Ed Kay

Randomly picked up after seeing glowing reviews on Twitter. Can't say I really understand why. The main character is annoying, and there are a lot of inconsistencies in the narrative. I also don't really understand how a spaceship that's been shot through with multiple bullet holes can be ‘patched up' in a day or two enough to survive 6 months of space travel from Mars to Earth. I'm assuming that this is what ‘steampunk' means: science fiction with rivets. Regardless, it rattles along at a fairly brisk pace to its less than satisfactory conclusion.

The thing that saves this from 2* review is that the ‘strange' of the title is an incredible conceit, a really fascinating idea. Mars is alive, and it's suffusing the humans and their technology with its own consciousness. This idea appears about two-thirds of the way through, at which point it's a bit too late to do anything interesting with the idea. Shame this wasn't made more of.

This book showed so much promise but seemed to constantly drop the ball. Tension would be built effectively but all the payoffs were terrible. The writing of battles and fights was almost incomprehensible, so you had no clue who was where or doing what, and then suddenly things would be over. We seemed also to miss out on critical information eg. why did Roos suddenly turn from potential assassin out on the seas, to giving them the knife and information on how to kill the Nameless One? In one paragraph he was seeting at Ead, eager to kill her, and then... he was on her side? It didn't make sense. So much promise and an incredibly built world, fantastic characters, but it consistently fluffed its lines.

The major problem with this disappointing follow up is that it bulges with MacGuffins. Problems arise and are just resolved arbitrarily and with little sensible explanation.

Jessica's holed up in an impossible position, surrounded by an army trying to kill her. How will she get out of it? Ah yes, the mysterious, all powerful boyfriend will just show up and chop off their heads.

A reverend blows his brains out on live TV, and leaves behind a tape that suggests something awful happened in his past. What awful thing? How can we recreate an entire scene from audio? Oh, it's cool, the FBI have a clever machine that can detect the tiny sound of a child's ribcage being crushed, and where the people in the room are standing whilst watching it.

But who is the boy? There is no information. Oh, yes there is, here comes the mystical boyfriend again with some cryptic numbers on a mirror, leading to a library and a name. That is then cross referenced against a special secret super database curated by a rich tech geek - friend of the mysterious ex boyfriend! - who runs some algorithm to get the answer...

And on and on. How does clever Jessica solve it? Well, she doesn't. The boyfriend does. Seems he knew what was going on all along. Which kinda makes me wish I could read his story, since he's got all the answers.

Maybe he could tell me how the first crime was committed, what happened to the murderous cop, how was he controlled? How did Grandfather do his bullet trick, and how did it help them prepare to save the pope? How did it save the pope? Did it even save the pope?! (Clearly the pope is saved but no one seemed to actually care about it at the time.)

Reading thrillers and crime writing is a little like experiencing a magic trick and then having the secret revealed. There's a puzzle, and you enjoy watching the detective work backwards to piece it all together. The lure of this series is to see even more magical and impossible murders solved by a magic expert and thereby get some insight into the mind of a magician.

However, there was nothing to learn here and no clever twists to marvel at. Shame.

I feel slightly churlish giving such an incredibly intricate and well written book so few stars, but unfortunately, I just didn't enjoy it all that much. There were too many characters introduced so slowly and in such detail I had forgotten who many of them were by the time they reappeared, and I spent a lot of time hoping for some kind of recap so I could once again get back on track with what was going on.

Having started this while in New Zealand, it was fun trying to imagine the modern town of Hokitika reduced to such squalor and frenetic activity, like the antipodean version of the wild west. Catton certainly has a brilliant command of psychology and behaviour, imbuing all of her characters with unique and complex motivations. But the only one I really cared about was Staines, and the love story with him and Anna is certainly the highlight of the book.

There are many good reviews elsewhere on Goodreads which elaborate on all the clever structural and astrological tricks that are employed throughout the novel, but most of them went over my head. It's not a great mystery, it's certainly not a page turner, and it's at least 300 pages too long. But I was still mightily impressed by it, while remaining mostly bored.