‘Dark Side’ – Jonathan Green (Abaddon Books)

I told you it wouldn’t be too long before I got round to reading ‘Dark Side’... It’s an occasionally bumpy ride but I know that anything involving gentleman adventurer, and agent of the crown, Ulysses Quicksilver is guaranteed to be nothing short of entertaining. The quickest way to explain the series (other than telling you to go and find yourself a copy of ‘Unnatural History’ and get reading...) is to sum it up as a ‘Steampunk Blockbuster’ where the heroes and villains positively brim over with their requisite traits and the resulting antics are crammed full of rooftop chases, frantic cliff hangers and climactic fights in submersibles or zeppelins... Lightweight? Maybe. Fun? Definitely!
All of this brings me onto ‘Dark Side’; a book that I was eagerly anticipating following the insane events of ‘Blood Royal’ and a book that I subsequently polished off in no short order. I was left wondering if ‘Blood Royal’ set the bar a little bit too high and whether it was too tough an act to follow. ‘Dark Side’ is a great read in itself but there was something missing...

Having saved the world yet again, Ulysses Quicksilver could really do with a holiday. He could certainly do with getting away for a bit as holding a gun to the Tsarina’s head hasn’t gone down well in some circles, no matter how good his intentions... If you’re looking to get away from it all then there’s no better place to go than the British Lunar colonies but Quicksilver has other plans in mind than a mere holiday. Ulysses’ brother Barty has fled to the Lunar colonies in an attempt to escape his problems on Earth; Ulysses wants to track him down and help him out.
What Ulysses will find though is far more dangerous than a sibling in a spot of bother. Why are people constantly trying to kill him? Can he convince the Lunar Police Force that he wasn’t involved in one particular murder? What is going on at a hidden base on the dark side of the moon? And will he ever be cast in anything but a bad light in front of his former fiancé? Three of the questions could well lead to a catastrophe beyond all proportions...

Picking up a ‘Ulysses Quicksilver’ book is like catching up with an old friend. You know roughly what he’s been up to and you just need to know the details. ‘Dark Side’ treads familiar ground in terms of plot and reaps the benefits of a tried and tested formula; namely throwing everything possible at Ulysses and seeing how he handles it. This book takes a couple of significant diversions from it forebears though and one of these ends up being to the detriment of the book itself.

The world of Magna Britannia, and London in particular, are as integral to the series as is Quicksilver himself. This heaving mass of humanity provides a rich and incredibly deep backdrop to the ongoing adventure and it’s a backdrop that I could quite happily lose myself in for hours at a time. It’s dark, dangerous and there is always something going on that sheds light on what a nasty (yet compelling) world this really is. I don’t have the link to hand but Charles Stross had a few words to say recently about Steampunk covering up the seamier side of what the British Empire was built on. While I haven’t read an awful lot of Steampunk, I would say that Green’s setting goes some way towards addressing these particular issues. You get to see the high life here but you are left in no doubt as to what the foundations are...

Moving the action to the Moon then is a bit of a risk and, for me, it didn’t entirely pay off. I can see the sense in introducing fresh scenery that will throw fresh problems at Quicksilver as well as broadening the scope of the Empire in this series. I’ll also quite happily agree that it may be a case of waiting for this new background to ‘bed in’ with the rest and things may seem different in a few books time. For me though, the transition to a new setting didn’t flow as easily as I was hoping.
What the reader is basically doing here is going from a rich tapestry to a relatively blank canvas. Of course it was going to be relatively blank; we’re talking about the Moon here! The thing is though, Quicksilver’s adventures work very well with the level of detail that they’re set against. Without that detail, things didn’t feel quite right. Maybe it’s something that I need to get used to but it didn’t sit well in the meantime...

Can I really complain though when the rest of the book is a glorious medley of time travelling Nazis, giant robots tearing up stuff and an ultimately tragic murder mystery? No, not really!
Green attacks the plot with his usual zest and vigour, giving us a story that rockets along with a mix of heady spectacle (I’m thinking of the giant robots here, loved that bit) and murderous intrigue. Mysteries abound and Quicksilver has to solve them all; the plot moves far too quickly for the reader to have any choice left but to come along for the ride and what a ride it is. There is plenty going on but Green has no trouble keeping everything in the air and ticking along nicely. And what a cliff-hanger ending! Whereas previous books have stood well on their own, ‘Dark Side’ is all about setting up the finale in the book to follow. There is no doubt at all that I will be around for that instalment, especially if things follow the background described in Al Ewing’s ‘El Sombra’.

The shift in setting causes ‘Dark Side’ to stumble a little after the magnificent sprint that was ‘Blood Royal’. In terms of sheer entertainment though, you can’t fault what turned out to be another gripping instalment in the adventures of Ulysses Quicksilver.

Eight and a Half out of Ten