The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar
Frequent readers here will know that I like to try out books I've never heard of. Since steampunk-ish type things have been my sub-genre du jour, I thought I would try out the Bookman by Lavie Tidhar.
It centers around one poor poet named Orphan and his quest to bring his girlfriend Lucy back from the dead. To do this, he has to first find and then run an errand for the mysterious figure of the Bookman. Meanwhile, England is under the rule of a bunch of alien lizard people and there is a lot of talk about revolution. There are a lot of factions at play. There are the police, the Bookman (who functions as a boogieman for a lot of these groups), Les Lezards, and at least a couple of of different revolutionary groups that seem to have different goals but intersect in a few places in their ideology.
While all of this should have been interesting, the story latches on to Orphan and more or less stays there the entire time, even when he isn't doing something remotely interesting. It wasn't that he was a boring flat character as much as if the book is focusing on a singular character, shouldn't that character have a really active part to play in the story? While I did find the later part of the book well worth the wait, it does bother me that it took a long time and at least two false starts before getting there. The other thing about Orphan that I found a little irksome was that he didn't seem to have reactions to most of the events around him, like finding out where his mother came from or realizing that one of his friends is an automaton. It also would have been nice to seen his goals get farther than "I want to bring my girlfriend back to me," especially considering the amount of time spent with him and given that at least a few of his friends are part of one of the revolutionary factions. I'm all for characters having concrete goals, but if there's a ton of time spent with them, some more nebulous ideological goals would be nice too. Orphan's a poet and as such is would not be amiss for him to have some nebulous ideals at play too. There was certainly the framework to explore it, I just didn't see it happen. I understood that for much of the time Orphan was a leaf on the wind, but it seemed like he might at least wish for a breeze blowing in some direction or other, regardless of if he could change it or not.
The other thing that bugged me to no end was the rampant name dropping. Seriously, I got really tired of how many names from other works popped up (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character names were the most obvious offenders, but there were others... so many others). I don't know if they were supposed to be "easter eggs" in book form instead of film, but by the time a flask showed up with the initials "S.H." on it I vehemently wished that someone had done a "find and replace" search on most of the names. The one exception to my annoyance was Jules Verne showing up, because he is awesome, he had the Nautilus and it fit in with the story.
There were things that I liked about this book. As soon as the plot started moving quicker I liked it a lot more. I just disliked the interludes, but they did get shorter and shorter as the book went on, thank goodness. When the events started picking up pace, Orphan had to take a more active role in the events around him. That was a very good thing, because passive main characters are rather dull. I also liked Orphan a lot better when he started trying to do things as best he could, rather than sitting in his friend's bookshop.
I really, really liked the Bookman and the Binder and how they fit in as manipulators of events. The Bookman made a great antagonist and I really wish there had been more shown from his perspective. I found both his name, his form his hideout and his mission delightfully ironic.
The automatons were also, really, really good. The way they moved through the story and how they were perceived (or not perceived as the case sometimes was) by those around them. I was almost going to set this book aside as a "did not finish" until the Turk chess player automaton had his conversation with Orphan. Then I had to keep reading. It was by far my favorite scene in the entire book. I did see how some of the chess metaphor was carried out through the rest of the tale, but it does get more interesting when the pawns can be cloned and change sides.
All in all, I did find the later portion of the book worth slogging through the beginning. I just wish the beginning had been less of an uphill climb for me.
It centers around one poor poet named Orphan and his quest to bring his girlfriend Lucy back from the dead. To do this, he has to first find and then run an errand for the mysterious figure of the Bookman. Meanwhile, England is under the rule of a bunch of alien lizard people and there is a lot of talk about revolution. There are a lot of factions at play. There are the police, the Bookman (who functions as a boogieman for a lot of these groups), Les Lezards, and at least a couple of of different revolutionary groups that seem to have different goals but intersect in a few places in their ideology.
While all of this should have been interesting, the story latches on to Orphan and more or less stays there the entire time, even when he isn't doing something remotely interesting. It wasn't that he was a boring flat character as much as if the book is focusing on a singular character, shouldn't that character have a really active part to play in the story? While I did find the later part of the book well worth the wait, it does bother me that it took a long time and at least two false starts before getting there. The other thing about Orphan that I found a little irksome was that he didn't seem to have reactions to most of the events around him, like finding out where his mother came from or realizing that one of his friends is an automaton. It also would have been nice to seen his goals get farther than "I want to bring my girlfriend back to me," especially considering the amount of time spent with him and given that at least a few of his friends are part of one of the revolutionary factions. I'm all for characters having concrete goals, but if there's a ton of time spent with them, some more nebulous ideological goals would be nice too. Orphan's a poet and as such is would not be amiss for him to have some nebulous ideals at play too. There was certainly the framework to explore it, I just didn't see it happen. I understood that for much of the time Orphan was a leaf on the wind, but it seemed like he might at least wish for a breeze blowing in some direction or other, regardless of if he could change it or not.
The other thing that bugged me to no end was the rampant name dropping. Seriously, I got really tired of how many names from other works popped up (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character names were the most obvious offenders, but there were others... so many others). I don't know if they were supposed to be "easter eggs" in book form instead of film, but by the time a flask showed up with the initials "S.H." on it I vehemently wished that someone had done a "find and replace" search on most of the names. The one exception to my annoyance was Jules Verne showing up, because he is awesome, he had the Nautilus and it fit in with the story.
There were things that I liked about this book. As soon as the plot started moving quicker I liked it a lot more. I just disliked the interludes, but they did get shorter and shorter as the book went on, thank goodness. When the events started picking up pace, Orphan had to take a more active role in the events around him. That was a very good thing, because passive main characters are rather dull. I also liked Orphan a lot better when he started trying to do things as best he could, rather than sitting in his friend's bookshop.
I really, really liked the Bookman and the Binder and how they fit in as manipulators of events. The Bookman made a great antagonist and I really wish there had been more shown from his perspective. I found both his name, his form his hideout and his mission delightfully ironic.
The automatons were also, really, really good. The way they moved through the story and how they were perceived (or not perceived as the case sometimes was) by those around them. I was almost going to set this book aside as a "did not finish" until the Turk chess player automaton had his conversation with Orphan. Then I had to keep reading. It was by far my favorite scene in the entire book. I did see how some of the chess metaphor was carried out through the rest of the tale, but it does get more interesting when the pawns can be cloned and change sides.
All in all, I did find the later portion of the book worth slogging through the beginning. I just wish the beginning had been less of an uphill climb for me.