Okay, this book was one of the goofiest I have read in a long while and I really liked it. It was over the top, silly steampunk that didn't take itself seriously and you shouldn't either. The names of the characters are even tongue in cheek, which some readers who have reviewed the book don't seem to get. Also, people were complaining that the science part of the plot was bad - it wasn't supposed to be great science fiction. It is supposed to be a lighthearted fun read. No, this isn't a classic. No, this isn't superb fiction. It is a lighthearted and comic tongue in cheek look at steampunk and the genre.
Leviathan Rising, above everything else, is fun. Deliriously so. Every page is infected with a wonderful sense of joy. Don't get me wrong, I love my "worthy" genre fiction - gloomy, dirty, big heavy themes, existential angst & questions of identity - but after reading so-bloody-many in a row, this is the perfect antidote. Leviathan Rising is something different, yet no less special. This is the sort of book that makes me giddy and ten years old again, my mind filled with impossible adventures and wild daydreams.
And, to give Mr Green credit, creating this sort of work is a rare and wonderful talent. Being over-the-top is commonplace, but being genuinely entertaining is rare - the difference between telling a dirty joke and being Bill Hicks. Leviathan Rising, the author deftly combines punchy dialogue with lurid description; painting a wonderful, exotic world and then populating it with sharp heroes, sinister villains and horrendous beasties. This is pure, unadulterated pulp - the sort of fiction that made fiction fun to begin with.
And, to give Mr Green credit, creating this sort of work is a rare and wonderful talent. Being over-the-top is commonplace, but being genuinely entertaining is rare - the difference between telling a dirty joke and being Bill Hicks. Leviathan Rising, the author deftly combines punchy dialogue with lurid description; painting a wonderful, exotic world and then populating it with sharp heroes, sinister villains and horrendous beasties. This is pure, unadulterated pulp - the sort of fiction that made fiction fun to begin with.
Overall this is a very good and easy read the main novel ticks all the right boxes and has a good mix of humour and some very dark moment indeed. The novella, Conqueror Worm, which is to my mind even better than the main novel, is a swashbuckling adventure with highwaymen, sinister plots and a particularly nasty creature as it's centre piece.I certainly wouldn't class this series of books as anything more than good "pulp" adventure, but then again they are not trying to set themselves up as anything other than that.
Although each of the books can be read individually there has been a connecting plot building subtly in the background over the whole series, so I would certainly recommend that anyone new to the Ulysses Quicksilver books starts at the beginning with Unnatural History!
It's nice to see Conqueror Worm receiving some love. It was a story I really wanted to tell and loved writing.
You can read more of this review here at Pulp Zen!
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