Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172326 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

A fun read concerning terrors from the deep...
This book is an enjoyable romp. I don't think you are expected to take it too seriously. One chapter title reprises the name of a popular Disney film, elsewhere a character paraphrases a line from Jaws. The story is predictable, but if you embrace the cliches you'll enjoy a Hollywood-style rollercoaster ride.

Leviathan Rising lacks the variety of Unnatural History, the first (published) episode of Ulysses Quicksilver's adventures. However, if you are a fan of disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure, or the underwater scenes of For Your Eyes Only or if you enjoyed the Kylie-centric Doctor Who episode Voyage of the Damned you'll like this book. Fans of Aliens should also apply. One of the things I enjoyed in Unnatural History was learning about the alternate 'steam punk' world that the author created. The isolated setting of this novel meant there was less opportunity to find out about this world. No doubt the next book in the series - Human Nature - will remedy this.

There are a few minor irritants. The author was overfond of the word 'abyssal', which is a good word and appropriate in the circumstances, but by the end of the novel I couldn't help but wish a thesaurus had been on hand.

Overall this book kept me interested and excited until the end. Recommended if you want a guaranteed page turner that will excite the senses while not taxing too much of your brain.

Can anything stop Ulysses Quicksilver?
This book continues on from Unnatural History with great aplomb expanding the marvellous steam-punk setting of Pax Britannia beyond the confides of London and showing how much more is possible in this strange yet familiar world.

As before the book was well paced and managed to out do Unnatural History in sheer scope, every twist (and the author never seems to walk the plot in a straight line throughout) is topped by a bigger twist with red herrings thrown in only for said redness to be cheap food dye that has washed off by the conclusion of the book. The fore echoing of a major twist whilst allowing the canny reader to gather a sense of what is to come is in no way as anticlimactic as some of the reveals given previously.

The settings visited during the book were massive and fantastical, it was very much like some Hollywood blockbuster with the boat, underwater cities, and massive sea creatures (dinosaur hunting was a brief aside to give context to the scope of the rest of it) so if you want to see the world of Pax Brittania.

However the scope of the story is in some ways a failure when combined with the high octane pace and dizzying turns of the story. The level of detail given in slower passages of the book is more than at the more exciting (and in some ways interesting) sections which leads to the bigger more elaborate pieces often being sold short.

This is typified by the fact that the short novella "Vanishing Point" at the back of the book being a smaller tighter affair in many ways out does the main story as everything is given ample time and space within the plot and it is more satisfying for that.

Leviathan Rising, and falling even faster.
One of the worst books I've read in years. A nice idea ruined by a childish plot, with a great many holes, and characters who are two-dimensional at best. Even the hero is inconsistent, both in his actions and spoken english. If this was written by a young teenager, it'd be impressive; by a man it'd be worrying. He obviously doesn't get out much, and his idea of sophisticated is the hero sipping a cappuccino.
Green falls into the trap of most pulp authors of giving extra detail to pad out parts lacking in emotive description, but in his case it's largely banal detail or superfluous - his description of Blackjack is cringing, and he adds the cards up for the reader.
Besides all this, the feebly formulaic plot, and dull pastiche, it's language is not up to the era and sometimes even inaccurate in usage.