London Archives - Page 3 of 3

Yzabel / September 25, 2014

Review: Silhouette

Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

“Vastra and Strax and Jenny? Oh no, we don’t need to bother them. Trust me.”

Marlowe Hapworth is found dead in his locked study, killed by an unknown assailant. This is a case for the Great Detective, Madame Vastra.

Rick Bellamy, bare-knuckle boxer, has the life drawn out of him by a figure dressed as an undertaker. This angers Strax the Sontaran.

The Carnival of Curiosities, a collection of bizarre and fascinating sideshows and performers. This is where Jenny Flint looks for answers.

How are these things connected? And what does Orestes Milton, rich industrialist, have to do with it all? This is where the Doctor and Clara come in. The Doctor and his friends find themselves thrust into a world where nothing and no one are what they seem. Can they unravel the truth before the most dangerous weapon ever developed is unleashed on London?

Review:

(I got an ARC courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

This is only the second Doctor Who novel I read. In the meantime, I managed to catch up on a lot of episodes I hadn’t seen (including the ones with the Twelfth Doctor); it was a good idea, since otherwise I would have had less clues about who the characters were, especially when the Paternoster gang was concerned. Unfortunately, it was therefore also very easy to realise that they weren’t that well-portrayed, at least not in my opinion. Hadn’t I watched the most recent seasons, I would’ve likely been confused; having watched them, I don’t recognise many people in here. I guess Strax felt the closest to how he behaves in the series, but then, he may have been the easiest one to grasp as well.

I’m particularly miffed about the way Vastra and Jenny were handled. Vastra’s supposed to be the Great Detective, the one who inspired Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes’s adventures, and yet her role was completely stripped off meaning; she didn’t get to do much, looked like she was here mostly to get into trouble and then saved, and this doesn’t sit with me as far as she’s concerned. Not a word about her relationship with Jenny either, which I found odd. This applied to several characters, in that I couldn’t get a strong grasp of how they factored in the mystery, except to get into trouble (and only the women in this story happened to get into trouble and need saving; I don’t recall Strax or the Doctor doing the same). As for the Doctor, he didn’t feel and act much like the one I got to see in the most recent episodes. Clara was just insipid. At best they all were bland, at worst not true to their selves, cast in damsel in distress roles, and not allowed to unleash their full potential.

The plot was somewhat interesting. I liked the first half, for the atmosphere woven through the Carnival, and the way the mystery started to unfold. I liked it much less towards the end: nice twist, though predictable, but muddled. (Also, two characters get together without any serious apparent reason; while somewhat cute, it was useless, especially with the other relationships in the story not mentioned or developed.)

Conclusion: 1.5 stars. Mildly enjoyable as a quick read while travelling, yet totally forgettable in the long run, with characters that have little to do with who they are on TV. (And the point of reading a novel based on a TV series, to me, is to find the themes and people I liked in the show, after all…)

Yzabel / September 12, 2014

The Thief Taker

The Thief Taker by C.S. Quinn

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

The year is 1665. Black Death ravages London. A killer stalks the streets in a plague doctor’s hood and mask…

When a girl is gruesomely murdered, thief taker Charlie Tuesday reluctantly agrees to take on the case. But the horrific remains tell him this is no isolated death. The killer’s mad appetites are part of a master plan that could destroy London – and reveal the dark secrets of Charlie’s own past.

Now the thief taker must find this murderous mastermind before the plague obliterates the evidence street by street. This terrifying pursuit will take Charlie deep into the black underbelly of old London, where alchemy, witchcraft and blood-spells collide.

In a city drowned in darkness, death could be the most powerful magic of all.

Review:

(I got an ARC courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

When it comes to knowing whether you liked a book or not, some are really hard to place. This novel is one of those.

I really liked its atmosphere: London in 1665, the way its streets and buildings were depicted, how travelling from one place to another was so much different from what we know today, the many people we get to see, all both divided and united in a common fear. The plague is raging, and everyone wants out… or tries to do with what they have, including remedies and protective measures that we would definitely find stupid today, but that must have made sense at some point. The illness is sometimes depicted in really gruesome ways, and it helps enforcing the constant fear, the terror as soon as someone realises his spouse or her friend is developing “plague tokens”. The description of the plague doctor was also very vivd, instilling dread as soon as he appeared.

The interactions between Charlie and Anna-Maria were quite funny at times—he the boy left in an orphanage and proficient in the ways of the street, she a young woman with the manners and expectations of someone born in a good, though impoverished family. At first, I had my fears that
she would be a dead weight, but fortunately she proved she had resources of her own when it came to improvising and remaining strong throughout their journey to find who killed her sister.

