This book is long. Very, very long. The basic story is interesting, set in late Victorian times in a fictional country that could be on the Baltic or North Sea. The narrative jumps between the stories of the three heroes, who meet at various points and then separate. It deals with conspiracies at the highest levels of society, concerning a mysterious substance which captures the experiences of people who have been exposed to it. There are chases, fights, airships, captures, escapes, country houses, sinister geniuses, femmes fatales, all the elements of a cracking good adventure story. But it's just so long. It would read much better if a third of the book was just edited out. I really wanted to like it but in the end it was such a slog to get to the end that I didn't enjoy it much. ( )

This was my 2nd try at this book. It just isn't for me. I reaaly wanted to like it and read to page 100 but I have too many other books to read and this one wasn't keeping my interests. ( )

In the end I found that I didn't like the book so much as I thought I would when I started reading it. ( )

This book has three viewpoint characters,there is Celeste Temple the proper young lady,Cardinal Chang the assassin and Dr Svenson the man of doctoring and science.

Cardinal Chang first encounter Celeste on a train when she is covered in blood after going to the villains mansion to search for her fiancee to know why he vanished and broke it off so suddenly.I cant remember how the doctor enters the plot as he was pretty unmemorable and with all the other things you had to keep track of in this book you have to expect casualties.

So when I started reading this I had all my hopes up there would steampunk elements and good adventure throughout but I wasnt expecting all the eroticism that the backcover promises.

But when I first read it back in 2007 there was no mention of all that. So I guess it has been added later.

I dont have a trouble with sex in books I am not one of these people who only want "clean" reads but this one had me feeling a bit akward. In my head I thought of them as those awkward sexual scenes and made me wonder what purpose in bringing the plot forward they contributed to. There is a good reason the blurb of this book mentions "perverted religion" and "erotic literary adventure" because its a constant theme through the book.

The glass books of the title can be used to store a persons memories but it seems what most of them contain is memories of a sexual nature.I would have thought the technology could have some more practical use but then I am not part of twisted powerhungry cult who WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

And their evilest mastermind is a bi-sexual Contessa. :/

she even sexually harass the female main character...but its not that bad-for it releases the repressed WOMANPOWER in her. Yes remember when the blurb promised an erotic literary adventure? Thats it. Some people in other books get awesome powers but not Celeste,she only gets the power of realizing that being touched against her will totally made her break free of her role as a proper young innocent victorian lady. Now shes unstoppable!

I was surprised she didnt burn her corset

This author has a very odd notion about womens and their sexuality


At least thats what I assumed they wanted to do as much of the book confused me.Too many plotlines and too many unlikeable or easily forgettable characters didnt help either.

I know this though...sometimes I felt like I was trapped in the authors sexual fantasy world.


( )

I very much enjoyed this, but I'd have enjoyed it so much more if there had been an editor, half the length, and that it didn't keep feeling so much like a partwork with repetitive recapitulations in every chapter. ( )