The adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a Mississippi River town in the early nineteenth century. Winner of the 1967 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
J’ai souvent vu Mark Twain présenté comme un intellectuel humaniste, c’est ce qui m’a poussé à lire ce livre. Mais en l’occurrence c’est avant tout un livre pour enfant. Les quelques clins d’œil aux adultes n’ont pas suffit à me le rendre intéressant. Et j’ai été déçu d’y trouver des allusions racistes envers les noirs et les indiens. Finalement, Mark Twain était surtout un homme de son temps...
3.5 stars rounded down. Too long, but overall a fun time. I liked the ending enough to pick up book 2, I think, especially with this just being a duology.
I like the writing style of Wendel a lot. It’s not too quippy or jokey. But neither did it feel melodramatic. Great balanced tone for me.
I also enjoyed Bel and Lena as characters. Their personalities and motivations worked for me, and I was moved by some of their scenes near the end.
Problems I had:
1. Horrendously slow start. I picked this up because it’s a romantasy but it didn’t feel like one til close to halfway through. Then all of a sudden it’s nonstop attraction.
2. World building/lore issue. Why are the humans and avians at war? There’s something about gemstones mentioned, but it’s a gigantic blank for the most part.
3. Lena and Bel are remarkably cordial …
3.5 stars rounded down. Too long, but overall a fun time. I liked the ending enough to pick up book 2, I think, especially with this just being a duology.
I like the writing style of Wendel a lot. It’s not too quippy or jokey. But neither did it feel melodramatic. Great balanced tone for me.
I also enjoyed Bel and Lena as characters. Their personalities and motivations worked for me, and I was moved by some of their scenes near the end.
Problems I had:
1. Horrendously slow start. I picked this up because it’s a romantasy but it didn’t feel like one til close to halfway through. Then all of a sudden it’s nonstop attraction.
2. World building/lore issue. Why are the humans and avians at war? There’s something about gemstones mentioned, but it’s a gigantic blank for the most part.
3. Lena and Bel are remarkably cordial to each other given the war, and get over their status as enemies very quickly. I couldn’t make sense of this given all the reasons they have to hate each other. Lena has given years to the war and killed many avians (as far as I can tell), but neither she nor Bel have a problem with this…
Bel and Lena are sweet together, so I do kind of want to keep reading til they get their HEA. ☺️
Tra le grosse differenze di epoca tra il periodo in cui è stato scritto e quello in cui ci troviamo noi, il romanzo non è di facile approccio: è fondamentalmente uno sguardo sulle avventure di un ragazzino qualsiasi cresciuto nel Sud degli Stati Uniti d'America, ma di fatto non c'è una trama di fondo, solo un personaggio cardine.
In this second half of the Clockwork Boys duology things slow down quite allot as the mission enters its stationary spycraft phase.
There is a plot reason for it, but there's hardly any sneezing. I miss the sneezing. it was so much fun especially in the audiobook version.
I didn't find The Wonder Engine satisfying, as the mystery unfolded I found it less and less appealing.
I guess this time T. Kingfisher was too childish for me, despite all the hornyness.
Girls, Tom Sawyer is your Prince Charming!
There are a lot of things I like in the book. Tom Sawyer is a remarkable character this book created.
Just imagine, there is a boy who falls in love with you when he first sees you, and he doesn’t hesitate to say “I love you”; a boy who wants to engage with you when he figured out you also like him; a boy who gives you a brass andiron-knob to mend the relationship when he hurts you; a boy who takes the whipping for you when you made the mistakes; a boy who takes you for adventures; a boy who never gives up hope when you too are trapped in a cave and he is as freaked out as you; a boy who kissed you, when you are too weak in the cave, “with a chocking sensation in his throat, and made …
iconic
The second part and conclusion to the Clockwork Boys. Slate (the guerilla accountant), Brenner (the assassin), Caliban (the excommunicated paladin) and of course the Learned Edmund continue their mission to find and destroy the origin of the Clockwork Boys, giant mobile siege engine type things that are devastating their side in the war. To do this means infiltrating the city they come from, a city where Slate has a very high price on her head and where Learned Edmund has his own mysteries to solve about where another member of his order has vanished to.
Continuing the tone and the fun of the first part, this is a fun fantasy filled with a thieves' gallery of dubious characters, gnoles (badger-like people), and demons. Was very sad when it ended and want to read many many more.
Rereading this after 30 years. I think I was never able to finish the unabridged version before, on account of the archaic language. But it was a joy to finally be able to take in the original writing.
Second part of the story : as good as the first.
It could be that gamers would appreciate this even more than I did:the main characters are straight out of their world, with a thief, an assassin, a knight and a scholar, but the author rounds them out and gives each of them individuality. The dialogues are often funny - although sometimes the author seems to be straining a little. The situations are often full of suspense, and the ending is satisfactory. It's one of the better books I've read over the last twelve months.
BTW, T Kingfisher studied anthropology. One of the themes of the novel is a riff on the relationship between an ethnologist - in this case, the priest of the Many-Armed God - and his informants - here, the gnoles. It captures some of the dynamics and of the problems involved - both practical and ethical …
Second part of the story : as good as the first.
It could be that gamers would appreciate this even more than I did:the main characters are straight out of their world, with a thief, an assassin, a knight and a scholar, but the author rounds them out and gives each of them individuality. The dialogues are often funny - although sometimes the author seems to be straining a little. The situations are often full of suspense, and the ending is satisfactory. It's one of the better books I've read over the last twelve months.
BTW, T Kingfisher studied anthropology. One of the themes of the novel is a riff on the relationship between an ethnologist - in this case, the priest of the Many-Armed God - and his informants - here, the gnoles. It captures some of the dynamics and of the problems involved - both practical and ethical - very well.
Also, Kingfisher has been compared to Terry Pratchett. It is true that some of the gags are of the same kind as those we find in the Discworld, and that there are several oblique references to the city of Ankh-Morpork - including a passing reference to CMOT Dibbler (one of the main characters purchases what is very probably a rat on a stick). But Kingfisher is very much her own woman.
Read this book again as an audiobook. Still one of my favorite works by Mark Twain.
The first Mark Twain book I read, I loved it, it is such a good adventure book, really brings out the kid in you.
The friendship between Tom and Huckleberry is well written, as you go through the story you start to see the signs as they start to grow up.
I'll be reading Huckleberry's adventures soon.
