Couldn't put it down... This is one of those books that people will either love or hate. I don't think there's much possibility for anything in-between. Personally I loved it. It takes a while to get going, but once it did I couldn't put it down. It's a wonderfully strange, erotic, complex steampunk adventure story, full of twists and turns, sword-fights, intrigues, murders, alchemy, depravity. It is a little confusing and I did have to keep flipping backwards and forwards to remind myself of who and what and where, but the main... more info
Terrible, just terrible. This is an awful, awful book. I picked it up on holiday, seduced by the blub on the back cover, where lots of prestigious writers are quoted saying how good it is. Big mistake. I am fairly certain that not one of them read past the first 100 pages. Actually, the first 100 pages aren't that bad. An interesting idea is set up; Dahlquist leaves enough unsaid to make you more than halfway interested in finding out what exactly is going on. Unfortunately after that it's rapidly downhill all the way. The... more info
A Frustrating Read Oh, I would love to have loved this book! It did keep me coming back to it, but by God it seemed an effort, far too many times. As has been noted even by some of the 5 star reviews, it was just far too long - and when you keep doing little time slips to reveal things from one character's point of view, dragging out each section for so long just becomes tedious, at least if you enjoy being caught-up in a book but don't have a huge amount of disposable time. Apart from becoming hard work, I think that... more info
Half of a good book. It started out so promising... An interesting combination of period thriller, and science-fiction/fantasy, with a twist of dark eroticism (or is that just me? it's not just me, right?). I found the characters immediately engaging, and flew through the first 300 pages or so. Somewhere just after the half-way mark, it all unravelled a bit. I read the second half of the book in an unfulfilled quest to reveal more of the magic of its beginning. Though I read every page, by the end I could have cared less what... more info
