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The List of Seven #1
The List of 7
Dark Brotherhood
As the city of London slumbers, there are those in its midst who conspire to rule the world through the darkest and most nefarious means. These seven, seated in positions of extraordinary power and influence, marshal forces from the far side to aid them in their fiendish endeavor.
Force of One
In the aftermath of a bloody séance and a terrifying supernatural contact, a courageous young doctor finds himself drawn into a malevolent conspiracy beyond human comprehension.
All or Nothing
The future is not safe, as a thousand-year reign of pure evil is about to begin, unless a small group of stalwart champions can unravel the unspeakable mysteries behind a crime far more terrible than murder.
As the city of London slumbers, there are those in its midst who conspire to rule the world through the darkest and most nefarious means. These seven, seated in positions of extraordinary power and influence, marshal forces from the far side to aid them in their fiendish endeavor.
Force of One
In the aftermath of a bloody séance and a terrifying supernatural contact, a courageous young doctor finds himself drawn into a malevolent conspiracy beyond human comprehension.
All or Nothing
The future is not safe, as a thousand-year reign of pure evil is about to begin, unless a small group of stalwart champions can unravel the unspeakable mysteries behind a crime far more terrible than murder.
523 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 17, 1993
218 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 359 reviews
March 13, 2014
Arthur Conan Doyle, doctor and aspiring author, witnesses black magic and murder at a seance. Soon, he finds himself on the run with Jack Sparks dragging him along. But is Jack Sparks an agent of the crown or an escaped mental patient? And why does a mysterious group want Doyle dead? And who are the people on the List of Seven?
A friend of mine started bugging me to read this in 2004. A decade later, I finally gave in.
The List of Seven is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche written by one of the co-creators of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost. It reads like Tim Powers writing an episode of Sherlock. In fact, I kept imagining Benedict Cumberbatch as Jack Sparks and Martin Freeman as Doyle.
Sparks and Doyle prove to be an effective team. I found Sparks' background incredibly interesting, as I did his sociopathic brother, Alexander. Doyle was a little more capable than Watson is normally portrayed, a master of deduction rivaling Jack Sparks.
This is a throwback to early steampunk, not the style over substance steampunk that's so popular these days. There are appearances by Victorian figures like Bram Stoker, Nigel Gull, and Queen Victoria, and also trains, mummies, zombies, and various other Victoriana, like seances and mediums. Again, it reminds me of Tim Power's Anubis Gates and other works, and also Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist and The Domino Men.
The writing itself was pretty good. There was a surprising amount of humor in the dialog. The plot about the cult was nothing spectacular since most cults in fiction have the same goals. The characters of Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack Sparks, and Alexander Sparks eclipsed the plot somewhere around the halfway mark.
If I had to complain about something, it would be the ending, which seems like it was probably changed at some point in the writing process to allow for sequels. It was kind of a copout. Other than that, I have no complaints. Four out of five stars.
A friend of mine started bugging me to read this in 2004. A decade later, I finally gave in.
The List of Seven is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche written by one of the co-creators of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost. It reads like Tim Powers writing an episode of Sherlock. In fact, I kept imagining Benedict Cumberbatch as Jack Sparks and Martin Freeman as Doyle.
Sparks and Doyle prove to be an effective team. I found Sparks' background incredibly interesting, as I did his sociopathic brother, Alexander. Doyle was a little more capable than Watson is normally portrayed, a master of deduction rivaling Jack Sparks.
This is a throwback to early steampunk, not the style over substance steampunk that's so popular these days. There are appearances by Victorian figures like Bram Stoker, Nigel Gull, and Queen Victoria, and also trains, mummies, zombies, and various other Victoriana, like seances and mediums. Again, it reminds me of Tim Power's Anubis Gates and other works, and also Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist and The Domino Men.
The writing itself was pretty good. There was a surprising amount of humor in the dialog. The plot about the cult was nothing spectacular since most cults in fiction have the same goals. The characters of Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack Sparks, and Alexander Sparks eclipsed the plot somewhere around the halfway mark.
If I had to complain about something, it would be the ending, which seems like it was probably changed at some point in the writing process to allow for sequels. It was kind of a copout. Other than that, I have no complaints. Four out of five stars.
September 15, 2020
This is sorta like a very successful "Da Vinci Code"/"The Mummy" hybrid. The references to Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, even Jack the Ripper makes this the only book in recent memory to thrill & amaze without making you feel like you should know more literary crap you could possibly know what to do with.
This one goes crazy in the most fertile world of Edwardian (the V.D.'d ROYAL Prince's) London where reality walks hand in hand with the monstrous creations of masterful minds! I read this at an unusually languid, slow pace, inverse of the book's rather speedy and smart narration. I want to see a movie like this... nah scratch that. I want to discover more books like this!
This one goes crazy in the most fertile world of Edwardian (the V.D.'d ROYAL Prince's) London where reality walks hand in hand with the monstrous creations of masterful minds! I read this at an unusually languid, slow pace, inverse of the book's rather speedy and smart narration. I want to see a movie like this... nah scratch that. I want to discover more books like this!
August 27, 2014
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious)!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious) - penned by a little-known author who also scripted various Hill Street Blues episodes and co-created Twin Peaks, of all things!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious) - penned by a little-known author who also scripted various Hill Street Blues episodes and co-created Twin Peaks, of all things... all-in-all, a well-crafted pastiche and a thoroughly entertaining experience!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious)!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious) - penned by a little-known author who also scripted various Hill Street Blues episodes and co-created Twin Peaks, of all things!
a breathless and action-packed steampunk adventure starring mystical special agent Jack Sparks and his doughty Doubting Thomas sidekick Arthur Conan Doyle, united to fight an infernal Dark Brotherhood and their terrifying zombie and mummy minions, featuring thoughtful and at times amusingly fervent discourses on the nature of humankind and the pernicious influence of organized religion & the class system and the purpose of both God and Lucifer's competing Plans (as well as an unfortunately lengthy and irritating passage where Doyle is disagreeably turned into an hysterical, paranoid heroine straight from a gothic penny dreadful, how tedious) - penned by a little-known author who also scripted various Hill Street Blues episodes and co-created Twin Peaks, of all things... all-in-all, a well-crafted pastiche and a thoroughly entertaining experience!
