The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

An absolute joy, and a very special series.

This is a novel that is unlike any other and which works on many levels, written by a very talented and extremely well read author. I've been struggling with how to write a review of this book, and I have come to the conclusion that I can't - the book ... “operates”... on too many levels and ways, so I've decided to write several reviews considering it with different hats on.

I'll work in order of least impressive to most.

A Sequel to Jekyll and Hyde

Yes, that's right. This is the story of Mary Jekyll dealing with the situation following the mysterious loss of her father and subsequent death of her mother.

Most people know the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde”. Not so many people have read the book. It's not what you may think. From childhood I had some sort of idea that Hyde was basically The Incredible Hulk...possibly wearing a top hat. The actual book is brilliantly written and asks deep questions about our characters and about society.

Ms Goss is taking a risk following up this book. Can she make a worthy successor that makes you question your assumptions about society?

Yes.

This is not a “Monster Horror Book”, this is a book that makes you question what monsters are, and what horror is (while she's at it she even raises the question of what a book is). This book looks at the dark underbelly of Victorian London during the Whitechapel Murders, it looks in the back alleys, the orphanages and the lunatic asylums. It also looks at the well-to-do ladies who were prisoners of their positions and who were forced to rely utterly on men - always a hair's breadth from ruin.

Just like in the original, it manages to pull you through all of that with a great mystery keeping those pages turning.


A Sherlock Holmes Pastiche

In this sense this book just rocks.

Sherlock Holmes is not the main character, though he's a very important part of the book.

Now I've read a huge chunk of Mr Holmes recently and I've found that reading Sherlock Holmes pastiches (aka fanfic) is infuriating. Authors often grab onto one aspect of Mr Holmes and run with it, resulting in one-dimensional cold robots, know it alls, or zany hyperactive psychos.

That's not Mr Holmes.

Theodora Goss really knows Sherlock Holmes. I don't mean that she knows all the dates, details and mustache measurements of every minor character (though she seems to have a pretty good grasp of that). I mean that she seems to have a feel for the soul of the great consulting detective.

When Goss' Sherlock says or does something - it feels real. That is exactly how Sherlock would act.

By the end of this book Ms Goss had beaten down my defenses. This was the real Sherlock, and if I ever find out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle discovered the secret of immortality - I know whose basement he's hiding in.

A Voice for the Women of 19th Century Fiction

There was a lot of great books in the 19th Century. Mary Shelley, HG Wells and others came up with excellent tales that made you question what you knew while keeping you on the edge of your seat.

These stories had women in them, interesting women...women who tended to drop dead before they could do much of any interest.

What Ms Goss does in this book is to imagine what “really happened”. All of these books were told from a point of view - a letter, a report, a diary. As such it only told what the author knew, believed or wanted the reader to think. There would be other views. Ms Goss allows those characters to tell their side, and gives them room to grow.

Ms Goss does this wonderfully.

This means that many 19th Century novels are “true” in the world of The Athena Club (a world I'm coming to think of as the Goss-verse). While I think it's an excellent idea to read all these books first, it's not totally required - though I think it would add hugely to your enjoyment.

I'm including this list in spoiler tags in case you don't want any hints as to plot lines or characters:
Core to the first book:[b:The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde|51496|The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde|Robert Louis Stevenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1318116526l/51496._SY75_.jpg|3164921][b:Frankenstein|35031085|Frankenstein|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498841231l/35031085._SY75_.jpg|4836639][b:The Island of Dr. Moreau|29981|The Island of Doctor Moreau|H.G. Wells|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388230211l/29981._SY75_.jpg|68894][b:Rappacini's Daughter|13556043|Rappaccini's Daughter|Nathaniel Hawthorne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417846952l/13556043._SY75_.jpg|1189453]Also useful:[b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387151694l/17245._SY75_.jpg|3165724][b:The Great God Pan|774846|The Great God Pan|Arthur Machen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1223635929l/774846._SY75_.jpg|760887][b:She: A History of Adventure|682681|She A History of Adventure (She, #1)|H. Rider Haggard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388347922l/682681._SY75_.jpg|2334644]I'm sure there are many others that have slipped my mind or that I've just plain missed.As mentioned earlier, Sherlock Holmes is also real in this series, so reading a bit of Sherlock Holmes is also very useful. Recommending Holmes stories is for another time however.

An Experiment In Narrative Style

This book is written as a Victorian Novel, and it works very well as that. However at points in the text the narrative account is broken into by voices written in a playscript-style format. These voices comment on events, the narration and the writing style, they even bicker among themselves. It is clear from the start that at least some of these voices are characters from the story.

My first impression was “This is weird”. My linear-thinking brain had difficulty imagining a situation in which the “Author” would be including these comments in the text, especially as the narration clearly assumes you've read the comments.

This is an experimental form of writing that takes a while to get used to - but it is worth it.

It adds a depth to the characters that is really hard to explain - it sounds cliche or sound-bitey but it gives the characters a voice.

I still remember struggling to get used to reading books in present tense or in first person. This is the same sort of thing, once you've gotten over the initial unfamiliarity it clicks, the benefit is obvious and you wonder why you had a problem in the first place.

Also some of those comments are just really funny.

Conclusion

So so good.

An absolute joy, and a very special series.

Theodora Goss, if you wrote a thousand more like this, I would be delighted.