The Affinity Bridge [DELUXE EDITION] (Hardcover)

~ George Mann (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mann's imagination has clearly run wild in this quirky and well realised version of the world, and this is no bad thing!It's fun, it's exciting, and Mann has a very agreeable hand that's easy to appreciate!He has a sharp talent for writing and a surplus of enthusiasm for the genre..." SCIFI Now "The author does a superb job of recreating nineteenth century London...a thoroughly engaging story!Excellent world building; captures the Sherlock Holmes feel; never a boring passage. Bottom line: A hugely entertaining book. 4.5 out of 5." SF Signal. "I absolutely loved it" Lou Anders "Fans of Alan Moore's work will likely enjoy Mann's depiction of Victorian asylums, slums, aristocratic soirees and things that go bump in the night." Strange Horizons "Automata, clattering railway carriages, hansom cabs and 'pea soupers', gas lit streets and the doffing of caps, gruff policemen, mad scientists, arrogant industrialists, seances, pentagrams, addictions to laudanum and a few ravening zombies...Mann is at the forefront of the new generation of UK genre movers and shakers." SFRevu.com "The Affinity Bridge is a carefully plotted and entertaining steampunk mystery, and Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes emerge as engaging characters readers are likely to want to see again--a desire the publisher promises to fulfill with a sequel, The Osiris Ritual, announced for 2009." F. Brett Cox, SciFi.com "a science fantasy novel that should appeal to lovers of both genres... one of the biggest surprises of the year and I can't recommend the book enough." Fantasy Book Critic "An enormous pile of awesome" Chris Roberson, World Fantasy Award finalist and Sidewise Award Winner. 'Mann is at the forefront of the new generation of UK genre movers and shakers.' SFRevu.com 'The author does a superb job of recreating nineteenth century London...a thoroughly engaging story.' SF Signal 'Mann is leading the charge.' The Guardian 'Fans of Alan Moore's work will likely enjoy Mann's depiction of Victorian asylums, slums, aristocratic soirees and things that go bump in the night.' Strange Horizons 'A carefully plotted and entertaining steampunk mystery.' SciFi.com '[Mann] has a sharp talent for writing and a surplus of enthusiasm for the genre' Sci Fi Now 'Highly, highly recommended' fantasybookcritic.com

Product Description

Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by new inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, whilst ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen and journalists. But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side. For this is also a world where ghostly policemen haunt the fog-laden alleyways of Whitechapel, where cadavers can rise from the dead and where Sir Maurice Newbury, Gentleman Investigator for the Crown, works tirelessly to protect the Empire from her foes. When an airship crashes in mysterious circumstances, Sir Maurice and his recently appointed assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes are called in to investigate. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is baffled by a spate of grisly murders and a terrifying plague is ravaging the slums of the city. So begins an adventure quite unlike any other, a thrilling steampunk mystery and the first in the series of "Newbury & Hobbes" investigations.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: Snowbooks; Limited ed edition (August 31, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1905005938
• ISBN-13: 978-1905005932
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,619,897 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars If H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle somehow worked out the science and had a son it would probably have been George Mann, July 6, 2009

By	The Mad Hatter "booktionary.blogspot.com" (NY State, United States) - See all my reviews

George Mann's The Affinity Bridge was another book eagerly picked up at Book Expo, although it had been on my list to buy. I find the US and the UK covers brilliantly detailed and beautifully illustrated. You have to take a look at it up close to appreciate all the little embellishments on both. My copy is signed by Mann with:
Watch out--there's evil things lurking in the fog!-George Mann

It certainly lived up to those sentiments as a zombie plague is running rampant in London, but that is a bit of a fake-out as the zombies or Revenants as Mann likes to call them is more of a B story line at best. I've long been a fan of steampunk and The Affinity Bridge brings the steam in spades. If H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle somehow worked out the science and had a son it would probably have been George Mann. There are clockwork automatons, airships, ghosts, mad scientists, and spades of other things in this entirely strange Victorian setting Mann has concocted.

The Affinity Bridge is very much an homage to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes style while still very approachable for modern tastes. The main characters start off very stuffy, but as the work progresses I found many layers yet to be revealed. Newbury has demons that I was yearning for Mann to set free, but alas he is holding out on us. I thought his female assistant Hobbes was a bit one dimensional until something that happened at the very end, which made me question her purpose and skills. Newbury is investigating a series of mysterious murders when he is called away by Queen Victoria to look into an airship crash. The Queen is being kept alive by means of technology, which was intriguing. The dialogue flows well and there is plenty of good action as Newbury battles Revenants, Automatons, and even a few other things. However, some of the solutions to the mysteries do present themselves to Newbury a bit too easily on more than one occasion, but his body does pay the cost for that ease time and time again. I also worked out the big connections fairly early on, but it didn't ruin the experience at all.

The Affinity Bridge is sheer fun and will keep you pushing forward to see how the investigative team of Charles Newbury and Victoria Hobbes solves the mysteries. I give The Affinity Bridge 7.25 out of 10 Hats. The series is expected to be at least 6 books long so it makes me wonder if Mann has an over arcing theme in mind for the rest of the series or if it will merely be more episodic. And just who will be his Moriarty? There were shades of massive intrigue towards the end involving Hobbes that could open this world wide. I'll definitely be checking out future volumes. Sometime next year Mann will release Ghost of Manhattan in the UK as well, which judging by the description is set in the same world as The Affinity Bridge, but not with the main characters from the series. [EDIT]New info thanks to Lou Anders @ Pyr: Ghosts of Manhattan will be released in the US April 2010 by Pyr.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mixture of many elements, like a good gumbo., September 22, 2008

By	Erich W. Levinson "Erich" (Mid-Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book cause it sounded interesting from the summary. The book itself with its slipcase, is really a well made production. The coin is very nice too.
For me, the story started out slow, however I was curious about the main character. Once more of the characters started to appear I was hooked. This story has elements of Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, Zombie Movies, Indiana Jones and Jack the Ripper. The main character seems to get hurt a great deal, showing that he is no super hero, and his pain is described in detail. The story has action, witten with detail and I found myself actually concerned for the characters, even the poor gentleman who only wanted to better society in his warped ways. All together a great read for me and I am looking forward to more adventures from this author

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enormous Pile of Awesome, September 3, 2008

By	Chris Roberson - See all my reviews

The Affinity Bridge is the first "Newbury & Hobbes Investigation", and hopefully the first of many. Sir Maurice Newbury, scholar with the British Museum, expert on the unexplained and the occult, and occasional agent of Queen Victoria, is aided by his new assistant Veronica Hobbes, who may be more than she appears. Veronica is not a stranger to the unexplained and the occult herself, as the older sister of a girl who is haunted by visions of the future. The London that Newbury and Hobbes inhabit is almost the one that history records, with a few tweaks here and there. Airships sail across the smoky skies, piloted by brass automata, undead "revenants" prowl the fog-wrapped streets hungry for the taste of human flesh, and the ghosts of dead policemen bring a bloody justice to criminal who have escaped the law's grasp. Queen Victoria continues to rule, her life artificially extended by steam-driven cybernetics.

The Affinity Bridge is a nicely constructed "fair play" mystery, a Steampunk adventure, and an alternate history with intriguing worldbuilding, all rolled into one. To share even a few of my favorite moments from the plot would threaten to spoil some of the surprises, but suffice it to say that this is a book that features a dude in fist fights not only with zombies and brass robots, and that those aren't even the best bits.

Mann's first novel is absolutely an enormous pile of awesome, and is highly recommended to anyone who thinks that fist fights with zombies and steampunk robots might be their cup of tea.