December 19, 2024
Surprinzător de interesantă, deși nu am fost fan al serialului Twin Peaks și în general nu îmi plac cărțile despre zombi și magie neagră, totuși acest thriller a îmbinat totul într-un mod care te prinde. O poveste care îmbinat genul thriller cu cel de aventură și fantasy într-un mod reușit.
August 20, 2017
Ya le gustaría a Dan Brown escribir como Mark Frost, y lo digo porque sus argumentos podrian tener algo en común, pero Mark Frost es un escritor con talento y Brown es todo lo contrario, una fábrica de bestsellers sin alma. La Lista de los Siete tiene atmósfera, acción y mucho suspense; quién conozca a Mark Frost por Twin Peaks, sabrá que el elemento fantástico/sobrenatural también juega un papel muy importante en sus historias. La acción se desarrolla en la Inglaterra victoriana, con elementos steampunk pero yo diría que es más bien una novela de aventuras muy gótica. Lo recomiendo totalmente.
March 21, 2008
Mark Frost is best known as the writer on Twin Peaks, and he brings a similarly twisted vision to this wonderful novel set in a slightly skewed Victorian England.
The protagonist is Arthur Conan Doyle, still a doctor, and with no inkling of his creation of the worlds greatest detective.
That's before he gets involved with a secret service agent with amazing deductive skills, a penchant for morphine, and a twisted, brilliant older brother.
This may sound like a Holmes pastiche, but Frost's imagination takes it way beyond that. We get a flight through the British Museum vaults, chased by the undead. We get a visit to Whitby abbey in the dead of night alongside an Irish writer named Bram Stoker who gets the idea of his life on the trip, and we get a glimpse of what might have happened if Victorian ingenuity had taken a slightly different turn into Zombie armies and vast, impersonal factories.
All that, and more literary references than you can shake a stick at, alongside pathos, friendship, betrayal and loss.
Frost is a fine, intelligent writer, with a unique vision, and this is his best work.
The protagonist is Arthur Conan Doyle, still a doctor, and with no inkling of his creation of the worlds greatest detective.
That's before he gets involved with a secret service agent with amazing deductive skills, a penchant for morphine, and a twisted, brilliant older brother.
This may sound like a Holmes pastiche, but Frost's imagination takes it way beyond that. We get a flight through the British Museum vaults, chased by the undead. We get a visit to Whitby abbey in the dead of night alongside an Irish writer named Bram Stoker who gets the idea of his life on the trip, and we get a glimpse of what might have happened if Victorian ingenuity had taken a slightly different turn into Zombie armies and vast, impersonal factories.
All that, and more literary references than you can shake a stick at, alongside pathos, friendship, betrayal and loss.
Frost is a fine, intelligent writer, with a unique vision, and this is his best work.
February 7, 2017
Two times five stars!
A book that leads you on, holding your breath, right to the very last page and the very last word on that page. That very last word that will give you chills up and down your spine!
Mark Frost, you did it! Wonderfully. You put in everything. I can't think what you left out!
Reader, do you know Sherlock Holmes?
Do you know Doctor Watson?
Do you know London in 1884?
Do you want a story that will build and build and keep you right on the edge of your chair to the last?
Do you want to appreciate an author that can string a list of words together that can make you appreciate the English language?
"Their trail took them to a gymnasium in a Soho side street, a squat, filthy brick building, its walls a palimpsest of posters trumpeting the forgotten but once epic collisions of yesterday's fistic gladiators. A soot-obscured homily traced the arch of the Greek Revival entryway, extolling the virtue of exercise to the development of a sound moral character."
Do you want to be introduced to characters that will become unforgettable?
Do you want to laugh?
Do you want to cry?
Do you want to cry for more?
READ THIS BOOK!
Meet Dr. Arthur Canon Doyle.
Meet Jack Sparks.
Meet Barry and Larry.
A book that leads you on, holding your breath, right to the very last page and the very last word on that page. That very last word that will give you chills up and down your spine!
Mark Frost, you did it! Wonderfully. You put in everything. I can't think what you left out!
Reader, do you know Sherlock Holmes?
Do you know Doctor Watson?
Do you know London in 1884?
Do you want a story that will build and build and keep you right on the edge of your chair to the last?
Do you want to appreciate an author that can string a list of words together that can make you appreciate the English language?
"Their trail took them to a gymnasium in a Soho side street, a squat, filthy brick building, its walls a palimpsest of posters trumpeting the forgotten but once epic collisions of yesterday's fistic gladiators. A soot-obscured homily traced the arch of the Greek Revival entryway, extolling the virtue of exercise to the development of a sound moral character."
Do you want to be introduced to characters that will become unforgettable?
Do you want to laugh?
Do you want to cry?
Do you want to cry for more?
READ THIS BOOK!
Meet Dr. Arthur Canon Doyle.
Meet Jack Sparks.
Meet Barry and Larry.
July 16, 2025
A veces es un tostón pero lo compensa los muy buenos momentos y el carisma de los personajes. Al llegar al último párrafo se crea una conexión que me ha dejado dando volteretas
July 22, 2025
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Blavatsky, sociedades secretas… Época victoriana… Esta novela tiene todos los ingredientes que me fascinan, así que en cuanto la vi, supe que tenía que leerla sí o sí. Y lo que encontré superó con creces mis expectativas.
