Unnatural History - dividing opinion

I came across these reviews of Pax Britannia: Unnatural History the other day, and they make for interesting reading (from my point of view at least). You know how people say, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Well let's go with the bad. (I'll just give you the choice highlights - you can read the whole thing for yourself here.)

What makes reviewing this book complicated is the difficulty in discerning whether the campy, cliché-ridden, pulp-ishness of the book is intentional as an homage to earlier adventure novels, or simply an example of the standard of writing that is normally applied to multi-author paperback fantasy series, such as the Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or Halo series...

Green's writing style evokes clichés practically non-stop...

While there is style, and a lot of flash, Jonathan Green's contribution to the Pax Britanniaseries possesses very little substance...

I like that last bit. My contribution to the series "possesses very little substance." Really? After almost eight books, several novellas and with more story arcs planned, I'd beg to differ. But anyway, on to the good news.

Ulysses Quicksilver, is a dashing young man of not inconsiderable daring do. He's equal part Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, d'Artagnan, Allan Quatermain and Batman (sans the gimp suit)...

The writing is solid - I've read a few of Green's Warhammer books and they were usually pretty readable (I thoroughly enjoyed the two Armageddon ones) - with some nice flourishes...

As a series it has promise and the world is an interesting setting with echoes of many pulp sci-fi tropes showing up with the promise of a fun ride ahead.

You can read the rest of this review at The Steampunk Review.

Don't forget, you can now buy Unnatural History as part of The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus (Vol.1).