Customer Reviews

Affinity Bridge

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's a pretty brilliant idea for a novel -- an special agent of Queen Victoria, sent out to deal with weird and supernatural threats.

And the concept fits in seamlessly in George Mann's first novel "The Affinity Bridge," which reads like Arthur Conan Doyle decided to write a thriller set in a steampunk fantasy world. It's an engaging story written in a slow-moving but detailed style, and Mann keeps things interesting by peppering his story with all sorts of strange twists -- airships, clockwork robots, and zombie plagues. The only flaw is the underwritten leads.

While investigating a string of strangulations in the Whitechapel area, Sir Maurice Newbury is called away by the ailing Queen Victoria -- an airship has crashed in Finsbury Park.

With the help with his assistant Veronica Hobbes, Newbury soon discovers that the airship may have crashed and burned because it was being piloted by an automaton -- a clockwork robot that is mysteriously absent from the wreckage. They start investigating the manufacturers of both the automaton and the airship, Chapman and Villiers, but haven't got much more than a bad vibe from Chapman and a creepy history from Villiers.

Unfortunately the two cases -- strangulation and airship -- intertwine when a potential informant is strangled in Whitechapel. Newbury and Hobbes investigate further, but Whitechapel is full of more dangers than just the strangler, since there are also zombielike flesh-eating plague victims wandering around the place. And when a badly wounded Newbury is attacked by a pair of lethal automatons, he discovers the horrifying facts behind their creation.

Steam-powered carriages, clockwork robots, airships and the occasional mad scientist with a giant sewing machine -- while the Victorian London of "Affinity Bridge" isn't radically different from our own, George Mann adds all sorts of weird little details into his story. And those steampunkian items aren't just surface flash to make the whole book cooler and more fantastical -- the complex, winding mystery hinges on some of these fictional inventions.

To match his story, Mann also writes in a sort of modern-Victorian style -- richly detailed, atmospheric and full of mannered interactions. But he also spins up some fast-paced, bloody action scenes and grotesque fights (particularly with the "zombies" and automatons), as well as a climactic chase through the airshipyards. The secret of why the automatons are malfunctioning is a shocker, and Mann evokes just the right amount of horror from it.

And as a mystery writer, Mann does an excellent job winding together different mysteries in a plausible manner, even if the bad guy's identity is quite clear early on in the book (though not necessarily the how and why). And there are substantial plot threads left hanging -- especially in the epilogue -- hinting at future stories.

The biggest problem is the characterizations, which never feel entirely fleshed out -- okay, Maurice is a Holmesian genius with a weakness for laudanum and a rather murky history that seems to be made up as it goes along. Hobbes is a smart, capable woman who can do her own investigations. Although they are fairly likable characters, neither one is really expanded beyond their basic outlines -- especially since we hear hardly anything about their daily lives, their pasts, their families, et cetera.

"The Affinity Bridge" suffers from underwritten lead characters, but has a solid mystery plot and a richly-imagined steampunk world. If he can flesh them out a little, the next Newbury and Hobbes book is sure to be a pure delight.

I've just finished reading "The Affinity Bridge" by George Mann and can honestly say that it was as painful an experience as being operated on without anesthetic in a Victorian hospital.

The story is a blatant rip off of already tired cliches in multiple genres, from the sub Sherlock Holmes character of Sir Maurice Newbury (who is addicted to laudanam as oppose to cocaine) to his demure but sexy tough new assistant Veronica Hobbes (think the Avengers) and basically every other characterization and plot development that seems to have wandered in from any well known sci fi or horror movie (Dr. Frankenstein, The Terminator, the zombies of 28 Days later etc).

Sometimes the story telling has to throw up such laughable plot devices as to be jaw droppingly terrible:

After fighting off rampaging "revenants" (plague ridden, flesh eating zombies) but bleeding profusely from several bites, Newbury informs his companions, who already think that he is done for due to the zombie bites, that everything's OK because he happened to have been bitten in India when he was a young man but survived the onset of the plague because he was immune...

When fighting an attack by the brass automatons (bad Dr. Who issue cybermen meet the Terminator) he just happens to be trapped in a corner where there's a massive axe and a ball and chain on the wall which both come in very handy thank you very much...

The book has a feel of being created by a computer program and you long for a more mature style with narrative depth and believable characters that is written by an author with new ideas or at least far more subtle and evolved re-imaginings.

Please spend your time reading any of the following books before succumbing to this one's dumbed down incredulities...