Desde las primeras páginas, se nota que esta historia no es un thriller cualquiera. Todo arranca con una carta misteriosa que llega a manos de un joven Conan Doyle, mucho antes de ser el autor famoso que todos conocemos. Lo que parece una simple denuncia de fraude espiritista se convierte en una conspiración peligrosa que mezcla crimen, magia negra, política, literatura, y ciencia en una Londres tan oscura y llena de niebla como fascinante.
La ambientación es uno de los grandes aciertos de la novela. El Londres victoriano está tan bien recreado que casi puedes oler el hollín en el aire o sentir los adoquines fríos bajo los pies. Se nota que el autor ha hecho una labor de documentación tremenda, pero lo mejor es que no te lo lanza como una lección de historia: lo integra todo de forma natural, a través de la acción y de unos personajes que se sienten vivos.
Uno de ellos brilla con luz propia: Jack Sparks. Qué personaje. Misterioso, valiente, brillante, impredecible… Tiene esa mezcla de magnetismo y peligro que lo vuelve inolvidable. Me ha encantado cómo la novela juega con su figura y cómo su relación con Doyle se convierte en el verdadero corazón de la historia.
Y sí, hay momentos que rozan el terror sobrenatural, otros que son pura intriga conspirativa, y otros que se sienten como escenas de una gran aventura clásica. Todo encaja gracias a una narración que tiene un ritmo muy visual, muy dinámico, lo que no sorprende si tenemos en cuenta que Mark Frost es coguionista y cocreador de Twin Peaks. Esa capacidad de moverse entre lo racional y lo inquietante, entre lo cotidiano y lo extraño, está muy presente aquí.
Y qué decir del final… Tiene uno de esos epílogos que te dejan con una sonrisa, un nudo en la garganta y una idea clara en la cabeza: acabas de leer algo especial.
En resumen, La lista de los siete es un cóctel literario perfecto para quienes disfrutamos de la novela histórica con alma de thriller, del suspense con toques esotéricos, y de esos libros que huelen a aventura, a misterio y a páginas llenas de secretos.
Gracias a la editorial por esta edición tan cuidada y por traer de vuelta una historia que, aunque fue escrita en los años 90, sigue tan vigente y adictiva como si se hubiera publicado ayer.
Desde las primeras páginas, se nota que esta historia no es un thriller cualquiera. Todo arranca con una carta misteriosa que llega a manos de un joven Conan Doyle, mucho antes de ser el autor famoso que todos conocemos. Lo que parece una simple denuncia de fraude espiritista se convierte en una conspiración peligrosa que mezcla crimen, magia negra, política, literatura, y ciencia en una Londres tan oscura y llena de niebla como fascinante.
La ambientación es uno de los grandes aciertos de la novela. El Londres victoriano está tan bien recreado que casi puedes oler el hollín en el aire o sentir los adoquines fríos bajo los pies. Se nota que el autor ha hecho una labor de documentación tremenda, pero lo mejor es que no te lo lanza como una lección de historia: lo integra todo de forma natural, a través de la acción y de unos personajes que se sienten vivos.
Uno de ellos brilla con luz propia: Jack Sparks. Qué personaje. Misterioso, valiente, brillante, impredecible… Tiene esa mezcla de magnetismo y peligro que lo vuelve inolvidable. Me ha encantado cómo la novela juega con su figura y cómo su relación con Doyle se convierte en el verdadero corazón de la historia.
Y sí, hay momentos que rozan el terror sobrenatural, otros que son pura intriga conspirativa, y otros que se sienten como escenas de una gran aventura clásica. Todo encaja gracias a una narración que tiene un ritmo muy visual, muy dinámico, lo que no sorprende si tenemos en cuenta que Mark Frost es coguionista y cocreador de Twin Peaks. Esa capacidad de moverse entre lo racional y lo inquietante, entre lo cotidiano y lo extraño, está muy presente aquí.
Y qué decir del final… Tiene uno de esos epílogos que te dejan con una sonrisa, un nudo en la garganta y una idea clara en la cabeza: acabas de leer algo especial.
En resumen, La lista de los siete es un cóctel literario perfecto para quienes disfrutamos de la novela histórica con alma de thriller, del suspense con toques esotéricos, y de esos libros que huelen a aventura, a misterio y a páginas llenas de secretos.
Gracias a la editorial por esta edición tan cuidada y por traer de vuelta una historia que, aunque fue escrita en los años 90, sigue tan vigente y adictiva como si se hubiera publicado ayer.
December 29, 2017
I'm classifying this book as UF, I love a story with damn, good heroes and despicable, smart villains, and this book delivers.
Arthur Conan Doyle is saved from villainous types by the mysterious and skilled secret agent, Jack Sparks.
What follows is a romp through a Victorian England beset by a cult of evil magicians.
Lots of fun, and very engaging.
Arthur Conan Doyle is saved from villainous types by the mysterious and skilled secret agent, Jack Sparks.
What follows is a romp through a Victorian England beset by a cult of evil magicians.
Lots of fun, and very engaging.
November 22, 2011
1. Plot/Story -
Okay, the plot…well, that’s a tough question because I am not sure if what makes this book so interesting is considered “Plot” or “World Building.” On the possibility that it’s both, I’ll give some thoughts here, and some thoughts there.
To me this seemed a lot like the English version of the intense cowboy Secret Service Agent, James West, played by Robert Conrad with all the flare and pomposity of a Roger Moore James Bond or maybe a William Shatner styled Captain Kirk. Hey, not many short people can pull off the intensity of Sean Connery (it’s in the eyes, man) and the over played Canberra style Batman and Robin fist fights like William Shatner’s Kirk beatin’ alien butt, without the pictorial “POW!” and “SMACK!”. I grew up loving the Wild, Wild West on Television even before people thought of calling it “Steampunk.” I even liked the more modern movie starring Will Smith as an unlikely James West, as farfetched as it seemed. Of course Steam Punk was really invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, but that’s not important right now. What is important about the connection between one of my favorite serial television shows of the 60s and 70s, The Wild, Wild West, and The List of Seven is that, for me, Jack Sparks really came across as England’s James West, which makes Arthur Conan Doyle, the other featured character, as his Artemis Gordon. Or maybe that should be Artemis Gordon was Holme’s Watson and Doyle was Jacks’ Artemis, which is not to be confused with Bugs Bunny’s Daffy Duck or Abbott’s Lou Costello.
