I didn't like this book very much. I do want to see what happens, but not so much that I'm rushing to go out and get another book. I think I may have enjoyed it more with a good summary ahead of time to keep track of the important things. I would compare it to the Book of the New Sun, which thankfully has more fully developed resources for the first time reader to orient himself.

It had a lot of interesting things going for it, but felt very bogged down. It ends as soon as it starts getting interesting, which is just inexcusable for a book that plods a long as is.

The frame was annoying and the archaic language was not well used. All the 18th century references should have been shunted to footnotes.

Revealing Mycroft's identity felt like it came out of nowhere.

I know it's part of the plot, but it strained disbelief that these few people essentially run the whole world. Bridger and Jedd Mason were basically magic.

I immediately lost interest in Mycrofts gender assignations and skimmed over any of those descriptions. The atavistic gender play at the end had an inkling of interest, but doesn't get explored in this book.