suze_1624's review against another edition
3.0
For me a high 2+* read.
I like a little bit of steampunk in a story, just like a little magic or I may enjoy a little paranormal etc. this was full immersion in the genre so a bit out of my easy reading zone.
It was a fairly long read with full mechanicals and a very trippy fae town! Querry seemed to attract trouble and I never really felt I knew Reg. Frolic seemed a simple soul but possessed of great empathy too.
The story wove about a lot and had its mad professor who came to a suitably bad end. I am always in awe of authors who create such wild stories and get the story to come back together at the end. Just not one for me (just like a number of work colleagues can never get how I dont understand Discword!)
Loved the cover though!
I like a little bit of steampunk in a story, just like a little magic or I may enjoy a little paranormal etc. this was full immersion in the genre so a bit out of my easy reading zone.
It was a fairly long read with full mechanicals and a very trippy fae town! Querry seemed to attract trouble and I never really felt I knew Reg. Frolic seemed a simple soul but possessed of great empathy too.
The story wove about a lot and had its mad professor who came to a suitably bad end. I am always in awe of authors who create such wild stories and get the story to come back together at the end. Just not one for me (just like a number of work colleagues can never get how I dont understand Discword!)
Loved the cover though!
librahero's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 Rounded up! Review to come when at a proper keyboard. Loved this book!
Edit for review: These two books by Augusta Li and Eon de Beaumont, Boots for the Gentleman and A Grimoire for the Baron, are good, old-fashioned fun akin to the adventures serials of yore--sans the serial aspect. The combination of steampunk and magic was charming, and the stories took me to unexpected places, and on adventures I would never have imagined on my own. It was fun and happy-making to read books where the thought of "I would have done xyz differently" rarely came into play because the books are unlike anything I would imagine or make up myself. A lovely escape to a different world. I read somewhere recently that a review should be about the book, but, that's never how my reviews turn out. My reviews always turn out to be about me and my relationship to the book. In the case of these, they were the right fun at the right time and I look forward to buying them in paperback when I see Gus Li at Rainbow Con next year.
Edit for review: These two books by Augusta Li and Eon de Beaumont, Boots for the Gentleman and A Grimoire for the Baron, are good, old-fashioned fun akin to the adventures serials of yore--sans the serial aspect. The combination of steampunk and magic was charming, and the stories took me to unexpected places, and on adventures I would never have imagined on my own. It was fun and happy-making to read books where the thought of "I would have done xyz differently" rarely came into play because the books are unlike anything I would imagine or make up myself. A lovely escape to a different world. I read somewhere recently that a review should be about the book, but, that's never how my reviews turn out. My reviews always turn out to be about me and my relationship to the book. In the case of these, they were the right fun at the right time and I look forward to buying them in paperback when I see Gus Li at Rainbow Con next year.
mrella's review against another edition
2.0
What a mess this book is, starting with the title - what's with the boots? We never find out! O.o
But that's not the only glitch here, too many things don't make any kind of sense to me. My personal pet peeve is Querry's inability to hold onto any kind of weapon. The poor guy always loses it within the first two minutes of a fight.
Very chaotic writing, plot twists and turns to keep you as confused as possible.
But that's not the only glitch here, too many things don't make any kind of sense to me. My personal pet peeve is Querry's inability to hold onto any kind of weapon. The poor guy always loses it within the first two minutes of a fight.
Very chaotic writing, plot twists and turns to keep you as confused as possible.
poultrymunitions's review against another edition
2.0
TL;DR: as full of promise as disappointment.
I feel betrayed by whoever edited this book. Even the author bios have subject-verb issues.
But then, when your authors appear to have been making shit up as they went along, there can't possibly be that much an editor can do.
Because blithely winging it is not exactly the ideal approach to an attempt at melding AU Europe, a steampunk London that openly intermingles with Faerie, and the kind of sorcery that involves arcane mumbling and wiggling your fingers at things.
Especially not if your intent is to redeem about a hundred handy plot coupons, too—like a mecha-Pinoccio who can get erections, and a cyphered book that becomes important next to never, and the eponymous boots fetched for the gentleman and then never seen again.
How about an Indiana Jones sequence replete with comically ineffective booby-traps, or an airship that sounds rather awesome, actually, or a clockwork unicorn pulling carriage?
Seen once, and then off we go!
We need to make room for a bavarian inventor, and a mad baron, and Dickensian orphans running about in highly organized street gangs, and also a couple of Siamese cats in there for good measure.
Never mind the—and, honestly, if you've already gone this far, can you blame them?—utterly unwelcome primer on how not to conduct a successful polyamorous relationship with a faithless prude, the aforementioned mecha-Pinoccio, and a cat-burglar.
This should have been awesome.
It was not.
I feel betrayed by whoever edited this book. Even the author bios have subject-verb issues.
But then, when your authors appear to have been making shit up as they went along, there can't possibly be that much an editor can do.
Because blithely winging it is not exactly the ideal approach to an attempt at melding AU Europe, a steampunk London that openly intermingles with Faerie, and the kind of sorcery that involves arcane mumbling and wiggling your fingers at things.
Especially not if your intent is to redeem about a hundred handy plot coupons, too—like a mecha-Pinoccio who can get erections, and a cyphered book that becomes important next to never, and the eponymous boots fetched for the gentleman and then never seen again.
How about an Indiana Jones sequence replete with comically ineffective booby-traps, or an airship that sounds rather awesome, actually, or a clockwork unicorn pulling carriage?
Seen once, and then off we go!
We need to make room for a bavarian inventor, and a mad baron, and Dickensian orphans running about in highly organized street gangs, and also a couple of Siamese cats in there for good measure.
Never mind the—and, honestly, if you've already gone this far, can you blame them?—utterly unwelcome primer on how not to conduct a successful polyamorous relationship with a faithless prude, the aforementioned mecha-Pinoccio, and a cat-burglar.
This should have been awesome.
It was not.
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