Olivermagnus's Reviews > Unnatural History

Unnatural History is the first in a steampunk series called Pax Britannia. It's set in 1997, where Queen Victoria is about to celebrate her 160th year on the throne. The British Empire still spans the globe; and Magna Britannia has taken up a large part of the world.

Our hero, Ulysses Quicksilver, is a staunchly loyal agent of the Crown. He's also an adventurer, bon vivant and womanizer. At his side is his loyal butler, Nimrod, and later Simeon, a Neanderthal. He has been asked to investigate the disappearance of the evolutionary biologist Professor Galapagos, which leads him to the London Zoo and its menagerie of living dinosaurs, as well as a terrorist organization called the Darwinian Dawn.

""Unnatural History" is a mixed bag when it comes to genres. There are some horror elements, but also the classic adventure novel and a little historical fiction. The author shows a real flair for dramatic action sequences, including a dino-rampage which is vividly detailed.

I thought this was a fun story, in the vein of those classic adventures written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Ulysses was a wonderful mix of James Bond, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes, and Doctor Who, all set in a steampunk London.

Don't get me wrong, this book has lots of flaws. It's campy and cliché-ridden. It's definitely not a literary masterpiece. The characters are simple and shallow, the romance is cheesy, the plot is predictable and we run from one over the top action scene to the next. But if you don’t take it too seriously, it was a lot of fun.