The Kingdom Beyond the Waves [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

All right, I admit it at the start...I'm a big fan. This is the second installment of Stephen Hunt's slam bam steampunk/adventure series, and now I can't wait for The Rise of the Iron Moon's American release.

The novels are character-driven adventures set in an imaginary world whose center is the nation of Jackals, a nation not unlike England. Because this is steampunk, Jackals is a coal-driven quasi-Charles Dickens era society of floating airships and gas lamps--a modern, but not too modern, society. The heroes are at once likeable and sympathetic, be they children with hidden bloodlines or strong men with anvils for hands or eccentric mechanical steammen or orphans with exoskeletons. Both novels are set in motion almost immediately--in the manner of an Indiana Jones movie--and what follows is a rich mixture of political intrigue, dark magic, and reprehensible rogues. There is almost no down time in either book--they propel themselves with the force of a steamroller until the final pages.

If there are any complaints leveled at Hunt's works, it's that he can be VERY ambitious. I thought that the climax of his first book, The Court of the Air was maybe too big, too spectacular. It had as many plot threads as a Tom Clancy novel, and when you marry that with a whole new planet of cultures, characters, and conflicts, it can and did get pretty hairy. But "The Kingdom Beyond the Waves" is much tighter, from start to finish. There is no shortage of action...it's rare to have a dozen pages slip by without a big revelation or a reversal of fortune, but the story is always gripping and credible--a heady task, given that earth quake-like forces can propel whole cities into the upper atmosphere: three-eyed reptiles can talk and fly; and...well, you get the picture.

In short: disgraced professor Amelia Harsh has just about given up on her father's quest--finding the ancient lost civilization of Camlantis--when a rich benefactor appears: Abraham Quest, the man who drove her father to ruin. As her options are limited, she gathers a crew composed of convicted slave traders and steroidally enhanced female soldiers and they board a refitted u-boat to sneak up the Shedarkshe river into the Daggish territory, a brutal jungle where all intruders run the risk of being forcibly assimilated into an animal-plant hive called the Greenmesh. On the way she must deal with a saboteur, a mutinous crew, and a growing awareness that secrets have been kept from her, and the true purpose of her expedition will not only endanger her life, but the lives and destiny of her entire world.

If you can't tell, Hunt's imagination is almost limitless, and there is no end of intrigue and plot twists throughout. And it's FUN to read...in fact, I had to keep telling myself to slow down, to savor. I like how he spreads it around, too: his female characters are every bit the equal of the males, and it is a mark of a gifted writer that even mechanical men are gIven as much personality and backstory as the flesh-and-blood ones. And this, I think, is Hunt's greatest strength: he has created a world that, two novels in, shows no signs of diminishment. He has so much going on in his first two novels that what I understand might be a six-book series seems entirely possible.

A note: while "The Kingdom Beyond the Waves" is a stand-alone novel, it helps to have read The Court of the Air beforehand. I love these books so much that I'm actually constructing a glossary of the unusual terms and phrases that might help readers a bit--it's about the only thing I thought was missing from these big, wonderful books...and I'd be happy to share it with anyone who wants it, or would like to contribute to it.

Much tighter and more linear than Court of the Air, thus easier to keep track of , and enjoy, what's happening. Two main storylines, both engaging, instead of the myriad threads that convoluted the first book. It also provides some context to some of the obfuscated elements in Court of the Air; I have a much better grip on the relationships between the various political factions. The storyline with "Furnace-breath Nick" is particularly engrossing, because the character is a beguiling mix of The Shadow, Batman, and the Scarlet Pimpernel ("sink me") with a supernatural edge, and his interactions with Abraham Quest, the central financier whose motivations are nebulous, are full of nuance, tension, and intrigue - well-written shadow boxing and verbal chess. This reads like a sophisticated and erudite pulp serial where each chapter has some astounding plot twist ending in a cliffhanger...great imaginative fun. A wonderful adult comic book written with very elegant prose.

Hunt does it again! You'll want read The Court of the Air first, since even though this is a stand-alone story, it makes numerous references to people, groups, and events in its predecessor. Well-paced and plotted, with interesting characters, esp. the villains. The reason I say "not meant for kids" is that while the marketing/covers make both books look geared to adolescents, trust me, this is not Ender's Lame, Harry Pooter, or other kiddie-trooper ilk. In particular, the violence can be quite graphic. Genre-wise, Hunt's clearly steampunk, but though his work falls a bit short of early-Mieville quality, it doesn't do so by much.