The Great Game
Ratings1
Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
When Mycroft Holmes is murdered in London, it is up to retired shadow executive Smith to track down his killer - and stumble on the greatest conspiracy of his life. Strange forces are stirring into life around the globe, and in the shadow game of spies nothing is certain. Fresh from liberating a strange alien object in Abyssinia - which might just be the mythical Ark of the Covenant - young Lucy Westerna, Holmes' protégé, must follow her own path to the truth while, on the other side of the world, a young Harry Houdini must face his greatest feat of escape - death itself. As their paths converge the body count mounts up, the entire world is under threat, and in a foreboding castle in the mountains of Transylvania a mysterious old man weaves a spider's web of secrets and lies. Airship battles, Frankenstein monsters, alien tripods and death-defying acts: The Great Game is a cranked-up steampunk thriller in which nothing is certain - not even death. And furthermore... venture deeper into the Lost Files of the Bookman Histories, as Professor Tidhar explores the "Dynamics of an Asteroid"! File Under: Steampunk [ End Of Days | Only The Beginning | The Ark | Insane Thrills ]
Reviews with the most likes.
This is the final book in one of the odder trilogies I've read. One of the ways this trilogy is unusual is that it's very nearly a fresh set of characters in each book – there are only a few cross-over characters. The setting is an alternate Victorian England where the royalty has been replaced by alien race of lizards. Some characters argue that it's been for the better, other characters argue that they shouldn't be governed by an alien race. The Great Game has three major protagonists, and, like in the previous books, you may recognize some of the names. They are: Smith (an erstwhile retired operative called in to investigate the death of Mycroft Holmes), Lucy Westenra (headstrong operative working for Mycroft), and Harry Houdini (recruited by Mycroft). Part of the fun of these books is catching all the literary references within. Ideas and character names are freely borrowed from such sources as Doyle, Stoker, Dickens, Hugo, etc. The story careens from one scene to the next – which keeps the pages turning swiftly – but, like in the first book (The Bookman), I was often confused by what exactly the characters were doing. And, like the characters, often wondered exactly what was going on. That was annoying. Regardless, I enjoyed this trilogy but I must say that I liked the middle book, Camera Obscura, the best.