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (Gordon Dahlquist)
Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange (Susanna Clarke)
The Manual of Detection (Jedidiah Berry)

The plot of the sci-fi mystery 'The Affinity Bridge" is exciting enough, and the book is jam-packed with action scenes straight out of a Hollywood movie, but there is at least one ingredient missing from the dish: heart. Be it humor, charm, emotional resonance - this book is sorely lacking in it. The two lead characters go about their grim business without a moment of levity, warmth or personal connection. This book put me in mind of another author of weird mysteries, Christopher Fowler. Though his Bryant & May books are set (mostly) in the present day, they also involve a team of investigators looking into the seemingly supernatural. His books are replete with funny lines, cracking characterizations, and deep emotion, and are my favorite mystery series right now.

I really wanted to love this book, but it just didn't engage me the way I wanted. I will give the next title in the series a chance, but if I don't see any improvement I probably won't continue.

There isn't too much to be said in favor of this book, unfortunately, although I read it from cover to cover, trying to give it every chance possible. There's more or less a working plot in place, but the narration is so bland and so poorly written, and there are so many elements in the story that make it tedious or even obnoxious to read that I can't recommend it. Here are a few of the salient points:

1. Abysmally poor English. Not only is the writing annoyingly informal, it's often grammatically incorrect and is written in a very sophomoric style. It's more like a freshman D- English 101 paper than a novel, and the author's inability to write makes you wince on page after page.

2. The dedication to saying "Earl Grey" instead of tea, as if this is somehow going to make the story more English. The people in it don't seem even vaguely like Englishmen -- more like American college kids from 2000 playing dress-up as a bunch of Britishers.

3. The story isn't very interesting despite the good ideas that were behind it. It's passable, but very simple, linear, and doesn't make much of the potential that some of the ideas (the automata, the airships) offer.

4. The main character is made out of hard rubber, literally. He gets chewed up by some creature and half-gutted, his arms sliced open with knives(after which he leaves the bleeding wounds open for several hours while engaged in lighthearted chit chat and heavy physical activity), and is punched out and kicked repeatedly while lying on the ground, which rips open all his wounds and the blood is described as "gushing" out of him. He then survives an airship crash and swims through a river while carrying someone else with him. Good authors learn not to put their characters into situations no human being could survive, and then have them survive -- it doesn't make the story more dramatic, it just detaches you from the story totally because the character is so unreal that you don't care what happens to them. "Eh, they'll be all right -- if they were hit by a speeding locomotive, it'd just give them a bruise anyway." If the character is too unrealistically resilient, it deflates all the scenes of peril and danger, and makes them tame and pedestrian, because you know the character is literally at zero risk. The author of this book does it constantly, and it makes the story seem more like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon where everyone's safe no matter what happens to them, which completely ruins the grim steampunk mood the author seems to want to convey. Very, very, very, VERY bad writing.

5. Ah, yes, the main character is also hanging onto the edge of something metal at one point, and a muscular, heavy man wearing boots stamps full force on his hands several times, with no effect whatsoever -- rather than, say, smashing every bone in his hands. So his Neo-like vault up out of the situation and victory in the ensuing fight is predictable and uninspiring. Ho-hum.

6. Did I mention how juvenile the writing was?

Give this one a pass -- I only hope the author eventually learns how to write, since he had a few very good ideas that were lost in a sheet of bland, tapioca-like, comic-book writing.

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

Victorian England is in turmoil. Revenants, undead creatures, prowl the night and spread their sickness to unsuspecting citizens. Also, a supposed ghost of a murdered police man has been strangling passersby in White Chapel. Many have died so far and there are no witnesses or leads. Sir Maurice Newbury, agent of the Queen and anthropologist for the British Museum, is in the middle of investigating that series of murders when the Crown requested that he investigate a mysterious and tragic accident. An aircraft piloted by an automaton crashed in Finsbury Park and killed everyone inside of it. He and his intrepid assistant, Veronica Hobbes, are on the case and investigate. It starts off as a conventional investigation until multiple attempts on their lives are made. Can Maurice and Veronica figure out the two mysteries before more people die or they are killed?

The Affinity Bridge is steeped in an alternative history version of Victorian England. There are flying airships in the air, clockwork automatons as servants and pilots, revenant zombies in the streets, and even a crude life support system to keep Queen Victoria alive. The book opens with a horrific zombie scene in India and then the story goes to England, where much of the investigation is simply in Victorian society. At points, I was lulled into the sense that I was reading a normal Victorian mystery novel and then I would be jarred when clockwork men or zombies attacked. I haven't read a book quite like this one and I enjoyed that the supernatural aspects weren't all encompassing. Even though the technology in this book is more advanced than the actual era, poverty, hunger, and their infamous mistreatment of mental illness unfortunately still exist. These stark realities gave the book a believability I don't think it would have had if they were absent.

