Pax Britannia : Human Nature - by Jonathan Green (Abaddon Books)
This is the fourth novel in the world of "Pax Britannia" and the third to feature dandy adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver. The world is not our own. At the tail end of the 20th Century, the empire of Magna Britannia is still going strong. Victoria has been on the throne for 160 years, kept alive by esoteric steam technology. London is a sprawling metropolis where dirigibles roam the skies and a network of raised "overground" trains link the boroughs. Robot bobbies patrol the streets and dinosaurs are on display in London Zoo. Beneath the streets strange creatures stir in the flooded tunnels of the abandoned Underground system. So far, so "steampunk" you might think. But the prose suggests this is a world that is influenced by the pulp adventure stories of Doc Savage, the detective who-dunnits of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie or the Hammer horror movies as it is Victorian SF fantasies.
I read the first novel in the series, "Unnatural History" a few years back and found it a reasonable adventure story, with an interesting if overly familiar protagonist. I'm not well-versed enough in the "steampunk" genre to be able to comment on it's quality as an example of that genre, but it rattled along at a fast pace and there was a decent amount of world-building. To be honest I think it's fair to say that I found Ulysses Quicksilver to be a real mish-mash of bits and pieces of other, greater characters. He's a consulting detective. He has a Spiderman-like ability to sense when peril is around the corner. There is a backstory involving a secret sect of monks. A near fatal fall after a battle in the sky. A faithful butler who gets him out of scrapes. There are also faint echoes of Lucifer Box from the excellent Mark Gatiss novels (but with none of the acerbic wit). Quicksilver is not exactly original - but all characters have to start somewhere. It's clear that this was meant to be a love letter to other works, so I could allow the element of pastiche. Plus the world he inhabits had potential. - and as I said, it was a pleasant enough diversion. So far so good.
Volume two was "El Sombra" a detour away from Victoriana into a world of revenge, Mexican superheroics and jet-pack wearing Nazis by the increasingly impressive Al Ewing (currently a real star for Marvel Comics). Yes it was clearly Zorro meets Daredevil, but it was original, fizzing with excitement and ridiculously, entertainingly violent. A big step up and huge fun.
But with volume three, "Leviathan Rising" - another Quicksilver adventure - problems started to surface (pardon the pun). The writer's influences were perhaps a little *too* on the nose. It's basically a melding together of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Island of Doctor Moreau" with a dash of "Titanic" and a pinch of "Murder on the Orient Express" - oh and a huge squid-monster with armour and razor sharp teeth.. In the right hands this could have been a fun romp, but sadly I found myself predicting exactly where the story was going to go and speed-reading in the hope that it would take a more interesting turn. When I worked out who the villain was in the first 100 or so pages, I began to lose hope. I *wanted* to like it, I really did, but I was just...bored. "Maybe it's me" I thought. "Maybe I'm expecting too much and can't get into the author's 'groove' and just go with the flow. There's only one thing for it - read one more for luck.
So that's how I ended up working my way through "Human Nature". What I was hoping for was an original story set on a steampunky-world. What I got was, sadly, the same whisked together rip-off's of several well known stories, with the names and serial numbers filed off. Quicksilver is even more of a Sherlock Holmes analogue this time out (at one point I think he even exclaims "the game's afoot!"). A large part of the plot is lifted straight from "Hound of the Baskervilles" with the twist this time being that there really *is* a gigantic dog-like beast prowling the moors and ripping people to pieces. The other half seems to come from the author having binged on Frankenstein movies crossed with the "Doctor Who" classic "Brain of Morbius". (I don't think the "Doctor Who" influences end there to be honest - after all, two of these novels share titles with previous Seventh and Eighth Doctor paperbacks).
In the main it was a similar by-the-numbers action adventure that moved from set piece to set piece with barely a pause for thought or any real kind of character development. I think I also realised that the genetic manipulation angle is going to be an over-riding "theme" through this series (it was front and centre in "Leviathan Rising" too) and I really am just not that interested in it as a concept or seeing how the various minor seeded plot threads play themselves out.
There are some flashes of originality. The 'House of Monkeys' ruled over by a disreputable Fagin-like character was fun - followed by a chase sequence through burning tenement slums while our hero and his butler were chased by a horde of simian lackeys. There is also a eerily downbeat interlude where we encounter the villains failed vivisection experiments. Sad deformed creatures that are trapped underground and forgotten about like so much rubbish. Finally - spoiler alert - there was one moment where you do wonder if the author is really going to go through with the mad scientist amputating Quicksilver's arm, and not only does it actually happen, he then graft's an ape arm in it's place, seemingly permanently! It's a bold move and if there had been more clever twists of this sort I might have been more positive about the rest of the book. It is worth mentioning that Jonathan Green gives the reader a bonus short story at the back of the book - a bloody tale of revenge, murder and a killer Santa Claus.
Sadly I don't think there's enough here to make me want to read any more of the escapades of Ulysses Quicksilver - at least not at the moment when I have too many other books vying for my attention. However Mr. Al Ewing has apparently written a sequel to "El Sombra" called "Gods of Manhattan", so I might give that a go...
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