I’m getting tired of writing these words, but it seems like a great many of the highly touted, recently published novels I’ve read lately in the fantasy/magical realism genres have great potential, but never become the excellent books they could have been. more gentle, historical novels with a few cogs thrown in, like the more recent Hugo. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street tends towards this latter end of

From the beginning, it’s clear there’s something strange about Mr. Mori. He’s friendly and soft-spoken, but disturbingly prescient. Coincidences proliferate around him like rabbits in springtime. Thaniel’s Home Office superiors, who suspect Mori of colluding with the bombers, tell Thaniel to keep an eye on him; conveniently, Mori has a spare room ready to rent. The two become housemates and then friends, and Thaniel’s life begins to improve: a promotion, a raise. But are these merely the natural progressions along a young man’s path? Or is Mori pulling strings only he can see? Much of the narrative of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street revolves around this deepening friendship though the pace ramps up and moves more into an adventure-type plot once Grace Carrow comes on the scene. She has her own suspicions about Mori and misgivings about his increasing influence on Thaniel.A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Leider machen zwei Sachen null Sinn und null Spaß und dass sind die Charaktere (inklusive sämtlicher Romanzen) und die Handlung selbst.

But aside from the characters, the plot also didn't make a ton of sense- because there really wasn't a plot. You would think from the snippet and the first quarter of the book that the plot is sort of a fantastical "whodunit" in response to a bomb going off. But really, for most of the book no one cares about the bomb and it's a nonissue. There's no tension about the bomb and really whoever did it doesn't matter. In fact, I can't really tell you much about what happened. The whole book is just a series of minor reveals that never satisfies you because the characters are boring and uninspired. The ends do not justify the means. The best character was the steampunk octopus. Five years after they met in The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Thaniel Steepleton, an unassuming translator, and Keita Mori, the watchmaker who remembers the future, are traveling to Japan. Thaniel has received an unexpected posting to the British legation in Tokyo, and Mori has business that is taking him to Yokohama.I loved how we discovered more about Mori's special talent and how he tried to use it to save thousands of people's lives but especially one. I thought Thaniel in particular shone in this book and little Six played a major role too. I cried (happy tears) when Thaniel and Mori had one particular little conversation towards the end of the book. This story takes place a handful of years after the events related in The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. There are very serious issues wherever you look. For a detective/thriller story, there is an absence of narrative thrust, drama or sense of anything at stake. The writer shows no sensitivity for the historical period at all: either for modes of speech, or for manners. Historical research is crudely bolted on and at times bogs the narrative down. I also feel the magical realism was not handled as effectively as it could have been – Katsu the mechanical octopus is the finest character in the book (possibly because he can’t speak) and Pulley leaves it carefully ambiguous if he’s just mechanical or if he’s magically alive. A brilliant literary device such as this could be used to – for example - symbolize the growing relationship between hero Thaniel and Mori the titular watchmaker; be used as a sort of Pullman-esque ‘daemon’ as an index to Mori’s thoughts and emotions; to dramatize the theme of premonition; etc etc. However, Katsu sadly never transcends his strictly minor ornamental status or engages with the themes or narrative structure and ultimately gets used as the most banal of plot mechanics. Past ghosts and future ghosts. The outline of things that happened or might soon happen. The logic is hard to grasp... but suspend disbelief for that, fair enough. But how come only soon-to-happen fate strings appear? Why only the most likely fate strings? (e.g. those trajectories for the owls or the stone-throwers? surely there are infinite possibilities, however small a chance?). The more you think about it, the harder it is to find the 'logic' of the idea. What determines what appears from thousands of years of potential ghosts, why only the most plot-relevant stuff? It is hard to pigeonhole this book. Literary? I’m not sure. Historical? Kind-of. It does deal with a historical period. Steampunk? Not really, even though the characters have some paranormal abilities, and the Victorian era adds credibility to such a label. The closest I can come up with is magic realism.

There's no spoilers here, it would utterly ruin the beautiful way Natasha Pulley's sequel to the truly brilliant The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, slowly gives up its secrets.

Wheeler, Sara (15 September 2017). "A 19th-Century Smuggler in the Peruvian Andes". The New York Times . Retrieved 29 December 2017. I was a bit confused by the allusion of the ending - the whole, Mori setting up Matsumoto and Grace bit. Mat was on a train to Berlin, right? And he was apologising for being late? So did Mori make him late or is it thanks to Mori he was there at all? I mean I kind of just assume the latter is correct but I have no idea how that actually works.

Thaniel, spy, detective, counter-terrorist officer, then becomes introduced to Mori and Victorian Japanese London, and through him, the reader is also introduced to this forgotten world. Filigree Street, in many ways, represents how the current media has represented terrorists. It is described as a “medieval” place, for example. It is also seen as being not quite London. However, this place slowly becomes Thaniel’s home as he learns more about the immigrants in London that are associated, in the public’s mind, with terrorist activities. However, throughout, right until the bitter end, the novel keeps the question alive as to whether Mori, the immigrant, the terrorist suspect, is innocent or guilty. She moved like a faulty bicycle, by turns too fast, and then too slowly. (And later, about the same character:) Her joints were moving badly, all unoiled hydraulics.I absolutely was not expecting this to be a love story, so when it happened it took me completely by surprise. I was left wondering what had happened and what I'd missed and yet it just fit beautifully. It made a lot of sense and I think it was the not expecting it that made it come together so wonderfully. While I evidently need to read this book and its sequel at least twice more to fully appreciate everything, this time around, things didn't go over my head as much as they did in TWOFS. I've actually read this now ppl who dont know what they're talking about can stop commenting on my review. While Thaniel and Grace’s paths do eventually converge, readers might be surprised by the consequences of their acquaintanceship. My main issue with this book was that it just felt very confusing. Characters' motives, the choppy, obscure dialogue, and a lot of unresolved threads or open-ended scenes left me feeling a bit disoriented in the end. For most of the book I was unsure if I was confused because I was supposed to be confused and it would resolve later or if it was just written in a confusing way. It turns out to be the latter.