characters, or the city and it's environs. The environment itself is reminiscent of Hardy (in terms of the delight the author takes in laying the streets, fields and buildings before the reader), while the characters are beautifully conveyed and reminiscent of Dickens.
There is also something of Tolkein in the structure of the 'volumes' or chapters. While you see events unfold around one of the key characters you are desperate to know what is happening to the others. This is one of the reasons behind the "Just one more page" factor that this book has in spades.
This leads me to the timelessness of the book. Time seems to stand still on the page and around you in 'real world'. It should come with a health wanring: "Reading this book on a train could result in many missed stops!"
I am not surprised by the love it/hate it reviews so far. This book was never going to be scoring 2 or 3 stars. It takes risks, challenges literary norms and breaks all the acceptable rules. I hated it at first but was reassured that it would pay to keep going. Within five chapters I was in a sort of daze, finding myself drifting off during meetings to the streets and hotels of this imaginary world, wondering what was happening to my beloved characters. Rarely does a book stick with you as much as this one.
This book is not just a collection of pages with a very pretty face (and my, what a pretty face it is, too). This is book with many, many hidden depths. Dive in. Explore. Enjoy.
32 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Those reviewers who have slammed this novel based on their reading of one or three chapters really shouldn't be posting reviews here at all. This is a book of almmost 800 pages, and it moves at a fairly leisurely pace. The writing could be better (and could have been improved by professional editing), but the concept is so bizarre, the setting is so surreal, the characters are so odd (yet believable), that you would be missing a marvellous one-off tale by taking those one-star reviews too seriously.
One of the problems is the book's structure. Each of the first 3 chapters tells a lengthy part of the narrative from the point of view of a different character. These 3 characters don't meet up till chapter 4, and even then are soon separated again. But once we see them as a unit and begin to understand the forces they are fighting against, none of that matters. Dahlquist's imagination is disturbing, but I found the world he creates much more engaging than, say, Philip Pullman's second-hand universes. If you start to get sucked into this world--19th century, yet not 19th century, England, yet not England--you will start to find it hard to put down. You crave to know the truth behind the narrative. The prose style, though it needs work, is, on the whole, easy to follow. It has little elegance and quite a few errors ('off of' repeatedly, for example), but that doesn't get in the way of the narrative as it does in, say, Kate Mosse's very clumsily written bestseller Labyrinth. This story leaves you with a sense of strangeness that few others achieve. Read it for that alone.
One of the problems is the book's structure. Each of the first 3 chapters tells a lengthy part of the narrative from the point of view of a different character. These 3 characters don't meet up till chapter 4, and even then are soon separated again. But once we see them as a unit and begin to understand the forces they are fighting against, none of that matters. Dahlquist's imagination is disturbing, but I found the world he creates much more engaging than, say, Philip Pullman's second-hand universes. If you start to get sucked into this world--19th century, yet not 19th century, England, yet not England--you will start to find it hard to put down. You crave to know the truth behind the narrative. The prose style, though it needs work, is, on the whole, easy to follow. It has little elegance and quite a few errors ('off of' repeatedly, for example), but that doesn't get in the way of the narrative as it does in, say, Kate Mosse's very clumsily written bestseller Labyrinth. This story leaves you with a sense of strangeness that few others achieve. Read it for that alone.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I randomly took this book out of the library, having never heard of or seen it before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Who cares that it's a long book? I didn't find myself bored, the characters were engaging, and the concept behind the book totally original.
It has the Philip Pullman quality of creating a thoroughly believable world which is just similar enough to 19th century England to be believable, yet at the same time dissimilar enough to put the reader slightly on edge, and emphasise that anything could happen...
It has the Philip Pullman quality of creating a thoroughly believable world which is just similar enough to 19th century England to be believable, yet at the same time dissimilar enough to put the reader slightly on edge, and emphasise that anything could happen...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hard to put down!
Wonderful! Iit creates an amazing detailed 'otherworldly' atmosphere, slightly steampunk-ish, almost but not quite reality. Well written, descriptive, and hard to put down. Read more
Published 24 days ago by Turkish Tutor
I couldN'T care less
Initially, a promising read, then the repetition begins, then the repetition begins,then the repetition begins, then the repetition begins, then the repetition begins, then the... Read more
Published 27 days ago by dawkins for PM
Unputdownable
I wasn't at all sure what to expect from this book but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was complicated enough to make me read it slowly (normally I "swallow" books) but not so bad as... Read more
Published 5 months ago by purplejo
No sense, no structure. Just awful.
It started off with some promise;
There's something weird happenning in Victorian(ish) England - something to do with science, some sort of process, some sort of mind... Read more
There's something weird happenning in Victorian(ish) England - something to do with science, some sort of process, some sort of mind... Read more
Published 7 months ago by GoodOldNorthernLad
Will mess with your head a tad
Following the perspectives of Miss Temple, a young lady recently jilted by her fiancé, Cardinal Chang, a renegade hired to kill a man, and Doctor Svenson, a German doctor... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Hannah
Could have been great, but...
I started this book with high hopes, but I was defeated by the author's penchant for multiple sub-clauses. Here's a random sample from page 24. Read more
Published 8 months ago by motherofpearl
Just not good enough
Some books are simply rubbish, and some have all the right elements but somehow don't reach their potential. This book falls into the latter catergory for me. Read more
Published 11 months ago by chingford_girl
Surprisingly Original
When I started reading this book (by accident, I didn't know what was it about) I was almost immediately drawn to its bizarre, mesmerising atmosphere. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Thiresia
Epic, but worth it!
It's long (760 pages) and complex (a whole host of characters and parallel story-lines), and quite simply superb. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ian Hutton
Pullmanesque
Yes, I agree there are similarities to the Dark Materials trilogy, I struggled with The Amber Spyglass at times though I appreciated the need to create an alternative species, at... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mozza
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