I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought there… where was I.. .Oh, yes.. .Wild, Wild West…
The book had a similar style and feel to it as the show from (egad) 1965. Horses, not cars, trains, not planes, maniacal megalomaniac villain’s with plans to rule the world that would make Ian Fleming go… “Now why didn’t I think of that?” (See last month’s read) and even a fun, sexy Heroine that broke several stereotypes of Victorian era women. Trust me, if the babe can stick a hat pin through a man’s eye and still look sexy in an evening gown and bloomers (or without either), she’s all right in my book (Come on Eileen!).
The List of Seven features a young Dr. of medicine and struggling Author named Arthur Conan Doyle who gets sucked into the strange and dark underworld of English Society after he tries to sell a book manuscript to the wrong publisher. Unlucky, Doyle’s book, which he believed a complete work of fiction, turns out to closer to the truth than the secret, shadow society known as “The Dark Brotherhood” feels comfortable with. Let that be a lesson to you would be authors out there: Make sure you check out your sources. Those that should be full of malarkey, crap or human fecal matter actually need to be so or you might have…complications (Shall we say?). (Yes, this is also reminiscent of one of “The Saint” movies where a damsel wrote about a secret criminal society so The Saint had to go save her. Ahh… films of the 60s where men were men and women were useless objects that were also good to look at only good for two or three things, one of them being cooking….but I digress again.
At the start of the book, Doyle falls for a fantastic and elaborate, theatrical ruse only to be saved at the last minute by the strange and extraordinary Jack Sparks… if that’s his real name. Jack’s impressive enough without fanfare, and Doyle impresses Sparks with his powers of perception and deductive reasoning. So, with very polite and proper English mutual consent, a Bromance is born!
As things turn out, Jack, much like Jim West (See the above digressive pursuits) happens to be a secret agent of the crown, sworn to protect Queen Victoria, and the Empire from all super villains, both maniacal and domestic…er, foreign and domestic I mean. He is diametrically opposed to one particularly crafty and wicked arch villain named Alexander. Jack is a master of disguise, a quick thinker. I’m sure there are prequels yet to be written of his exploits and daring adventures. He’s acquired a stock pile of weapons, books and information about villainous types and their thugs, written in code that only he can decipher, that he keeps in secret caches and apartments throughout the civilized world.
Jack is very familiar with Alexander, since . His relationship with Alexander includes a very graphic and horrific tail of Alexander’s cunning and diabolical meanness and villainy that is likely to beset a proper woman with a nasty case of “the vapors.” Which is Victorian English for “Yucky mean bad dude, make a good lady faint ‘e’s so bad.” (Or words to that effect).
From there Jack Sparks leads Doyle through adventure to adventure until he finally runs into the Pretty Hot And Tempting Lady Eileen (Which is Victorian English for P.H.A.T. Girl (pronounced-Fat Girl. Catchy huh?) who turns out to be almost as mysterious as Jack Sparks. Eileen reminded me of the beautiful Countess Polata, A.K.A. the Princess of Saxe-Felstein out of Doyle’s wonderful story “The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.” (the real Doyle) From the moment Doyle Meets Eileen, the Bromance sprouts a romance. The story really needed her. You know how things get with those English, British guys from the United Kingdom, all that proper talk, lilty sounding verbiage, and balderdash. They sound so gay sometimes, if one doesn’t bring a hot babe in a thrilling frock along. (Sometimes that doesn’t quite do it for them either.) Think Roddy McDowell without the ape costume. You know what I mean, without Luna it’s just Charlton Heston running around in a loin cloth with a bunch of sweaty men getting chased by apes. Yes, that was another Roddy McDowell allusion.
Aaaahh… The lovely Eileen, just the thought of her causes the heart to stir and the loins to melt like butter … oops…sorry, I was taken by a fit of fancy there. It won’t happen again, scouts honor. Let’s just say that Eileen is likely more wonderful as a character than Frost’s Doyle or Jack Sparks. She has multiple dimensions (not to be confused with my own “multiple dementias”) and turns out to be wonderfully capable, both in the power of her mind, acting skill as well as courage and heart. As it turns out, she’s pretty handy with a shotgun and a hat pin too, not a bad trait in a heroine when you’re being chased by zombie like followers of Lucifer.
Now it’s left to the three of to take on The Dark Brotherhood and Alexander Sparks. The DBH (Dark BrotherHood) sends an army of zombie like men to stop them. Somewhere along the way, it turns out that Alexander really can wield dark, black magic and he’s able to conjure up, summon or animate wicked beasties like mummies and gargoyles to harass and pound-ith our heroes into mush and tiny bits-eth. What’s a few Zombies between brother’s right?
Seriously, the plot is more than a bit over the top and improbable, and, like the TV shows, The Wild, Wild West, The Saint and Star Trek and any James Bond Movie, I just don’t care how unlikely the plot is. I just want more of it. Give me Jack Sparks and Jim West, Doyle and Gordon, Eileen and Yeoman Rand, and those wacky James Bond style villains any day. When we were watching those old shows we didn’t want realism, we wanted something else all together and they delivered. So did this book. I give the plot 4 stars out of five simply because it was fun and I enjoyed reading it. Do I need a better reason for 4 stars?
