2020/014: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street -- Natasha Pulley (reread)
Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth2020/014: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street -- Natasha Pulley (reread)
I first read this some years ago (2016 review) but I'm not sure I paid attention to the title: although telegraph clerk Thaniel Steepleton is the focal character, he's not the protagonist. Reread because I greatly enjoyed The Bedlam Stacks, and had just pre-ordered The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, which seems to be the third in a trilogy I didn't realise was happening.
Rereading, and attempting to focus on Mori rather than Thaniel -- through Thaniel's own bias, ignorance and emotion -- was an interesting exercise. I was saddened all over again by the fate of a mechanical octopus, and as fascinated as ever by Thaniel's synaethesia (he sees sound in colour). And, knowing a little more about Keita Mori from The Bedlam Stacks, I was able to appreciate his strategic planning rather better. I did find I liked Grace rather less on this second reading: but I can't say that her actions were unreasonable.
One of my criticisms in my previous review was that the setting didn't feel like the nineteenth century. I think now that the backgrounding of religion, royalty and so on is a reflection of Thaniel's class and nature, rather than an omission.
Very much looking forward to the new book!
Altogether worse than pain was that maddeningly clear vision of having not tripped, not broken anything, when logic held up a lamp in the straight tunnel that time drove humans through, and showed that the walls were made of glass. [loc 4163]
I first read this some years ago (2016 review) but I'm not sure I paid attention to the title: although telegraph clerk Thaniel Steepleton is the focal character, he's not the protagonist. Reread because I greatly enjoyed The Bedlam Stacks, and had just pre-ordered The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, which seems to be the third in a trilogy I didn't realise was happening.
Rereading, and attempting to focus on Mori rather than Thaniel -- through Thaniel's own bias, ignorance and emotion -- was an interesting exercise. I was saddened all over again by the fate of a mechanical octopus, and as fascinated as ever by Thaniel's synaethesia (he sees sound in colour). And, knowing a little more about Keita Mori from The Bedlam Stacks, I was able to appreciate his strategic planning rather better. I did find I liked Grace rather less on this second reading: but I can't say that her actions were unreasonable.
One of my criticisms in my previous review was that the setting didn't feel like the nineteenth century. I think now that the backgrounding of religion, royalty and so on is a reflection of Thaniel's class and nature, rather than an omission.
Very much looking forward to the new book!
