As I said about about Lavie Tidhar, there's a fine line between a romp and a mess. I'm not sure where A Study in Silks comes, but a very short way into it it's looking rather like a mess. And it's a recommended book at Bakka, which surprises me.
Billing someone as Sherlock Holmes' niece is kind of pointless unless she's going to act like Sherlock Holmes, I say. And instead she's an ex-circus performer and mechanical inventor (in a world where mechanics are the Steam Barons' monopoly) and magic-wielder (in a world where magic is outlawed by the Steam Barons as challenging their monopoly) and traveller with the raggle-taggle gypsies-oh, and several other things that seem a bit much.
Or else, unless Uncle Sherlock puts in an appearance: which he hasn't done yet.
( Read more... )
Billing someone as Sherlock Holmes' niece is kind of pointless unless she's going to act like Sherlock Holmes, I say. And instead she's an ex-circus performer and mechanical inventor (in a world where mechanics are the Steam Barons' monopoly) and magic-wielder (in a world where magic is outlawed by the Steam Barons as challenging their monopoly) and traveller with the raggle-taggle gypsies-oh, and several other things that seem a bit much.
Or else, unless Uncle Sherlock puts in an appearance: which he hasn't done yet.
( Read more... )
