The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

Burton & Swinburne, Book 1

By: Mark Hodder

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 14 hrs

Publisher's summary

Sir Richard Francis Burton: explorer, linguist, scholar, and swordsman; his reputation tarnished; his career in tatters; his former partner missing and probably dead. Algernon Charles Swinburne: unsuccessful poet and follower of de Sade; for whom pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin! They stand at a crossroads in their lives and are caught in the epicenter of an empire torn by conflicting forces: engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier, and dirtier technological wonders; eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labor; libertines oppose repressive laws and demand a society based on beauty and creativity; while the Rakes push the boundaries of human behavior to the limits with magic, drugs, and anarchy.

The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End. Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age - and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!

©2010 Mark Hodder (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The usual superlatives for really clever fantasy (imaginative, mind-bending, phantasmagorical) aren’t nearly big enough for this debut novel. With this one book, Hodder has put himself on the genre map.... Hodder’s only problem now is to find a way to follow up this exhilarating debut, which will appeal not only to sf/fantasy readers but also to mystery and historical-fiction fans." (Booklist)

"A historical figure already larger than life, Capt. Sir Richard Francis Burton, pursues a legendary and violent Victorian creature, Spring Heeled Jack, at the behest of the prime minister in this convincingly researched debut. Fans of steampunk will be intrigued by the alternate history setting, in which the queen dies mid-century; they will also enjoy following Burton and his sidekick, poet Algernon Swinburne, as they investigate the dark secrets of 19th-century England and recall Burton's legendary expedition to find the source of the Nile." (Publishers Weekly)

So Much Better Than I Expected

What did you love best about The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack?

The world building, the characters and the story. It was amazing at how large it was yet how the puzzle pieces fell neatly into place.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved how everyone and everything fit together in it. I loved how the real histories of everyone were interweaved into this delightful fantasy. I appreciated how the story within the story was told. It was seamless and not interrupted with extraneous words. I also liked how the author created supporting characters that I cared about or hated.

What about Gerard Doyle’s performance did you like?

I liked everything about it. How he changed voices and how the characters sounded like you expected them to. I liked the gruffness of Burton and the fantasticness of Swineburne. There is such emotion in each voice that I understood how they felt.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Immersive and thought-provoking.

Any additional comments?

I had this in my library for a bit but used it as company for a three mile walk. The first hour or so was a bit slow but I understood later that there had to be significant world building and character exposing in order for the story to be fully appreciated.

Love Gerard Doyle's narration & intriguing story

This is the first Book of the steampunk/steampunk adjacent genre I have ever experienced and I loved it. I look forward to the rest of the series. I originally checked it out because I had listened to the Inheritance series (Eragon) and LOVED Gerard Doyle's performance throughout the series and he absolutely did NOT disappoint here.

to much repeating.

I enjoyed it, but I felt there was a large amount of repeats in the way there was interaction between characters in the story.

Hodor, Hodor, Hodor HodorhodorhodorhodorAAAAAAAAAA

Remember the character Hodor from George R.R. Martin's Fire and Ice Series. All he could say was his name over and over. That is what this book turns into. It repeat's itself over and over, until you are just sick of it.

It starts out with some cool stuff and acts as if it is going to be a great story. It has all the elements in a story I love, eugenics and crazy machines. It has loups-garous (werewolves) and it has albeanos (mexican albinos). It has foul mouth parrots and cats that clean you floors. It has famous people from history as major characters, such as Sir Richard Francis Burton, Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale. When Dean Koontz or Jonathan Maberry, write this stuff it is great, but Hodor (Hodder) ruins it. It has a guy running around ripping clothes off of young women. Some how Hodor even found a way to make that boring. Furthermore we could not be told he did it to several women, we had to go through each and every assault and it was always exactly the same. Perverts don't get excited, there is no description, it is Jack affronts girl, asks question, tares her dress, she screams, he runs away, repeat, repeat,repeat, etc, etc.

Hodor turns Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale into bad guys. Why would you do that and why have the critics not jumped on it. Also why are albino's always bad guys? Is it because there are not enough of them that they don't have there own organizations like the Black Panthers. Do we always have to make bad guys of people who don't look like us?

Read Koontz or Maberry, not this.

Okay, could have been better

Overall I thought the book was fun to listen too. The story was good and kept me interested and involved the whole time. The steam punk portions of the book were fun but at times seemed a bit too fantastical. The narration was okay. Not great, but not bad either.

The main thing that really bothered me about this book is in the last 1/3 of the book the author not once, not twice, but three times retold portions of the story he had told earlier in the book. Granted, he told them from a different perspective, but still, we already knew these things had happened and telling them from a different perspective added nothing to the story nor progressed the story in any way.

I did think the length of the story was good. The author maintained the flow of the story and didn't really waste the readers time (with the exception of the retelling in the last 1/3 of the book). It was a pretty quick listen, fun, and imaginative. I liked the story enough that I will definitely listen to the next book in the series.

Good but could have been better

I only stumbled across this since it showed up as a recommendation. But I've loved steampunk from before it was even called that, and am a sucker for anything related to Sir Richard Francis Burton, so decided to give it a try.

On the positive side, the author made some fresh additions to the standard steampunk conventions, developed an interesting story, and had some flashes of humor I really liked. And the narrator did a great job bringing the story to life -he does a great parakeet.

On the negative side the author fell into a loop with his "said Sir Richard Francis Burton" this and "the King's agent said" that. It reminded me of some of the old pulp era stories (Doc Savage being a prime example) where the author was paid by the word and pumped up the word count by injecting repetitious fluff at every opportunity. But I'm now listening to the second book in the series, and it appears Mark Hodder already received this comment and corrected it.

But overall I enjoyed it. And enjoyed it enough to get the next book in series.

Fantastic!

This is not my usual, I picked it up during a sale and I a, so glad I did. Great story, great narration. I hope the rest are an entertaining as this.

Unique....Great Listen

Narrator was excellent. Story was a fun and the time travel aspect was handled very well.

Really enjoyed this book

What made the experience of listening to The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack the most enjoyable?

The way it's based so closely on what we know of Burton's life, then it just runs wild. Plus it does Time travel in a way that didn't leave me going, "Wait a minute, now...".

What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I love Gerard Doyle. No question who was who, and I love how STRONG his voice can be, and how meak and little it can be also.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed a few times. But more so it made me look up the characters in the book and take great interest in their actual lives.

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed this book and about 2/3 of the next... It started going down hill towards the end. From the reviews I don't think I'll purchase the third, but who knows, i may change my mind. But this really was a good time and worth a credit no matter what happens later.

Decent Story as it goes.

Please just leave ALL religion out of it the story would be better for it.