The Great Game begins with the death of Mycroft Holmes. Lavie Tidhar wrote this odd steam-punk novel back in 2012. England is ruled by alien lizards. Intelligent machines are on the rise. Humans battle the forces of darkness. Set in the early 20th Century in some weird alternate reality, a retired spy named Smith is reactivated to find out who murdered Mycroft Holmes. Two female agents join Smith in his investigation. But despite the battle scenes and the addition of Harry Houdini to the mix, I found The Great Game an overstuffed sausage. In this case, less would have been more. GRADE: C+
Coincidentally, I tried to read a different book by Tidhar last week because his stuff sounds so interesting, but I didn’t get into it either.
Jeff, I’ve read a couple Lavie Tidhar books. I’ve had mixed results.
I like Tidhar’s Osama a lot and his newest book, Central Station, is very good. Didn’t read The Great Game which is a follow up to The Bookman which I thought okay.
Steve, I have CENTRAL STATION but haven’t gotten around to reading it. I may track down a copy of OSAMA, too. It’s hard to believe that OSAMA beat out Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and George R. R. Martin’s DANCE WITH DRAGONS for the World Fantasy award.
the cover looks like the edw gorey cover for war of the worlds
Maggie, I thought the same thing! The cover artwork sure looks like WAR OF THE WORLDS knock-off to me.
Did you read the 1st or 2nd in this series? I liked the first one fairly well (a B).
Rick, I read the first two books years ago, but I only found THE GREAT GAME recently.
Somehow this author escaped me – but I have to confess I don’t read as much as I used to and concentrate mainly on “pure SF”.
A bit OT:
A quite interesting review of “Osama” – comparing this to PKDick’s work:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/osama-bin-laden-pulp-vigilante#!
Wolf, thanks for the link! Lavie Tidhar beat out Stephen King and George R. R. Martin for the World Fantasy award. That’s impressive!