The Bookman Lavie Tidhar

Ever wonder what you would get if you mixed Sherlock Holmes, Steam Punk, Alternate History, Conspiracy Theory and Weird Fiction. Well obviously Lavie Tidhar has. Set in an alternate 19th Century London where Professor Moriarty is Prime Minister and Queen Victoria is the latest lizard ruler of England (yes, lizard - don't sweat it).

"Orphan" works as in a bookstore, is an aspiring poet, and is part time as a prankster with an anarchic streak. Just when his life seems to be settling down - marriage plans underway - he finds himself being drawn into the shadowy terrorist world of the "Bookman", and into a plot to undermine the Everlasting British Empire.

This novel crams so much in to its 400 pages in terms of cultural references (you'll find Jules Verne, Karl Marx, Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde amongst many other fictional and real Victorians) that it’s a wonder Tidhar has found room for such a complex plot. And he's managed it without it being overpowering. Somehow all the disparate characters, plot threads, changed history elements and genre tropes work together wonderfully.

Okay, you would say this is not a book a casual reader of science fiction is going to be able to read and really understand. The author's built upon so many of the genre's greats in this novel you'd think he'd taken Isaac Newton's famous phrase ("Standing on the shoulders of giants") to heart. But I'm glad he did, and I'm glad there are more to come in this world. It's so real. From page one you can visualise everything. Stunning imagination.

Page updated 18 July, 2010