2. Setting/World building. Was the historical setting authentic feeling to you?
Frost’s depiction of Victorian England may not have been perfect, but it seemed real enough for me. What helped seal the deal was how much trouble he took adapting his writing style to mimic Arthur Conan Doyle’s own polished and often teasing writing style. It’s also important to mention that this wasn’t a historically accurate “Victorian England” it was a semi-steampunk England that reminded me so much of the themes and settings from shows of my youth. A world where super-villains could threaten the to bring about the end of the world and a powerful will could harness the powers of dark magic, a world where steam and coal ruled the day, not atomic weapons and gasoline.
Authentic world may not be the right word, believable might be stretching it, but whatever adjective fits, it’s just right enough for me to accept and carry on. I think it helped that I had just read an Arthur Conan Doyle book (the Exploits of Brigadier Gerard) before I read this and it was obvious how much work Frost put in trying to make his story read like one of Doyle’s. Is it any harder to believe in this world than Doyle’s “Lost World?”
We tend to forget about the “tone” and “measure” in writing is as much part of the “setting” or world building as descriptions and characters are. Frost chose to use Arthur Conan Doyle as his main character for a reason and every word, from start to finish helped keep that illusion alive. If you’re going to pick a theme, then stick with it! Frost’s word choice and decisions to deliberately stick with words and phrasing that not only fit a “Victorian Era” but also echoed the writing of Doyle himself.
The only two things that were, perhaps, not in keeping with a classic Victorian theme was the preference of dialog over “narration” (a modern style of writing verses an older one) and the character Eileen, who was definitely a modern woman by today’s standards rather than an intelligent, beautiful but useless Lady she would have been in Victorian times. Personally, I like the way modern stories tend to help you live through and experience conversations through dialog and action, rather than the old school style of telling us about what someone said through narration. That and Eileen is great (think Drexy’s Midnight Runners, “you know what I mean”).
What I mean is, even though it’s pretty standard for the author to write in the style of his chosen genre-era, that practice is also part of what keeps the image of Victorian London, or the Battlestar Galactica, or whatever, alive in our minds as we read. Frost did this exceptionally well in my opinion. And of course, remember, that this is, at its heart, more well-disguised steampunk than historical fiction. Some anachronisms and oddities should be expected. I give 3 and a half to 4 stars out of five for world building and setting.
3. Suspense/Adventure elements-- Did this story get your pulse pounding or give you any thrills?
Yes, right from the start, both with the mystery of the séance peaking my curiosity and the wild carriage ride, where Jack Sparks pins the zombie like man with his heart cut out to the door of the carriage with a sword, to what I thought was likely the most fun I’ve had reading a story “chase scene” where Eileen, Doyle and Sparks ride a coffin lid down a steep slope covered by snow and ice, with Jack whacking at bad guys with a shovel as they sped past on the toboggan ride from hell! (They ended up in a snow bank laughing their asses off (the laughing fit was started by our fearless Eileen, of course).
There was plenty of mystery and suspense and a lot of questions raised in my mind about what was real and what was imagined (within the context of the story). The story had plenty of “action” but the term “adventure” seems more fitting. I liked all of the mystery and suspense but sometimes it seemed like the mystery and tension came at the expense of suspense and plot. For example: I liked the story Jack Sparks told about him and Alexander, but, Jiminy Crickets, Man! Don’t you think it ran just a bit too long? Not to mention that telling Jack’s story, meant that Alexander Sparks stayed more a shadow figure, two dimensional, rather than bringing the devil alive and letting him in room with me! … um, figuratively speaking of course. Frost could have let Alexander Sparks prove how despicable and cruel he was through his actions, rather than having Jack tell it all to us in a 20 page narrative with lots of yucky stuff thrown in for effect. Alex is a baaaad dude, Man.
For Suspense and Adventure elements I give it 3 stars. Solid, but I think it could have had more adventure, more action and more suspense through a live in your face scenes where Alexander did, or tried to do these things to people, or perhaps let Doyle uncover/come across the scenes of his crimes without Jack painting the dark picture himself. The story ended luke warm compared to the hot beginning and middle.
4. Characterization
I’m shocked, but the more I think about it, the more I found the characters comparatively weaker than the characters in other books that I enjoyed as much as I did this one. On one hand, Doyle was based on the real person twisted around the characters he wrote about, so he was sort of stuck being such a ramrod straight proper Englishman who, though interesting could sometimes be a bit boring. Frost actually did a wonderful job with the character of Doyle character given that he had a fixed mold to work with. Frost managed far better with Eileen where he broke the regency romance and Victorian era mold and created a strong, yet very feminine, female character that could shoot like a man, ride a horse and think on her own.
I liked the way the Doyle character came to life once Eileen joined the story. She added a dimension to him that nobody would be able to see if left with Sherlock Holmes (the Spok of the crime fighting history) to build on. Plus, I like how Frost allowed Eileen to have her own motivation and feelings, rather than simply getting swept up in the heat of the moment. She was by far the most “real” of the main three characters and Bravo to Frost for allowing her to be a strong heroine when strong heroines are so hard to find. One might say Doyle was the brain of the story, and Eileen the heart of it, but that might sell short how capable Eileen turned out to be. I liked the romance and the way it turned out in the end. I’ll not spoil that in this review, but the ending was not what I expected (in a good way).
I also loved Barry and Larry. Though they were only supporting cast to Doyle and Sparks, the two street toughs and would be thieves supported Jack Sparks excellently. They were funny, capable and had their own dark sides to overcome.
As for the rest of the supporting cast, mostly the villainy, I thought they stayed a little too much in the shadows and not enough in the flesh and bone department. Even Alexander seemed more like a cardboard cutout. Most of Alexander’s character development got channeled into Jack Sparks which had the effect of building up Jack Sparks while keeping Alexander Sparks as thin as paper, even though we had learned so much about him. Even the bestiary tended to be little more than sounds and shadows that kept Doyle in fear and the rest of us guessing if it was live or “Memorex” than living moving creatures that needed to seek and destroy at their master’s bidding.