The main characters in this book are flawed and dynamic, with their own sets of insecurities and sordid secrets. Maurice Newbury is a brilliant detective and anthropologist with an addiction to opium. He is slightly Holmes-like, but much more eager to physically fight. I felt they portrayed his physical strength and stamina a bit overexaggerated. His past is rather murky, but the small allusions to it left me wondering. I always like a story to feel that there is more to it than the book can contain. Veronica Hobbes is my favorite character. She is a strong, confident woman with a no-nonsense attitude. She's very sensible and seems rather cold, but her close relationship with her sister proves otherwise. I really feel Veronica wasn't utilized to her fullest ability and I hope the next book will improve.

The rest of the characters are largely one dimensional and more like stock characters, even the villains. They didn't have facets to them like the main characters did. Victorian society also isn't portrayed very realistically. The close friendship between Veronica and Maurice would have been largely disapproved of and would have had serious consequences for Veronica.

Overall, I enjoyed The Affinity Bridge despite the lacking minor characters and depiction of Victorian society. I would recommend it to fans of Gail Carriger's Alexia Tarabotti series.

There are other reviews that more fully explore the issues with this book, so I'll only address one point.

If an author doesn't have a credible explanation for how something works, why oh why can't they just leave it unexplained?

Clockwork automatons are fine, suspension of disbelief will get you far enough without worrying about how they manage to power themselves.

On the other hand, claiming that they use a mechanism like a self winding watch to power themselves via their own movement, walking around to charge up when they get low on power, was enough to make me quit reading.

I'm fine with things being left unexplained, or even some mumbo jumbo and hand waiving. I'm not ok with explaining something in a way that violates the first law of thermodynamics to such a blatant degree that a high school kid should see it.

I won the first two books of the series in a raffle (Thank you, Miss Kitty!) and I sure lucked out! I intend to keep buying these books.

The first in the series, "The Affinity Bridge" was an enjoyable book. Steampunk should never take itself seriously, and this book definitely did not do so. This novel combines all the silliness of James Bond movies with the melodrama of Sherlock Holmes. Anyone interested in Steampunk should at least read "Affinity Bridge".

A bit of steampunk fun, with overtones of Sherlock Holmes, will please anyone who enjoys the genre.
The author could have spent a bit more time on describing the streets, buildings and scenes of his fantasy Victorian London. At times the place descriptions were sketchy, assuming the reader was already familiar with the setting.
I feel it slowed up in some sections and yet at others the story galloped along.
The two main characters were interesting enough, even though Sir Maurice seems to be a Holmes take off. He has addiction issue, a side kick (female unlike Watson) and is a detective of seemingly independent means.
I did enjoy this book, it was a quick, light read, entertaining and I'll look for the next in the series.

George Mann's writing style will never see him compared to luminaries of literature like Hemingway or Steinbeck, but for a fun, fast and easily consumed story he's done a bang-up job with "The Affinity Bridge".

The style is "steampunk", a sci-fi sub-genre generally set in a fictitious Victorian-era England stuffed full of extraordinary devices and ingenious contraptions (to steal a phrase from Art Donovan) based on analogue, rather than electronic, technology. And usually powered by steam, of course!

But that's a by-the-by for Mann, as this is essentially a detective story with steampunk as the prop. In fact, it does not pay to think too hard about those extraordinary devices and ingenious contraptions because once you do it spoils the fun.

To be honest it does not pay to take **anything** too seriously when reading this book. Hence my reference to "popcorn" - tastes OK at the time but does not fill you up and is hardly nutritious.

The hero, Sir Maurice Newbury, makes James Bond seem like an underachiever. He's a steampunk Energizer Bunny and the when his batteries run out it's only to allow his burgeoning love interest offsider, Miss Veronica Hobbes, to pitch in as a steampunk suffragette.

The miscreant of the story is the suitably dastardly Mr. Chapman, a wealthy industrialist known for his state of the art hydrogen airships, though he remains a caricature of an 18th Century scoundrel despite glimpses of his back-story. Chapman's offsider is an amoral French brainiac with a knowledge of biology and brass work that would put Dr. Frankenstein to shame, and a name that is as close to "villain" as only a frisky author would come up. He's painted even thinner than Chapman but hardly needs much more than an 'Evil Genius' thought bubble above his head as far as the reader is concerned.

Throw in two seemingly separate but clearly intertwined plot threads, a small supporting cast (which includes a persistent London fog), a few hints of the supernatural and lots of incidental details of steampunk London and Tally Ho, this novel is off and running.

I enjoyed everything but the woefully unnecessary Epilogue. If you'd not figured things out by the end of the last chapter you really weren't paying attention, and in fact a bit of well constructed ambiguity is often a good thing in the concluding stages of a book, especially one that the dust jacket announces is "A Newbury and Hobbes Investigation" with clear intent that you'll be reading one of a series.

Basically, "The Affinity Bridge" is no sillier than the current crop of movies based on comic book figures and if you approach it in a playful frame of mind you should enjoy it.