What I've been reading, Steampunk Edition: The Osiris Ritual, by George Mann
George Mann's Newbury & Hobbes series is, in my experience, an okay series at best. The first entry, The Affinity Bridge, had at least a half-way decent mystery and some decent steampunk elements. It wasn't great, but it was alright. The Osiris Ritual, on the other hand, is a serious drop in quality. And, as an amature internet reviewer, I will now explain why. Warning: there will be spoilers.
First, the general plot. In Affinity Bridge, the mystery centered around the sudden crashing of an airship in the middle of London, especially odd given the fact that it was piloted by an automiton. On top of that, a strange glowing police man has been spotted in the poorer areas of the city where numerous disappearances have been reported. And on top of that, a zombie plague is sweeping through those areas as well. The solution is actually quite clever - the builder of the automitons has been capturing beggars and other poor people and using their brains to make his automitons. The ones that appear to have gone mad did so because they had been infected with the zombie plague, hence why the airship crashed.
The Osiris Ritual, on the other hand, deals with the murders of the members of an archeological expedition recently returned from Egypt, presumably by a rogue agent of the British government. At the same time, young women have been dissapearing, all after attending a magician's show. Of course, the murders have actually been committed by a different rogue agent, who is also behind the disappearances of the young women. Unfortunately, the second twist is pointless, because the first is spoiled by the blerb on the back of the book. Tor, this is not a good idea.
Now we come to the characters. Sir Maurice Newbury, the principal protagonist, is an investigator and expert on the occult. On top of that, he's also addicted to opiates, using his drug trips to help in his investigations in a similar way as Johnny Depp's character in From Hell. He is aided in his investigations by Miss Veronica Hobbes, who is secretly an agent of the crown, working for Queen Victoria, whose rule has been extended into the 20th century by steampunk lifesupport.
While that does all sounds like the ingredients for a good novel, Mann doesn't use them to their potential. While he might be planning on having those elements develop over the series, they only barely come into play here. Newbury's knowledge of the occult is only peripheral here, rather than a central part why he becomes involved in the mystery here. His drug addiction is similarly pointless. Newbury is only ever mildy inconvenienced, plot-wise, by said addiction.
And, while Hobbes's conflicting loyalties would be great, especially given the romantic tenstion between the two, it do much to influence the plot. At best, the two occasionally put eachother's safety above their mission, but I'd expect that of any set of partners. I can understand that Mann probably intendts to stretch this plotline out through the series, but there's a difference between pacing the plot and keeping it standing still. Just because the novel is set in Victorian times doesn't mean it has to stick to Victorian morality.
Also, the two characters aren't all that well developed outtside their roles as secret investigators. I know it's a bit cliche, but there's a reason movies have a cop partnered with someone that's almost their polar opposite - it adds tension, because they have to overcome their differences to solve the case. And that tension is completely absent here.
Finally, we come to the steampunk elements. Again, in the first book, the steampunk tech was essential to the plot - zombified brains in automita and so on. Here, those same elements are more set dressing than anything else. Yes, the red herring bad guy is a steampunk cyborg, and Newbury does eventually chase him down on a steam-powered tricycle, and the final confrontation takes place on a steampunk submarine, but none of these are required by the plot of the novel.
Ultimately, I feel like this book is a bit of a waste. The first warning probably should have been the number of testimonials quoted. While most books will quote several reviews, Osiris Ritual instead posts, in full, a single review. Even the book's Amazon page has more quotes regarding the preceding book than this one. The only one specifically for Osiris Ritual is from Publisher's Weekly, and it's far from glowing.
So, that was The Osiris Ritual. If I were to describe it in one word, it would be "meh". Next week, we'll look at a steampunk secret agent pair-up done right with Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris' Phoenix Rising. See you next week!