Confessions of a Gentleman Arachnid

By: Michael Coolwood

Narrated by: Thom Tuck

Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Meet Milligan Clodthorpe, a gentleman arachnid of exceptional lineage who finds himself involuntarily inhabiting the body of a human female. Bainbridge, the cad who now inhabits Milligan's arachnid form, is known throughout the galaxy as thoroughly selfish and uncivilized. What he might get up to with a body such as Milligan's simply does not bear thinking about. With the help of Milligan';s mechanical valet Forsythe, his revered Uncle Angus, his psychotic cousin Gertrude, and Pigstick, his former comrade in arms, he must recover his arachnid body and prevent Bainbridge from disgracing his family name.

Through twists and turns, Milligan's pursuit leads him into thrilling adventures. Be prepared for daring espionage, scandalous scenes, and perilous levels of dry wit.

©2016 Michael Morwood (P)2016 Michael Morwood

Delightfully Quirky Fun

An enjoyable tale full of delightfully odd wordplay and amusing rambles. Thom Tuck, the narrator, does a fantastic job of bringing it to life and really adds quite a lot to the reading, making me want to say the audiobook may well be the definitive version of this story.

Time and again I found myself smiling at the constant witticisms and oddities presented to the listener. From the protagonist's dry ramblings to his, quite-possibly-slightly insane, relative Gertrude's schemes, the book delights in never ceasing to deliver great lines that just make you wish you would be able recall them later so you could claim credit for them yourself.

That said as much as I enjoyed my time with this whimsical tale, prospective readers should know that the story isn't the kind to have you hanging on the edge of your seat. Instead it invites you along on a pleasant stroll to take some time and enjoy life with it's eccentric cast.

Some of the world building is quite great, but some elements are left undeveloped, especially in regards to the lack of any significant human characters in the dialogues at all, which was a bit disappointing but perhaps consistent with the books themes of humans being a bit bizarre.

The pacing is also a bit odd at times, which goes with the style of the book but still feels a bit uneven sometimes. I did find this had the side benefit of making the book easy to get back into at any point though, which was nice and made this great for enjoying at work where there is always the risk of interruption.

Overall Confessions of a Gentleman Arachnid lives up to it's cheerfully eccentric title and delivers a consistently quirky and fun time to its reader.

tl:dr

+Wonderfully witty wordplay
+Small but delightfully odd cast of characters
+Generally fun light reading
+Absolutely wonderful job done by the reader really brings it all to life

+/- Pacing encourages you to read it at your own pace

-Never really grips you so that you just have to keep going
-Would have liked at least one significant human character to act as a bit of a foil to all the oddness of the cast, but perhaps that would have ruined it? Hard to say