3.5 stars George Mann bring together steampunk and superheroes in a 1920’s New York city that reflects our own but is from a distinctly unique history. Mann has seemingly moved his steampunk world of Newbury and Hobbs ahead a few decades and across the Atlantic.
The story follows the tale of The Ghost and his escapades against a gangster/bad guy called “The Roman”. The tale is more dark and noir compared to the Newbury and Hobbs stories, and more pulpy. Neither is a bad thing, but I did not find this book as satisfying. I could not put down the others, this took a week to move through.
The strengths were familiar to readers of Mann. Great descriptive fight and chase scenes. The bi-plane chase is fantastic and the visualizations could tell some Hollywood folks a thing or two. And the plotting was strong and moved along well.
The weakness was the thinness of the characters. I just did not feel compelled by their fates. Unlike the Newbury and Hobbs adventures, where their existence had me attached to them. The pulp factor and superhero factor is part of this. There is a flatness, for the most part, to superhero characters. I feel like this is here. There are a few times this feels like the movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” (which I liked!).
George Mann
I still enjoyed the book. I knew what I was getting into so the criticisms of the characters could be seen as a compliment for style accuracy on Mann’s part. I do already have part 3 of the Newbury and Hobbs adventure, The Immortality Engine, on pre-order. THAT should be a great ride.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I recently finished this up as an audiobook. The end of the world has never been so funny and it is a great place to revisit. I read Good Omens about 8 years ago and truthfully it is in my top 100 books easy. Maybe higher.
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
The audiobook of it has pluses and minuses verses the print version. The upsides start with the characterizations. This is read by Stephen Briggs. He is Terry Pratchett’s collaborator and keeper of all things Discworld. He has also written and produced stage adaptations of the Discworld novels. He is rumored to be continuing the Discworld franchise if Terry is to slip further into Alsimer’s (I cannot find the link where I found that). His performance is very good and his very British-ness works well in this case. He does a great job with the characters.
Stephen Briggs
The audiobook fails in two ways. And both are because the spoken word does not have footnotes or the use of homophones. Since footnotes are included through out the book they are seamlessly integrated into the narrative without it being stated as a footnote. It creates a weird rhythm and breaks up the story’s well constructed flow. Also, the lack of visual word jokes. Pratchett particularly likes to use the wrong version of a word to get a joke out of it. Obviously these do not work in an audio recording.
As far as the book itself. It is great. Funny and witty, dark and looming. It was written at a very interesting time in the careers of Pratchett and Gaiman. They always talk of doing another. Not sure if that will happen or not. Would be great but who knows.
Summer is upon us and with that comes a fall back from my youth: summer reading.
From the photo, I will be reading the Farseer trilogy from Robin Hobb, the first Warriors series , and the Hunger Games series. Missing in the photo are the first Warriors book (on loan) and the third Hunger games book(due out August).
Up first will be The Farseer trilogy followed by The Warriors. The Hunger Games will be last so that I will be reading them when the third book is released.
Now, you may notice the simplier reading level here. You are right, they are absolutly light fare. And thank goodness! Summer is for relaxing!
Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann
