Just minutes before a space cannon launches a probe to Mars, a terrorist called The Bookman kills poet Orphan's love in an explosion. Orphan's quest for the truth about her death takes him below the streets of London, aboard the Nautilus with Jules Verne and Captain Nemo, and to the mysterious island home of Les Lezards, the lizard men who rule the world...Okay, now this is what all steampunk books should aspire to be! What Lavie Tidhar has done in The Bookman is simply marvelous. Most of the st...

”Everywhere he looked there were books.They rose into the air in majestic columns, stacks and stacks of them forming a maze that seemed to stretch to forever; the stacks rose high into the air and disappeared towards the unseen ceiling. The air had the overwhelming smell of old books, of polished leather and yellowing leaves, like the smell of a bookshop or a public library magnified a thousand-fold.” Orphan is a poet, not just a poet in desire, but actually a published poet. He is in love wi...

When I first caught sight of this book cover, I was immediately taken in.I wanted to read the synopsis but felt that if I did, there was a good chance it would spoil some of the surprises for me best left for later down the road. So, I didn't. It was enough for me that it was steampunk, obviously influenced by Jules Verne, had airships in it, and I'd accidentally caught wind that there were lizard men in it. *Drool*.I did my research and from the reviews + info I found, Lavie Tidhar, sounded lik...

And so, not worrying about selling, not worrying about markets-- all the things I was doing with my aborted trilogy-- I began writing The Bookman.For fun.It would have all the things I love, I decided. Automatons and airships, poetry and magic, the underworld, and the London sewers. It would have chases and escapes! And a quest, of sort, done for love.And so I wrote it. Like my hero, Orphan, I did it for love. And I had fun doing it…It was the sort of book I could research by drinking in pubs. O...

For all the steampunk fantasy I've been recently, as well as traditional Western medieval fantasy, this was one that stood out as having its own voice, something to say about that genre, and that incorporated literature and intrigue in interesting ways. It's not a perfect book, but the voice of the author is strong, and I forgive the small faults because the overall ideas and characters are so interesting. Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy an...

I have read enough disappointing steampunk novels to say with absolute certainty that “The Bookman” is the steampunk novel all other steampunk novels try to be, and fail at miserably. It will now be the standard I use to judge other steampunk novels.Orphan lives in a 19th century London that is very different from the one we are familiar with: the royal family are a race of lizard beings from a different planet, sophisticated automata walk and interact with “real” human beings, silk blimp balloo...

Rating: 3* of five The Publisher Says: A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees -- there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack.For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? His quest to uncover the truth takes him from the hidden catacombs of London on the brink of

Set in an alternative version of 19th century earth, with a point of divergence to our timeline sometime in the early 16th century, The Bookman is without a doubt the most enjoyable, fascinating and captivating book I have read in a long time. It has managed to claim the throne as my favorite steampunk novel from Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams.The Bookman is steampunk on multiple levels. Not only because of the plot and the world with its automatons, simulacra and the giant space cannon,...

An adventurous yet literary steampunkish tale. Here's what other goodreads reviewers who've fallen for this book have said . . . and I, for one,agree with 'em (mostly) Why? Because literary and historical references and persons abound, and the intricate plot continually surprises, fun stuff!But you are going to need to take along a few things to enjoy the journey. Here's what I recommend:An undergraduate or graduate degree in English literature or maybe just the The Oxford Companion to English L...

Not sure what to make of this. It reminds me of a lot of other steampunk I've read, it's fun enough as a diversion, it was an easy and a quick read... it just didn't work for me, somehow. The patchwork quilt of literary and historical references, the rather perfunctory love story, heck, the rather perfunctory main character...There's a lot of fun to be had here, in the adventure plot and the wild sequence of ideas, but it's not something I could really take seriously, somehow. I was reminded a l...

