THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK: Burton and Swinburne, Book 1 by Mark Hodder

Narrated by Gerard Doyle

  Steampunk / Filler / Time Travel / Wrap-Up 

Steampunk has its own appeal and this story rides that for all its worth. The first third is awash with alternate history Steampunk elements, but after a few hours the story simply must carry the day. In this regard, this it is only partly successful. The middle third is little more than filler, padding the book out to novel length. Then in the past third we are treated to a section from Jack’s perspective. He is the most interesting character in the story. This section is an interesting exploration of time-travel paradox and is a lot of fun. But then near the end we return to Burton and Swinburne who must solve the mystery and bring the novel to an anticlimactic finish.  Not enough to justify continuing with the series.

Gerard Doyle sounds so much like Simon Vance (aka Robert Whitfield) that I had to do a biographical search to validate, or in this case, invalidate that notion. Apparently Doyle and Vance are not the same person—at least that is what THEY say—but I am not so sure. At any rate, Doyle is every bit as competent as Vance would have been with the same material, so this audiobook has that much going for it.