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Title: The Aunt Paradox
Series:
Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries #3
Author:
Chris Dolley
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Steampunk Mystery
Pages: 91
Words: 28K
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Synopsis: |
From the Publisher
HG Wells has a problem. His Aunt Charlotte has borrowed his time machine and won’t give it back. Now she’s rewriting history!
Reggie Worcester, gentleman’s consulting detective, and his automaton valet, Reeves, are hired to retrieve the time machine and put the timeline back together. But things get complicated. Dead bodies start piling up behind Reggie’s sofa, as he finds himself embroiled in an ever-changing murder mystery. A murder mystery where facts can be rewritten, and the dead don’t always stay dead.
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My Thoughts: |
This was SO MUCH FUN!!!!! Being familiar with HG Wells' story The Time Machine, while not an absolute necessity, definitely makes everything that much funnier. And the author plays around a LOT with Babbage and uses him as the kind of “every genius”, as in Babbage's Cat, ie, is it dead or alive? I'm sure you all know it wasn't Babbage's Cat, but since Babbage is the one who helped the automatons to be created, he gets to be the resident world genius.
Dolley gets right into the horror of Aunts that is prevalent in Wodehouse and really amps things up. Wells' Aunt takes 40+ copies of herself from history for her upcoming birthday and obviously chaos insues. In fact, HG Wells turns into a girl in one of the iterations. It was hilarious.
I also thought Dolley did a good job of wrapping things up so that the timeline established was the only timeline. Nice and neat and orderly. Speaking of neatly, all of this was done in under 100 pages. For feth's sake Sanderson, Gwynne and some of you other frakking authors, take note. A good story can be told without drowning me in your pomposity and super-overabundance of words. Mr Dolley, I salute you for your brevity and wit. More authors should be like you.
★★★★☆
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