This one’s a bit hard to categorize, since it’s an alternate history fantasy with hints of steampunk. Perhaps the best description of it comes from a review blurb which likens it to a collaboration between Rowan Atkinson and William Shakespeare after a night out drinking with Sir Terry Pratchett.

Whatever, it’s a sprightly romp, taking place in a 21st-century London ruled by Queen Elizabeth XXX, courtesy of a marriage between Elizabeth I and Phillip II of Spain, back in the day, which of course bent the entire course of world history. Also in this world, technology leans toward Leonardo daVinci -- Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison being absent from the scene. The Church is in charge of Magick. But now there are dark forces afoot and adventurer Rupert Triumff, recently returned from the discovery of Australia, is somewhat reluctantly drawn into the battle to keep the world from falling to the forces of darkness – aided and abetted by a toothsome actress, a retired mercenary, a withered old dame from upcountry, an Italian magicker, a six-foot-tall cat, and a generally-naked native of Australia.

It’s a total romp, larded in pretty equal measure with outlandish action scenes and dreadful puns. Readers not conversant with Elizabethan slang may want to keep a specialty dictionary of archaic and obsolete terms at hand, the better to look up such offerings as autocthon, quillion, rouncey, snaphaunce, and pantofle. There are a couple of bobbles that may or may not annoy the reader – apparently some kind of glitch in the editing software puts the page number of footnoted items into the text, as in “I won’t be another Crompton Finney60”, followed by a superscript footnote number. Worse, there’s a scene on page 209 where a Major Bad Guy meets his end, only to turn up again apparently unharmed on page 279, ready to do battle. It’s never addressed in the text and apparently the copy editors never caught it.

It’s all great fun, and made for an interesting read over a snowy weekend. But a little goes a long way, and it’s not good enough for this reader to seek out more of Abnett’s stuff. ( )

This should have been all my jam, where Queen Elizabeth I is the ancestor of the current Elizabeth XX and it's 2010 and magic works. Because magic works the world has become stagnant and it's almost like many years of progress never happened. And this is where I have a problem with the story, things would have progressed over time, fashion changes, it doesn't matter how you want things to remain in aspic things do change. The fashions at the beginning of Elizabeth I's reigh aren't the same as later.

Honestly it was an effort to finish the book, I found the last portion better than the rest but I found myself very meh about it all, I didn't care who lived or died and I just wanted it to be over. There are chunks of book I don't really remember and don't care to refresh myself about them. I found it easy to put down and there were months between reading some parts. ( )

Magic works, and therefore all of history is different. Magic stalled the progress of science and culture, so Europe went stagnant somewhere in the sixteenth century: even in 2010 they wear Elizabethan garb and duel in the streets. Triumff was an explorer for her majesty, Elizabeth XXX, but then he found the glittering skyscrapers and magnificent technological and cultural advances that Australia had achieved by leaving behind magic for science. Now Triumff is not so sure where his loyalties lie...but at precisely the same time plots against Queen Elizabeth arise. Triumff and his friends must foil these dastardly schemes while keeping their own secrets hidden.

Abnett owes a great deal to Pratchett's Ankh-Mopork series. Mother Grundy is clearly Granny Weatherwax, for instance, and Abnett's paragraph-long sardonic asides are classic Pratchett. Alas, Pratchett has had years and dozens of books to build up both his style and the Discworld--by comparison, Abnett's characters and worldbuilding feel thin and flimsy. That said, I've always got room for more dry British humor, even when it's as self-conscious as this, and swashbuckling is always fun. Plus, there's an unexpected thread of eldritch horror running through this that set it apart from, say, Peter David's [b:Sir Apropos of Nothing|558833|Sir Apropos of Nothing (Sir Apropos of Nothing, #1)|Peter David|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1290121683s/558833.jpg|1128509] series. ( )

Originally posted at FanLit. http://www.fantasyliterature.com

It�??s 2010 and Queen Elizabeth XXX is on the throne of a magical alternate England. When the throne is threatened, Sir Rupert Triumff, discoverer of Australia, comes to the rescue.

Iƒ??ll make this short. I didnƒ??t get very far with Triumff: Her Majestyƒ??s Hero. The story is a comedy of the sort that has no appeal to me. Itƒ??s written in a self-consciously long-winded style where extensive detailed descriptions and explanations of every minor person and place keep interrupting the plot in order to provide background trivia and to crack jokes. Unfortunately, the trivia isnƒ??t interesting or relevant and the jokes arenƒ??t funny. By the end of the first chapter I felt buried under minutiae and puerility. Hereƒ??s just one example (read the first chapter at Amazon to get more of the sense of it):

Gonzalo would attempt to distract Her Majesty with discourses on the correct stringing of the composite bow, the training of the dog pack, the pros and cons of the frog-crotch barb, crossbows for pleasure and profit, detecting grot-worm in the stools of bow-hounds, and sundry other secrets of the huntsmanƒ??s art. Frequently he would invite the Queen to join him for an afternoon in the Park. She always declined, having pressing business of national import to attend in the Star Chamber. Elizabeth XXIVƒ??s private diaries reveal that the ƒ??pressing business of national importƒ? was almost always a game of tiddlywinks with members of the Privy Council. They also related that she referred to Gonzalo as ƒ??that smelly maniac with the arrowsƒ?.

Pretty much every paragraph is like this. I was unamused and bored. I skipped ahead to see if things got better, but they didnƒ??t. So I gave up. Lifeƒ??s too shortƒ??

By the way, I was listening to Simon Vance read the audio version produced by Brilliance Audio. I doubt there is any audio reader who would deny that Simon Vance is one of the best narrators in the business. But even Simon Vance couldnƒ??t save Triumff: Her Majestyƒ??s Hero for me.

Readers who enjoy puns and bathroom humor will probably like Triumff: Her Majestyƒ??s Hero better than I did. ( )

You know I'm still not sure what I think. I know there is some things I hated such as the jump from 1st person unreliable narrator to 3rd person omniscient narrator and back again. Find a point of view or at least blanking explain why you are doing it, just don't jump. That's enough to make it a 1. The dates were confusing. You couldn't figure out if you were in Elizabethan England our time line or if you were in a fantasy time line for quite a while and then it pulled up a date and you knew you were in an alternative history timeline for current era.

What drags it up to a 5 is the descriptions, the characters and the humor. I was laughing so hard I was crying and I have made a note never buy a swiss sword with more than 3 working parts.

So I took the middle and gave it a 3. It could have been very amazing but the lack of stability in the writing itself killed it and it wasn't well done enough to get away with it. ( )