Review – The Affinity Bridge ( Newbury & Hobbes, Book 1) by George Mann (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Steampunk
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: April 27, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0765323224
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Newbury and Hobbes series
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“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 unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, while 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.

Queen Victoria is kept alive by a primitive life-support system, while her agents, Sir Maurice Newbury and his delectable assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes, do battle with enemies of the crown, physical and supernatural. This time Newbury and Hobbes are called to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot, while attempting to solve a string of strangulations attributed to a mysterious glowing policeman, and dealing with a zombie plague that is ravaging the slums of the capital.”

This is another book in a line of steampunk reads lately that was somewhat disappointing to me. This was an okay read and technically steampunk; although mainly this is a pretty standard mystery type of story. The characters were fairly bland and I felt the writing style itself was a bit devoid of personality. Nothing about this book really grabbed me and sucked me in.

At times I felt like the author had a checklist of steampunk elements he had to include to make this more steampunky: airships…check, zombies…check, cool weaponized cane…check, laudanum…check, etc. etc. While it contained a lot of steampunk elements that story actually wasn’t very steampunk in feel or philosophy. There are a lot of very standard ideas in here and it made for a book that just wasn’t very unique or exciting…and at times was just plain boring.

I was disappointed in the characters as well. I had high hopes when Hobbes entered the picture; she was smart, tough…and ended up being absolutely thin as a character throughout. The best scenes in here are between her and her sister. She just didn’t have enough dimension and wasn’t engaging enough. Newbury, our supposed hero, was supposed to be very Sherlock-like but he missed glaringly obvious clues throughout which was frustrating. Then somehow, despite his injuries, towards the end of the book he gained almost superhuman abilities…I mean really he didn’t…but the way he functioned while injured was completely unrealistic and worthy of a solid eye-roll.

Overall this was another disappointing steampunk read for me. I absolutely love this genre but I have been struggling lately to find anything decent written in it. I have a few more steampunk series on my shelves to try out so hopefully I will find something good soon. Not recommended and I won’t be reading more of the series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge