The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

As the long title suggests, Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne, real Victorians, are the lead characters in this novel that is at once mystery, fantasy, alt history and steampunk. And possibly a few other things, too. It includes not just not just real people Burton and Swinburne, but also Darwin, Galton, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Florence Nightingale and Oscar Wilde, among others. Add airships (but not, alas, dirigibles), flying arm chairs, foul mouthed parakeets that act as messengers, letter carrying dogs that eat constantly, spontaneously combustible wolves, pneumatic railways and the rather adorable broomcats -the only genetically modified critter that didn’t end up with a rather gross side effect.

The novel gets show more off to a rather slow start- I almost gave up on it during Burton’s backstory. I’m glad I didn’t, though, because it soon evolved into nonstop action. So much action, and so many characters, in fact, that at times I had to stop and think back for a moment before going on. It’s a fine adventure, and a grand example of the time traveler’s paradox. And in the middle of all this action and fantasy, the author gives us characters that really work. One character goes from villain (there are multiple villains in this book, so I’m not giving anything away) to example of pathos. And he’s not the only character to change- I’m not sure any of the main players escape change or growth.

I recommend this book, even if I can’t quite figure out what to call it. show less

I'm still processing what I think about this gonzo approach to the steam-punk/Victoriana shtick, on the whole I like it but the story takes awhile to get in gear as Hodder creates his reality from the ground up; imagine a cross between Tim Powers and Charlie Stross. I think I'll be reading more books in this series.

A very enjoyable steampunk romp through alternate history Victorian London. I thought the world-building was excellent, the plot and characters strong, and the writing in general very good.
In terms of pacing it starts off a little slow, but held my interest thanks to the enjoyable world being created, and ends up as a fast-paced, action-packed whirlwind.

Even though there's a strong time-travel element, which involves a lot of hopping about back and forth along the timeline, it never becomes confusing or hard to follow.

Excellent fun, and I'm glad I have book two ready and waiting already.

“With blood and with iron, shall a nation be moulded.” And what blood and what iron!

Hodder doesn’t exactly give us a steampunk world. There are too many biological grotesqueries like swans big enough to carry men into deepest Africa, huge dray horses, greyhounds who deliver messages to every memorized address in London, and parakeets who deliver voice messages – liberally laced with insults and profanity. Mendel’s work, in this world, was not “lost” and men like Darwin and Francis Galton have plenty of ideas about using the new science. This is no Victorian Age of freakish steam powered machines (though there are plenty, here). Indeed, Hodder gets rid of Queen Victoria in 1840.

Technically, that sort of makes this an show more alternate history, but Hodder cheerfully does such violence to history and the many historical personages he has here – not to mention throwing in werewolves and the bizarre legend of Spring Heeled Jack – that it feels very different.

Explorer Richard Burton and poet Algernon Swinburne, author of the above quote, make a good duo of investigators for King Albert. Swinburne, with his small stature and masochistic tendencies, provides a lot of comic relief. Burton, after an early encounter with Spring Heeled Jack, realizes that his life could take an alternate path and that provides a quite satisfying scene towards the end of the book.

Burton paces his novel very well, wraps up all the plot ends. While this may be the first of a trilogy – which gets more complicated as it goes, this book is pretty self-contained.

Definitely recommended for steampunk fans or those interested in the Fortean figure of Spring Heeled Jack. show less

This is a pretty bland effort cruising on an in-vogue genre (steampunk). Hodder forgets an important rule for successful novels: you need an internal journey, not just as external one. Unfortunately this leaves the book all sizzle and no sausage; and somewhat unsatisfying as a result.

Sir Richard Francis Burton is accosted by a strange apparition one night in a London reeling from change both intellectual, moral, and scientific. Can he solve this mystery with the help of his plucky poet friend, Algernon Swinburne?

Unfortunately, the answer is never in doubt. Hodder has an imaginative flair - his alternative London is rich with fun ideas and Victorian whimsy - but he doesn't apply the same creativity to his characters. Every single show more character is as flat as a board, and about as three-dimensional. Worse, the characters are almost completely static - there is no development or change the entire way through this fairly long book. Compounding this frustration, his action-packed plot never really calls for a diversity of response. Burton reacts the same way to the extreme situations that virtually anybody would; it makes rooting for him feel kind of redundant.

Hodder has also literally excised women from his boys' own adventure. Right at the start of the book he makes it clear that this story has no place for women, and they are dutifully absent except as victims or wan supporting cameos from that point onwards. The novel is demonstrably poorer for it, and in this day and age there's absolutely no excuse for this kind of chauvinism.

The prose itself, whilst serviceable, is almost completely flavourless - an odd occurrence when the world itself is so piquant. Hodder eschews all metaphor and simile, content to merely catalogue what's happening on the page, and throw in clunky expository dialogue when he feels the story may show a glimmer of ambiguity.

Ultimately this shallow characterisation, pedestrian prose, non-stop action, and foregone conclusion leaves the book feeling like a Michael Bay movie, or a piece of showy television. Hodder's nudging winks and appropriation of famous Victorians in a kind of tribute/pastiche actually kept me further out of the novel.

It's an easy read, and, despite its length, a fast one. But like junk food, it will leave you feeling full to the gills, yet vaguely dissatisfied. Precocious early-teenage boys might like this, but I never felt anything was at stake, and there was nothing else in the novel to entice me. show less

What a fantastic book! I was not sure if I would like it or if it would be one of these gadget-driven steampunk books, but holy cow! It is so incredibly well-written and deals with history, with events that change history, with gadgets, and with time travel that I was blown away.

Oh, and note to anyone who is a cosplayer with steampunk: there are gadgets in here that you could spend hours tinkering with in your workshop. Not to mention the goggles, because with steampunk, it's all about the goggles.

So on to the plot. In the mid-1800's, it is not Victorian England. There are still people whom history recognizes, but they have different pasts. And different futures. And the gadgeteers becomes Technologists and there are Eugenicists with show more their experiments, and Rakes and Libertines knock down the doors of societal mores.

And then the strange adventure of Spring-Heeled Jack comes to life as an overheard story, told by one Sir Francis Burton, investigator of His Majesty, to try to find where this mysterious creature comes from. And is he at all connected with the "loup-garous" who are taking young chimney-sweeps away? Algernon Charles Swinburne is his Second in this endeavor, which begins shortly after John Hanning Speke has accidentally (?) shot himself.

And the ending? Not quite what you'd expect! show less

Victorian explorers were never on my radar until now. Mark Hodder's The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack is one of the best books I've read in some time and also one of the most enjoyable. The writing and pacing is excellent with just enough mystery in the timeline to make it quite hard to put the novel down. His characters were interesting and even Algernon Swinburne grew on me enough that I didn't dislike him. So little can be said about the plot to leave it unspoiled but it was engaging and very surprising, reaching a depth of mental, moral and ethical issues I did not expect. Plus, any book with broom cats is a great book!