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.

This 100 page novella is the third instalment in the Reeves and Worcester Steampunk Mysteries.

Received as part of the Librarything May 2014 Early Reviewers batch. Published by BookViewCafe and can be brought from them here

Have never read these stories before, but it was soon evident that this is an homage to PG Wodehouse, with a little Sherlock Holmes, Steampunk (in the form of the mechanical Reeves) and Science Fiction (HG Wells as the requisite Bertie) thrown in.

It's fast paced, silly, and you may be able to find some holes in the forever changing timestream if you wanted to try hard enough (but you dont really, because that would spoil all the fun). Discounting the multiple versions of Aunt Charlotte, there is a limited cast, most of whom in the second half are great-great-great relations of other people, most of whom have turned up dead in Worcester's flat at some point - resulting in a rather unflattering book and new nickname. As a Wodehouse style novella, the story is short, and characterisation, especially of the secondary characters is not exactly in depth, but this is not a failing of the book by any means. Worcester's character is easily evidenced by the need of the "emergency gin" bottles hiding around the place and Reeves' continued attempts to recover the situation, much to Reggie's dismay.

So if you are in the mood for a short story designed to give you amusement and even some laughs, this is the book for you! ( )

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.

This 100 page novella is the third instalment in the Reeves and Worcester Steampunk Mysteries.

Received as part of the Librarything May 2014 Early Reviewers batch. Published by BookViewCafe and can be brought from them here

Have never read these stories before, but it was soon evident that this is an homage to PG Wodehouse, with a little Sherlock Holmes, Steampunk (in the form of the mechanical Reeves) and Science Fiction (HG Wells as the requisite Bertie) thrown in.

It's fast paced, silly, and you may be able to find some holes in the forever changing timestream if you wanted to try hard enough (but you dont really, because that would spoil all the fun). Discounting the multiple versions of Aunt Charlotte, there is a limited cast, most of whom in the second half are great-great-great relations of other people, most of whom have turned up dead in Worcester's flat at some point - resulting in a rather unflattering book and new nickname. As a Wodehouse style novella, the story is short, and characterisation, especially of the secondary characters is not exactly in depth, but this is not a failing of the book by any means. Worcester's character is easily evidenced by the need of the "emergency gin" bottles hiding around the place and Reeves' continued attempts to recover the situation, much to Reggie's dismay.

So if you are in the mood for a short story designed to give you amusement and even some laughs, this is the book for you! ( )

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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

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.

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.

★★★★☆ ( )

HG Wells, steampunk, time travel and Reggie Worcester, a gentleman’s consulting detective,with his automaton valet, Reeves, are hired to find a missing time travel machine ( )

"As the poet says, ‘In the spring a young automaton’s fancy turns to thoughts of electrical appliances with shapely legs.’" ( )