However, I thought the plot on too many convenient occurrences (that happened by chance, and not because Charlie or Maria already had the relationships or resources needed). For instance, a character who discovered one of the victims’ corpses later appears to work for another character that Charlie happens to know, and is also a relation of yet another character that Charlie also happens to know. All right, a lot of people had either fled or died from the plague, but surely the world can’t be such a small place all the time? I would have accepted those coincidences easily if they had been of Charlie’s making, but here they were too much on the deus ex machina side.

I also found the last chapters to be a muddle of sorts. Some things happened, yet when I thought about them, I realised that I didn’t see them actually happen in a chapter, and that there logically wouldn’t have had time for them to happen; the narrative should have shown them to the reader, at least. Revelations about the real identity of the murderer left me wondering if I had completely missed something, or if it was just confusing. Same with how everyone was related within the plot. I felt as if everything was dumped on me all at once, too abruptly, and in a way
that didn’t always make sense.

Finally, I wished a few more elements had been explained. What of Charlie’s brother? What secrets did the papers hold? Was there actually some intriguing at the Court, considering how many hints were dropped that the King knew something, or that some of the people close to him were involved in some conspiracy? (Unless this book is the beginning of a series, in which case such information may be revealed in the next installment, but I’m not so sure about that.)

Conclusion: I really liked the depiction of plague-ravaged London in the 17th century, but the plot didn’t cut it so much for me in the end. 2.5 stars.

Yzabel / September 8, 2014

Review: Flesh Failure

Flesh Failure by Sèphera Girón

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

London, 1888: Agatha drags herself from a shallow grave to roam the fog-shrouded streets of the dark city, trying to piece together what happened. Her new friends, the ladies of the night, live in terror of Jack the Ripper, while Agatha persistently searches for what she discovers she needs to stay alive: electrical charges.

As her memory grows stronger, the hazy images from her past come into focus, but questions remain. Do her answers lie in the shadows of the streets, the hidden corridors of London Hospital, or someplace far more frightening?

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

An enjoyable take on the theme of animating the dead, woven with bits of historical events such as the Ripper’s murders. Agatha wakes up buried in the woods, and has to claw her way out of the earth. Only helped by brief flashes of memory, she goes on her own quest to find out what happened to her, why she recalls herself as different-looking, and who created her.

I’m going to confess to a total lack of impartiality here: I love stories on the theme of reanimated humans, creatures who start out as “monstrous” and have to find their way in the world, for all the questions they raise about our own humanity. This short novel may not have been perfect, but it still made me think about that no matter what. In spite of Agatha’s smell and scars, there were people who natueally came to help, fed her, gave her clothes, let her sleep in their home. They weren’t perfect people either, they had their flaws, they may end up rejecting her after a while, but the fact remains: there’s still goodness in human beings.

The novel deals with a certain kind of symbolism, too. Seven days for Agatha’s “rebirth”. Electricity as a conductor for life, but also as a means of destruction, just like fire can keep you warm, yet burn you to a crisp if you get too close. Though not exceptional, such symbols still remained interesting.

A few things didn’t sit too well with me. First, some editing blips (a character’s name is known before she’s properly introduced) and redundant mistakes (“then” instead of “than”) that became annoying after a while, and were likely not typos. There were also a couple of happenings that I can’t make up my mind about, because they’re a bit too close to Shelley’s story. The encounter with the blind man was one of those. I honestly don’t know if I liked this or not, if it was typical retelling homage or closer to a copy of the original scene. Then there was Agatha’s behaviour: I thought she could have questioned it more, especially when it came to her cravings for blood and how she responded to them. (If looking at Shelley’s story—and there’s no way a reader can’t see the parallels here, they’re totally on purpose—the “monster” started quite innocent, his gradual descent due to his trials. Agatha, on the other hand, seemed to start as a monster already, and maybe she was a little too inhuman, so there wasn’t that much character progress to have. That’d be my major complaint, and why I’m not rating it higher.)

The ending felt too abrupt, as if the story suddenly had to be wrapped up right now. However, it fits with what happens in the last paragraphs, so even though I would’ve liked to read more, writing it that way was actually logical.

Readers who aren’t so keen as I am about this kind of story may not find it more than “OK”, but in my case, it still struck a chord, and after the first slow pages, I got into it fairly easily.

Yzabel / September 6, 2014

Review: The Girl and the Clockwork Cat

The Girl and the Clockwork Cat by Nikki McCormack

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Feisty teenage thief Maeko and her maybe-more-than-friend Chaff have scraped out an existence in Victorian London’s gritty streets, but after a near-disastrous heist leads her to a mysterious clockwork cat and two dead bodies, she’s thrust into a murder mystery that may cost her everything she holds dear.

Her only allies are Chaff, the cat, and Ash, the son of the only murder suspect, who offers her enough money to finally get off the streets if she’ll help him find the real killer.