From the book's description, I expected an action packed science fiction book. I expected some satire and more. In reality, I got an action packed science fiction book with satire and more, but I did not like it.The book brings together many gestures to symbols of culture, historical figures, fictional figures and mythologies. Some of them I am familiar with and many I am not. To some extent, the book is an alternative history version of the story of Orpheus and his attempt to retrieve his wife

2.5 – 3 starsI’m a bit torn about _The Bookman_. On the one hand it exemplifies a lot of the key elements of steampunk. One the other hand it exemplifies a lot of the key elements of steampunk. Maybe I should explain.I’m not quite sure where I stand in regards to steampunk as a genre. In many ways it seems to me less a genre than an excuse for cosplay on the one hand and fan fiction on the other. I mean once you get rid of the goggles and corsets, the airships and gears what have you really got?...

When I was a kid, there was this TV special that combined a lot of the more famous cartoon characters at the time. The special was used as a deterrent for kids to avoid drug and alcohol use. You had the likes of Alf, the Muppets and the Ninja Turtles teaming up with Bugs Bunny and others to stop a child from going down the wrong path. Seeing this "dream team" of characters all combined on one program blew my fragile little mind.The reason I bring this up is because Lavie Tidhar does something a

There are a lot of good ideas in this book, but, in a way, I think that's part of its problem. There are too many ideas, and it felt like the author just had to include them all.Set in an alt-reality Victorian England, where Victoria, and all the royalty, are Lizards from another planet (yes, boys and girls - meet the Reptilian Overlords), we enter this Steampunkish world which has, in a way, simply too much tech. Babbage Engines and Edison recorders and Tesla wires (radios) and submarines and r...

Take authentic details from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras such as “The Turk,” the famous automaton chess player, activists like Isabella Beeton, the infamous (and apparently ubiquitous in this style of literature) Jack the Ripper, Tom Thumb of circus fame, and the works of literature by Wilde and Wordsworth, mix in ingredients as varied as Neil Gaiman’s tale of British royalty involved with Cthulhu, H. G. Wells’ Island of Doctor Moreau, Jules Vernes’ Nautilus and Mysterious Island, Stevenson’...

Now how could I not read a book with the title “The Bookman”? This is the first of a trilogy and based on this one, I will be seeking out the other two. It’s billed as “steampunk” which always worries me. Steampunk and I have a sordid history. Sometimes it’s really interesting but more often than not I find the authors trying to be cute rather than providing good solid stories with proper characterization.I found this one to be a bit of both to be honest. But in the end, it’s a fun read. The aut...

Fun worldbuilding and alternate history packed with literary allusions... And an incredibly bland, boring, and ineffective protagonist who spends most of his time confused and getting knocked unconscious or being drugged or moved around like a literal pawn. His motivation is also boring and ill-developed: he's in love and wants to get his Lucy back. The rest is like, well, the British monarchy are lizard people and the protagonist is the Chosen One and...revolution? Meh. I do think the alternate...

I should have been crazy about this book. It's a steampunk book set in Victorian London in which queen Victoria is a lizard, Moriarty is the Prime Minister, lord Byron is an automaton giving readings, and the main character -- Orphan -- is friends with an old guy called Gilgamesh. There are also whales in the Thames, and Jules Verne makes an appearance later on. Also, the London in question is a grimy place where machines produce grit and pollute the air, and a bunch of weirdoes plotting an upri...

Although there were plenty of cool things going on in this book (a lot of things I liked quite a bit), and plenty of action scenes, I was never truly swept up in the adventure. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because the protagonist was more of a puppet than a character with any real agency. I do understand this fit thematically (chess, pawns, etc.), but it still may have contributed to my lack of investment. Will I read the next book in the series? Perhaps.

I’m hesitant about proclaiming love for historical fiction. To me it’s just a genre that can be so hard to get right. Take too many liberties, and it’s not really historical any more, is it? But don’t take enough liberties, try to follow the actual course of history (as best we know it) too slavishly, and then it’s not really fiction…. The best historical fiction is the kind that follows the main narrative but tries to give the reader a glimpse at the people behind the dates and events, makes th...