The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

Burton & Swinburne, Book 1

By: Mark Hodder

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

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)

Historical steampunk fiction.... Done well!

This is a very fun ride. The author has done a great job of putting together this story. This is a wonderful piece of brain candy.

Strange Take on Alternate Paths

Any additional comments?

When I first started listening I wan't quite sure where the book was going, but further into it my attention became fixated. Wonderful story that grabs the imagination.

A little too quirky at times, but fun all the same

On the plus side, it is mostly all mad science and not magic. But even that gets a little iffy at points. On the negative side, the mad science gets more than a little campy along the way. There are some aspects that are just a little over used in the book, such as hypnosis, and people going mad. Everyone in this book seems to go mad at some point it seems. Still, despite all that, there is a decent base that future books could build on and become stronger with. While not on my immediate list, I will probably get the second book just to see if the author improves his world.

Fun book

Made me want to read more in the series. Doyle is good at his job.

Decent, but unbelievable

This is one of my first forays into the world of steampunk, and I wasn't impressed by this one. I enjoyed it enough to keep listening, but it wasn't a story to keep me hooked or interested in reading more by this author. The story takes place in the time that should be Victorian era England. The timeline has diverged, though, causing the world to end up quite different.

On the plus side, the historical setting seemed well-researched. Out of curiosity, I looked up some of the characters, and they're quite accurate. The POV character really did know 20-some languages, fence, and work as a spy. Some parts I had a hard time believing were actually historical events. Truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

On the negative side, other parts just bugged me. The author seems to believe that people go suddenly and irrevocably insane after traumatic events. Or, even not-so-traumatic events. One character is afraid that culture shock will drive him mad (spoilers: it does). Having traveled extensively myself and having lived abroad, I know that culture shock isn't something that drives you to insanity. It's called culture "shock" not culture "insanity" for a reason. A number of other minor points made me roll my eyes and go "Really?" To avoid spoilers, I won't go into the details.

Regardless, it was reasonably interesting and well-read. I had no issues with the narration. If you're looking for a decent steampunk story without magic that doesn't care a lot about how the real world actually works, you could enjoy this book.

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A cross between Sherlock Holmes & Princess of Mars!

A hunt to fix reality before time runs out

absolutely subverted my expectations

I bought this originally because of the narrator with no direct interest to the story, but as it went on I found myself more and more engrossed in the characters and plot, a fantastical story with twists I never saw coming, and the "ah ha!" moments where elements finally clicked into place were incredible. highly reccomend

Steampunk the way it should be

This is why I like history. These are real people. Richard Burton existed in real life. He was all the things that Mark Hodder wrote about his character and back story and then suddenly the story takes a turn and you are thrown into this fantastic steam-punk world filled with all your literary and historical heroes. I can't tell you how many times I consulted the internet, or even my college world history books, just to see if the latest bit he wrote was a true-to-life characteristic of this person, or if it was his own interpretation of who they might have become in this situation, and because of that I learned so much history it wasn't even funny. I took classes on some of these people and never had I once became so enthralled that I suddenly needed to know more about them. I am well read on Richard Burton, Algernon Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, and so many others now because of this book. So I have more than expanded my education over just picking up a single book.

Way to write a terrible ending!

Any additional comments?

I was under the impression that this was a really good story, all the way up until the Big reveal close to the end. Man, I have never read such a bad, weird ending to an otherwise good book before. Took a hard wrong turn. What had been creepy and fantastical, and mostly reconciled with reality throughout most of the story, became all out unbelievable, utterly RIDICULOUS drivel in the end. There are also religious undertones throughout the book which made me wonder if I had been tricked into buying "Christian fantasy" which would disguise its self until the very end. Not so much, though. Just a tragic ending to an otherwise inventive and entertaining read. Too bad.

Huzzah!

Any additional comments?

This is a fun one. IT's disorienting at first but wraps up nicely at the end. A fun alternate universe.