What starts as a simple search ultimately reveals a conspiracy stretching across the entire city. And as Maeko and Chaff discover feelings for each other neither was prepared to admit, she’s forced to choose whether she’ll stay with him or finally escape the life of a street rat. But with danger closing in around them, the only way any of them will get out of this alive is if all of them work together.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I had good expectations for this story (a street thief, victorian/steampunkish setting, part-mechanical cat), but in the end, it won’t leave me with a lasting impression, unfortunately.

The daughter of a prostitute and one of her unnamed customers, Maeko hit the streets after her mother got in debt, trying to help her pay it back as well as she could, but also resenting her. She made her way as a pickpocket and burglar, thanks to her nimble fingers and lithe body, and because she was street-savvy enough. That is, until the beginning of the novel, for at some point I thought she was not as clever as she was supposed to be. Some of her reactions seemed logical, but some of her other actions were too naive. (For instance, when she had to keep something from an enemy, she went back to a certain place, saw that said enemy had located it, too… yet she still went there to hide her package. The natural thing to do would have been to think “this place is compromised, he might not have believed what they told him, and come back later with more people.” At least that’s what “street rat thinking” should be for me.)

The setting itself is an alternate London divided between the Literati (the “modern society” and its police) and the pirates (those who openly don’t approve); the kids who fall between those are doomed to a life in an orphanage, reform house or work house, or to a life on the streets. Mostly we see this world through Maeko’s eyes, so of course everything couldn’t be developed, but it would’ve been better in my opinion if she had had just a little more interest in what happened around her, or if other characters had been there to give more information about that society. Some do… just not enough. This setting screams for more, having more to say about itself, without any room to do so.

The romance part was unneeded, a love triangle dumped out of nowhere on those poor characters. All it did was to make Maeko blush and blush and blush again and again. It quickly became old and tiring, and did not bring anything to the story. At least Maeko realised there was no time to think about boys in her predicament. On the downside, she had those thoughts fairly often, which created a tiresome cycle: “I think I like him. But I must not think about that now. But I think I like him. But I don’t have time to worry about this now.”

I wasn’t too impressed with the plot, which consisted mostly in two/three characters looking for people (the same people every time). Just like Maeko’s thoughts and blushing, it became repetitive after a while: locate people, see they’re already in someone else’s hands, realise they’re in no position to help them escape, retreat/get pursued by the police or detective, hide, rinse and repeat. I really wished the plot types would have been more varied.

The writing was all right, though a bit redundant and “telly” in places (especially when Maeko’s thought process was concerned).

The ending: if this is a standalone, then it deserved a better one, a proper one, that would wrap up everything, not just leave the reader to imagine “it probably happened like that”. If it wasn’t, it’s still a sort of cliffhanger, but one that doesn’t offer that many promises of revelations in a second book.

In the end, there were grounds for good things here, but those weren’t enough to make me enjoy the story.

Yzabel / August 29, 2014

Review: Return to London

Return to London by Terence Jenkins

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Full of entertaining bite-size chunks of London’s history, this book tells tales that will inspire you to explore a place you thought you knew.

In this historical handbook, author, journalist and London guide Terence Jenkins hopes that the tales of England’s capital city will inspire readers to explore this unique part of our country. It is a place rich in history and known for its extensive culture. Following the success of Another Man’s London, he gives us an idiosyncratic look in bite-sized chunks of London’s exciting history that are fascinating and easy to read.

Amongst other characters you will meet Bulbous Betty and the Black Prince who had a surprising effect on the course of London’s history. Discover why 100 shrouds were requested and what really happened to that polar bear in Piccadilly… Find out who was exiled in SE19, and what was all the fuss about a fig leaf?

The book was written to follow Jenkins’ trilogy of London books, Another Man’s London, London Lives and London Tales, and also as a return to the city following his explorative book Further Afield. Not just an entertaining read but also an educational pocket guide, Return to London covers some of the unique facts about London’s history that have largely remained unknown.

Review:

(I got an e-copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5 stars. A fast and interesting read, with plenty of little details and usually unknown facts about quite a few places in London. As someone who’s visited this city a couple of times only, but likes learning about it, and is always looking for a “quirkier” kind of tourism than the basic monuments and museums, this is definitely going to be useful at some point. Another good thing here is the author’s tone, who clearly loves this city, as well, and it shows (in a positive way, that is).

The book might not hold as much appeal to a reader who’s never foot in London, though, because it rests on unspoken previous spoken knowledge of the various districts: some details can only be fully understood when you know a bit about this or that borough, how it came to be, and so on. I wouldn’t recommend it as a “London 101” introduction book.

Also, I would’ve liked a few more pictures. There’s usually one per chapter, while said chapters deal with so many more places than just a couple. (Granted, I read it on the Kindle app on my small-screen Smartphone; not the smartest move ever—no pun intended.)

Pick this one if you’re planning a trip to London, want to discover more about its history, and are interested in seeing less travelled places there.