Jack Sparks is more difficult to deal with. I loved the character, but with the main focus on Doyle, then Doyle and Eileen, the story of Jack Sparks and all the questions surrounding him tended to compete with each other. Depending on what seemed more interesting at the time, one story thread tended to overwhelm the other. Finally when Eileen and Doyle’s love affair starts to heat up, Jack disappears from the scene all together only to come back in the end to save the day.
I’d love to have a story featuring Jack Sparks without Doyle around so we could get to know him better. Sparks has so much potential. He came across a lot like Pendergast in Lincoln and Childs Relic and Reliquary, an important figure in the story, but he really didn’t come into his own until the third book of the series. So be it with Sparks. I just wanted to read more about him in action. That’s all.
5. Overall rating: 1-5 stars or out of 1-10.
Overall, I’d give this 3.75 stars out of 5, which rounds off to be a 4 star read. It’s entertaining, fun and different that most of the books on the shelf. I’d give a warning about violence and graphic descriptions, and sexual content but all of that is manageable by most young adults at the upper end of the young adult age group. It’s not for children, but the content could easily be edited so it would be appropriate for younger readers.
6. Similar books you'd recommend?
I don’t know of any other books like this one. It bears a limited resemblance to the Dresden files, but that’s a leap that I’m not completely sure I’d make.
As far as recommending it, I’d recommend it to anyone over the age of 18. It’s a fun read, and worth the time I spent reading it.
Okay, the plot…well, that’s a tough question because I am not sure if what makes this book so interesting is considered “Plot” or “World Building.” On the possibility that it’s both, I’ll give some thoughts here, and some thoughts there.
To me this seemed a lot like the English version of the intense cowboy Secret Service Agent, James West, played by Robert Conrad with all the flare and pomposity of a Roger Moore James Bond or maybe a William Shatner styled Captain Kirk. Hey, not many short people can pull off the intensity of Sean Connery (it’s in the eyes, man) and the over played Canberra style Batman and Robin fist fights like William Shatner’s Kirk beatin’ alien butt, without the pictorial “POW!” and “SMACK!”. I grew up loving the Wild, Wild West on Television even before people thought of calling it “Steampunk.” I even liked the more modern movie starring Will Smith as an unlikely James West, as farfetched as it seemed. Of course Steam Punk was really invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, but that’s not important right now. What is important about the connection between one of my favorite serial television shows of the 60s and 70s, The Wild, Wild West, and The List of Seven is that, for me, Jack Sparks really came across as England’s James West, which makes Arthur Conan Doyle, the other featured character, as his Artemis Gordon. Or maybe that should be Artemis Gordon was Holme’s Watson and Doyle was Jacks’ Artemis, which is not to be confused with Bugs Bunny’s Daffy Duck or Abbott’s Lou Costello.
I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought there… where was I.. .Oh, yes.. .Wild, Wild West…
The book had a similar style and feel to it as the show from (egad) 1965. Horses, not cars, trains, not planes, maniacal megalomaniac villain’s with plans to rule the world that would make Ian Fleming go… “Now why didn’t I think of that?” (See last month’s read) and even a fun, sexy Heroine that broke several stereotypes of Victorian era women. Trust me, if the babe can stick a hat pin through a man’s eye and still look sexy in an evening gown and bloomers (or without either), she’s all right in my book (Come on Eileen!).
The List of Seven features a young Dr. of medicine and struggling Author named Arthur Conan Doyle who gets sucked into the strange and dark underworld of English Society after he tries to sell a book manuscript to the wrong publisher. Unlucky, Doyle’s book, which he believed a complete work of fiction, turns out to closer to the truth than the secret, shadow society known as “The Dark Brotherhood” feels comfortable with. Let that be a lesson to you would be authors out there: Make sure you check out your sources. Those that should be full of malarkey, crap or human fecal matter actually need to be so or you might have…complications (Shall we say?). (Yes, this is also reminiscent of one of “The Saint” movies where a damsel wrote about a secret criminal society so The Saint had to go save her. Ahh… films of the 60s where men were men and women were useless objects that were also good to look at only good for two or three things, one of them being cooking….but I digress again.
At the start of the book, Doyle falls for a fantastic and elaborate, theatrical ruse only to be saved at the last minute by the strange and extraordinary Jack Sparks… if that’s his real name. Jack’s impressive enough without fanfare, and Doyle impresses Sparks with his powers of perception and deductive reasoning. So, with very polite and proper English mutual consent, a Bromance is born!
As things turn out, Jack, much like Jim West (See the above digressive pursuits) happens to be a secret agent of the crown, sworn to protect Queen Victoria, and the Empire from all super villains, both maniacal and domestic…er, foreign and domestic I mean. He is diametrically opposed to one particularly crafty and wicked arch villain named Alexander. Jack is a master of disguise, a quick thinker. I’m sure there are prequels yet to be written of his exploits and daring adventures. He’s acquired a stock pile of weapons, books and information about villainous types and their thugs, written in code that only he can decipher, that he keeps in secret caches and apartments throughout the civilized world.
Jack is very familiar with Alexander, since . His relationship with Alexander includes a very graphic and horrific tail of Alexander’s cunning and diabolical meanness and villainy that is likely to beset a proper woman with a nasty case of “the vapors.” Which is Victorian English for “Yucky mean bad dude, make a good lady faint ‘e’s so bad.” (Or words to that effect).
