Unseemly Science by Rod Duncan
380 pages
Published 2015
Read from November 18 to November 20
Rating: ★★ out of 5
The first volume of Duncan's Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire series, The Bullet Catcher's Daughter, was sustained by its zippy prose, which flung from one incident to the next with enjoyable velocity, if nothing else. Unseemly Science, the second installment, unfortunately lacks that same sense of propulsion. The titular mystery doesn't become evident until halfway through the book -- the first half, instead, is taken up with incidents of disguise, pursuit, and incarceration that serve as a muddled postscript to the events of the first book, without adding anything particularly new to the overarching plot (which promises nothing short of global revolution and the smashing of class hierarchies), nor even any beats that weren't already hit in Daughter (which saw our heroine similarly disguised, pursued, and jailed). When the "unseemly science" finally makes itself visible, our investigators fail to notice clues that, for the reader, may as well have neon arrows pointing at them -- never a good state of affairs in what is ostensibly a novel of mystery and investigation. The climax lands with a thud, Duncan's former skill at maintaining momentum getting gummed up with a succession of sadistic heavies and mad scientists who struggle to maintain one dimension to their characterizations, let alone two, and action sequences that stumble and clunk rather than swerve and stab. As a whole, Science is mediocre and forgettable rather than outright bad, I suppose, but given that I've been waiting about four months to get my hands on a copy, that's more than enough to leave me disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment