by Jonathan Barnes
To start off with, I don’t know how to describe the plot of this book. It’s a mystery of sorts. It takes place in Victorian London. There’s a faux-Holmesian sleuth named Edward Moon – eccentric and meant to be blessed by a superior talent for noticing details and making deductions. But it is in n...
The Somnambulist is reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes (the 2009 movie). That is, if you strip away the cute bromance and the innate charm of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Here Holmes is replaced with Edward Moon, a stage magician and amateur detective. His sidekick is the taciturn Somnambulist, a g...
Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever.These first words, both on the front flap and front page, are the reason I picked up The Somnambulist and raised my hopes.Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed.What with such a promising voice and the subject matter--Victoriana, such possibiliti...
Read up 2 page 50 wasnt really catching me...
3 stars - by the skin of it's teeth!
This is a hard novel to give a star rating to because it starts out so strong and with so much promise but gradually devolves into a cartoon. It is a four star opening with a 2 star ending.
This book introduced me to a sub-genre of speculative fiction I have never heard of before "steampunk". Speculative fiction is a genre that I really enjoy so it comes as no surprise that I thought this was a great read! The characters are well written, delightful and wilfully bizarre. There is a cer...
Todd Stockslager at Amazon wrote this great line: "I started and finished this book on Leap Day 2008, a good day for such an odd tale. An opium-addled Charles Dickens, a Victorian Steven King, , the Somnambulist skirts the genres of period fiction and fantasy, but ends up reading like a Lemony Snic...
The Somnambulist is a dark fantasy sort of mystery that takes place in turn-of-the-century Victorian England. It follow the adventures of Edward Moon, stage magician and part-time detective, and his loyal sidekick the Somnambulist. When a series of bizarre murders and strange disappearances starts...
This is a very atmospheric and interesting tale. There is so much to like here, the mysterious Somnambulist, a detective who seeks out challenges just to break out of his persistent ennui, secret societies, long lost secrets. It is a fun, engaging read and one doesn't mind a bit of murkiness as to e...
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