From there Jack Sparks leads Doyle through adventure to adventure until he finally runs into the Pretty Hot And Tempting Lady Eileen (Which is Victorian English for P.H.A.T. Girl (pronounced-Fat Girl. Catchy huh?) who turns out to be almost as mysterious as Jack Sparks. Eileen reminded me of the beautiful Countess Polata, A.K.A. the Princess of Saxe-Felstein out of Doyle’s wonderful story “The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.” (the real Doyle) From the moment Doyle Meets Eileen, the Bromance sprouts a romance. The story really needed her. You know how things get with those English, British guys from the United Kingdom, all that proper talk, lilty sounding verbiage, and balderdash. They sound so gay sometimes, if one doesn’t bring a hot babe in a thrilling frock along. (Sometimes that doesn’t quite do it for them either.) Think Roddy McDowell without the ape costume. You know what I mean, without Luna it’s just Charlton Heston running around in a loin cloth with a bunch of sweaty men getting chased by apes. Yes, that was another Roddy McDowell allusion.
Aaaahh… The lovely Eileen, just the thought of her causes the heart to stir and the loins to melt like butter … oops…sorry, I was taken by a fit of fancy there. It won’t happen again, scouts honor. Let’s just say that Eileen is likely more wonderful as a character than Frost’s Doyle or Jack Sparks. She has multiple dimensions (not to be confused with my own “multiple dementias”) and turns out to be wonderfully capable, both in the power of her mind, acting skill as well as courage and heart. As it turns out, she’s pretty handy with a shotgun and a hat pin too, not a bad trait in a heroine when you’re being chased by zombie like followers of Lucifer.
Now it’s left to the three of to take on The Dark Brotherhood and Alexander Sparks. The DBH (Dark BrotherHood) sends an army of zombie like men to stop them. Somewhere along the way, it turns out that Alexander really can wield dark, black magic and he’s able to conjure up, summon or animate wicked beasties like mummies and gargoyles to harass and pound-ith our heroes into mush and tiny bits-eth. What’s a few Zombies between brother’s right?
Seriously, the plot is more than a bit over the top and improbable, and, like the TV shows, The Wild, Wild West, The Saint and Star Trek and any James Bond Movie, I just don’t care how unlikely the plot is. I just want more of it. Give me Jack Sparks and Jim West, Doyle and Gordon, Eileen and Yeoman Rand, and those wacky James Bond style villains any day. When we were watching those old shows we didn’t want realism, we wanted something else all together and they delivered. So did this book. I give the plot 4 stars out of five simply because it was fun and I enjoyed reading it. Do I need a better reason for 4 stars?
2. Setting/World building. Was the historical setting authentic feeling to you?
Frost’s depiction of Victorian England may not have been perfect, but it seemed real enough for me. What helped seal the deal was how much trouble he took adapting his writing style to mimic Arthur Conan Doyle’s own polished and often teasing writing style. It’s also important to mention that this wasn’t a historically accurate “Victorian England” it was a semi-steampunk England that reminded me so much of the themes and settings from shows of my youth. A world where super-villains could threaten the to bring about the end of the world and a powerful will could harness the powers of dark magic, a world where steam and coal ruled the day, not atomic weapons and gasoline.
Authentic world may not be the right word, believable might be stretching it, but whatever adjective fits, it’s just right enough for me to accept and carry on. I think it helped that I had just read an Arthur Conan Doyle book (the Exploits of Brigadier Gerard) before I read this and it was obvious how much work Frost put in trying to make his story read like one of Doyle’s. Is it any harder to believe in this world than Doyle’s “Lost World?”
We tend to forget about the “tone” and “measure” in writing is as much part of the “setting” or world building as descriptions and characters are. Frost chose to use Arthur Conan Doyle as his main character for a reason and every word, from start to finish helped keep that illusion alive. If you’re going to pick a theme, then stick with it! Frost’s word choice and decisions to deliberately stick with words and phrasing that not only fit a “Victorian Era” but also echoed the writing of Doyle himself.
The only two things that were, perhaps, not in keeping with a classic Victorian theme was the preference of dialog over “narration” (a modern style of writing verses an older one) and the character Eileen, who was definitely a modern woman by today’s standards rather than an intelligent, beautiful but useless Lady she would have been in Victorian times. Personally, I like the way modern stories tend to help you live through and experience conversations through dialog and action, rather than the old school style of telling us about what someone said through narration. That and Eileen is great (think Drexy’s Midnight Runners, “you know what I mean”).
What I mean is, even though it’s pretty standard for the author to write in the style of his chosen genre-era, that practice is also part of what keeps the image of Victorian London, or the Battlestar Galactica, or whatever, alive in our minds as we read. Frost did this exceptionally well in my opinion. And of course, remember, that this is, at its heart, more well-disguised steampunk than historical fiction. Some anachronisms and oddities should be expected. I give 3 and a half to 4 stars out of five for world building and setting.
3. Suspense/Adventure elements-- Did this story get your pulse pounding or give you any thrills?
Yes, right from the start, both with the mystery of the séance peaking my curiosity and the wild carriage ride, where Jack Sparks pins the zombie like man with his heart cut out to the door of the carriage with a sword, to what I thought was likely the most fun I’ve had reading a story “chase scene” where Eileen, Doyle and Sparks ride a coffin lid down a steep slope covered by snow and ice, with Jack whacking at bad guys with a shovel as they sped past on the toboggan ride from hell! (They ended up in a snow bank laughing their asses off (the laughing fit was started by our fearless Eileen, of course).
There was plenty of mystery and suspense and a lot of questions raised in my mind about what was real and what was imagined (within the context of the story). The story had plenty of “action” but the term “adventure” seems more fitting. I liked all of the mystery and suspense but sometimes it seemed like the mystery and tension came at the expense of suspense and plot. For example: I liked the story Jack Sparks told about him and Alexander, but, Jiminy Crickets, Man! Don’t you think it ran just a bit too long? Not to mention that telling Jack’s story, meant that Alexander Sparks stayed more a shadow figure, two dimensional, rather than bringing the devil alive and letting him in room with me! … um, figuratively speaking of course. Frost could have let Alexander Sparks prove how despicable and cruel he was through his actions, rather than having Jack tell it all to us in a 20 page narrative with lots of yucky stuff thrown in for effect. Alex is a baaaad dude, Man.
