This one's a bit hard to categorize, since it's an alternate history fantasy with hints of steampunk. Perhaps the best description of it comes from a review blurb which likens it to a collaboration between Rowan Atkinson and William Shakespeare after a night out drinking with Sir Terry Pratchett.
Whatever, it's a sprightly romp, taking place in a 21st-century London ruled by Queen Elizabeth XXX, courtesy of a marriage between Elizabeth I and Phillip II of Spain, back in the day, which of course bent the entire course of world history. Also in this world, technology leans toward Leonardo daVinci -- Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison being absent from the scene. The Church is in charge of Magick. But now there are dark forces afoot and adventurer Rupert Triumff, recently returned from the discovery of Australia, is somewhat reluctantly drawn into the battle to keep the world from falling to the forces of darkness â aided and abetted by a toothsome actress, a retired mercenary, a withered old dame from upcountry, an Italian magicker, a six-foot-tall cat, and a generally-naked native of Australia.
It's a total romp, larded in pretty equal measure with outlandish action scenes and dreadful puns. Readers not conversant with Elizabethan slang may want to keep a specialty dictionary of archaic and obsolete terms at hand, the better to look up such offerings as autocthon, quillion, rouncey, snaphaunce, and pantofle. There are a couple of bobbles that may or may not annoy the reader â apparently some kind of glitch in the editing software puts the page number of footnoted items into the text, as in âI won't be another Crompton Finney60â, followed by a superscript footnote number. Worse, there's a scene on page 209 where a Major Bad Guy meets his end, only to turn up again apparently unharmed on page 279, ready to do battle. It's never addressed in the text and apparently the copy editors never caught it.
It's all great fun, and made for an interesting read over a snowy weekend. But a little goes a long way, and it's not good enough for this reader to seek out more of Abnett's stuff.
Whatever, it's a sprightly romp, taking place in a 21st-century London ruled by Queen Elizabeth XXX, courtesy of a marriage between Elizabeth I and Phillip II of Spain, back in the day, which of course bent the entire course of world history. Also in this world, technology leans toward Leonardo daVinci -- Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison being absent from the scene. The Church is in charge of Magick. But now there are dark forces afoot and adventurer Rupert Triumff, recently returned from the discovery of Australia, is somewhat reluctantly drawn into the battle to keep the world from falling to the forces of darkness â aided and abetted by a toothsome actress, a retired mercenary, a withered old dame from upcountry, an Italian magicker, a six-foot-tall cat, and a generally-naked native of Australia.
It's a total romp, larded in pretty equal measure with outlandish action scenes and dreadful puns. Readers not conversant with Elizabethan slang may want to keep a specialty dictionary of archaic and obsolete terms at hand, the better to look up such offerings as autocthon, quillion, rouncey, snaphaunce, and pantofle. There are a couple of bobbles that may or may not annoy the reader â apparently some kind of glitch in the editing software puts the page number of footnoted items into the text, as in âI won't be another Crompton Finney60â, followed by a superscript footnote number. Worse, there's a scene on page 209 where a Major Bad Guy meets his end, only to turn up again apparently unharmed on page 279, ready to do battle. It's never addressed in the text and apparently the copy editors never caught it.
It's all great fun, and made for an interesting read over a snowy weekend. But a little goes a long way, and it's not good enough for this reader to seek out more of Abnett's stuff.
