Friday 17 June 2011

Anno Frankenstein - yet another great review!

They just keep on coming! This one's by David Drage of Pulp Zen! You can read the whole review by following this link, but I've posted just a few of the highlights here.

I really thought that Jonathan Green couldn’t possibly top his last two Pax Britannia novels, Blood Royal which took the steampunk down a gothic horror path and then Dark Side which combined a Noir detective story with H.G. Wells' First Men on the Moon. However, Anno Frankenstein takes us to a whole new level...

The tension that builds over the length of the novel leads wonderfully through to the big finale, even with Green’s small injections of humour, references to Star Trek, The Incredible Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man and Quantum Leap all stick in my mind, without ruining the pace at all.

Anyway, back to Anno Frankenstein. If you’re picky about your steampunk, you may find it moves to far out of the genre for you, but if you want a rollicking good adventure and you like the Weird War genre, you are going to love this book!

I hope Green returns to the Weird War setting for some of his future Quicksilver stories, he is clearly right at home writing in this genre. If he doesn’t want to tie Ulysses down to the Weird War setting, a spin off series with Hercules Quicksilver or the Monstrous Regiment (i.e. the burlesque dancing infiltration squad) would suit me down to the ground...

A spin off series... Now there's an idea!

One of the most exciting things for me about this post, in terms of its potential, stems from this comment:

I think I can safely say this book has finally inspired me to seriously get back into figure sculpting. It has given me so many ideas for steampunk style figures and no-one else makes them yet, so I guess I am going to have to do it myself, after all, there are many excellent characters in the Pax Britannia stories, they really need to be realised as miniatures…

Believe me, if David makes good on his promise I'll let you know more as soon as I can!

During the course of the review David also says:

Jonathan, if you read this post, please hurry up with the next book, you’ve left so many teaser threads left open from recent books that I really can’t wait too long...

Well, the eighth Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, Time's Arrow, will start to be released from October this year. Yes, you read that right - start to be released. But more on that another time.

Until then...

2 comments:

Kaushik Karforma said...

Dear Mr. Green,

When you say "start to be released", you mean it will be released in a serialized format, don't you? Probably for free (one can hope, can't one? :)) on the Abaddon Website?

Anyway, whatever form it takes, I'm on board. Can't wait to see Ulysses in France.

Speaking of France, perhaps you could include some of the iconic French detective-fiction characters from around 1910 - Fantomas, Josephine Balsamo, Shadowmen, the Phantom of the Opera and others of that ilk

Thanks,

Kaushik

Jonathan Green said...

Hi Kaushik

Indeed I do mean it's going to be serialized. Unfortunately, however, not for free.

Abaddon Books are planning a press release about this as I speak which will explain everything.

There are going to be some familiar French names in the book, but as to which ones, you'll just have to wait and see. ;-)