Review: It was pretty good.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2011
The Chronological Man is a time traveling, steam-punk adventure brought to us by Andrew Mayne. People are disappearing in a mysterious mist, and nobody seems to care. Luckily Smith and April Mallone are on the case.The best thing about this book was the characters. April Mallone is funny, smart, engaging and full of surprises. The surprise being that she seems very ordinary at the beginning and proves herself to be more and more capable as the book goes on. Smith is an enigma, which I think he's supposed to be, but he's a likable bumbling enigma that's not all that good at being mysterious. I never really figured out what was going on with him, but he's quite entertaining to read about.The action is fast paced and thrilling. This was good, because since the plot doesn't slow down, you don't realize that it's starting to feel like a waste of time until the end. I really felt like Mayne would have done better if he'd run this book by a few more people who are used to reading mysteries. I'm not used to reading mysteries, but I figured out what was going on with the disappearances quite a few chapters before the main characters.That and there was no real tension. Ok, the climactic battle was interesting, but we all knew that everything would turn out, and we mostly already knew exactly how it would turn out. Why? Because the main characters had already talked about it. This was a bit annoying because I always wonder, when I have to read something twice, why not cut out the unexciting version? Just have it end with, "I have an idea!" and then I can see the idea and be surprised instead of seeing it twice and being bored.All and all, it was a fun read, but not an amazing read. There's quite a few better steam-punk books, but this book is a bit more unique. If you're a fan of steam-punk and time travel, go for it. If you're not in that very tiny niche, don't bother.I still think Mayne has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to his next book, but this one just didn't do it for me.