For Suspense and Adventure elements I give it 3 stars. Solid, but I think it could have had more adventure, more action and more suspense through a live in your face scenes where Alexander did, or tried to do these things to people, or perhaps let Doyle uncover/come across the scenes of his crimes without Jack painting the dark picture himself. The story ended luke warm compared to the hot beginning and middle.
4. Characterization
I’m shocked, but the more I think about it, the more I found the characters comparatively weaker than the characters in other books that I enjoyed as much as I did this one. On one hand, Doyle was based on the real person twisted around the characters he wrote about, so he was sort of stuck being such a ramrod straight proper Englishman who, though interesting could sometimes be a bit boring. Frost actually did a wonderful job with the character of Doyle character given that he had a fixed mold to work with. Frost managed far better with Eileen where he broke the regency romance and Victorian era mold and created a strong, yet very feminine, female character that could shoot like a man, ride a horse and think on her own.
I liked the way the Doyle character came to life once Eileen joined the story. She added a dimension to him that nobody would be able to see if left with Sherlock Holmes (the Spok of the crime fighting history) to build on. Plus, I like how Frost allowed Eileen to have her own motivation and feelings, rather than simply getting swept up in the heat of the moment. She was by far the most “real” of the main three characters and Bravo to Frost for allowing her to be a strong heroine when strong heroines are so hard to find. One might say Doyle was the brain of the story, and Eileen the heart of it, but that might sell short how capable Eileen turned out to be. I liked the romance and the way it turned out in the end. I’ll not spoil that in this review, but the ending was not what I expected (in a good way).
I also loved Barry and Larry. Though they were only supporting cast to Doyle and Sparks, the two street toughs and would be thieves supported Jack Sparks excellently. They were funny, capable and had their own dark sides to overcome.
As for the rest of the supporting cast, mostly the villainy, I thought they stayed a little too much in the shadows and not enough in the flesh and bone department. Even Alexander seemed more like a cardboard cutout. Most of Alexander’s character development got channeled into Jack Sparks which had the effect of building up Jack Sparks while keeping Alexander Sparks as thin as paper, even though we had learned so much about him. Even the bestiary tended to be little more than sounds and shadows that kept Doyle in fear and the rest of us guessing if it was live or “Memorex” than living moving creatures that needed to seek and destroy at their master’s bidding.
Jack Sparks is more difficult to deal with. I loved the character, but with the main focus on Doyle, then Doyle and Eileen, the story of Jack Sparks and all the questions surrounding him tended to compete with each other. Depending on what seemed more interesting at the time, one story thread tended to overwhelm the other. Finally when Eileen and Doyle’s love affair starts to heat up, Jack disappears from the scene all together only to come back in the end to save the day.
I’d love to have a story featuring Jack Sparks without Doyle around so we could get to know him better. Sparks has so much potential. He came across a lot like Pendergast in Lincoln and Childs Relic and Reliquary, an important figure in the story, but he really didn’t come into his own until the third book of the series. So be it with Sparks. I just wanted to read more about him in action. That’s all.
5. Overall rating: 1-5 stars or out of 1-10.
Overall, I’d give this 3.75 stars out of 5, which rounds off to be a 4 star read. It’s entertaining, fun and different that most of the books on the shelf. I’d give a warning about violence and graphic descriptions, and sexual content but all of that is manageable by most young adults at the upper end of the young adult age group. It’s not for children, but the content could easily be edited so it would be appropriate for younger readers.
6. Similar books you'd recommend?
I don’t know of any other books like this one. It bears a limited resemblance to the Dresden files, but that’s a leap that I’m not completely sure I’d make.
As far as recommending it, I’d recommend it to anyone over the age of 18. It’s a fun read, and worth the time I spent reading it.
abandonados
August 30, 2025Este libro no es para mí. Y eso que creía que sí lo sería, porque en principio tenía todos los ingredientes para que me encantara.
Pero tras un primer capítulo desastroso, lo he intentado con dos más y me he plantado. Ni me interesa la trama, ni me gusta cómo narra y, lo peor de todo, me ha aburrido soberanamente. Y he tenido la certeza de que, para mí, ya no iba a remontar, que ya no me iba a gustar.
Demasiada poca vida para leer todo lo que me apetece (y releer todo lo que me ha fascinado), así que lo dejo.
Antes no lo hacía nunca. Ahora, ya no me tiembla el pulso para abandonar un libro: a veces sé que simplemente lo he pillado en un momento personal equivocado, y lo dejo para más adelante, cuando pueda hacerle justicia (y sabiendo que es muy probable que me acabe gustando).
Otras, como esta ocasión, sé que no hay nada que hacer, que es una cuestión de piel, y ni tan siquiera me apetece perder el tiempo y seguir leyendo.
Una lástima.
No lo valoro porque no he leído ni el 50%, y porque es una cuestión de falta de química entre el libro y yo.
Pero tras un primer capítulo desastroso, lo he intentado con dos más y me he plantado. Ni me interesa la trama, ni me gusta cómo narra y, lo peor de todo, me ha aburrido soberanamente. Y he tenido la certeza de que, para mí, ya no iba a remontar, que ya no me iba a gustar.
Demasiada poca vida para leer todo lo que me apetece (y releer todo lo que me ha fascinado), así que lo dejo.
Antes no lo hacía nunca. Ahora, ya no me tiembla el pulso para abandonar un libro: a veces sé que simplemente lo he pillado en un momento personal equivocado, y lo dejo para más adelante, cuando pueda hacerle justicia (y sabiendo que es muy probable que me acabe gustando).
Otras, como esta ocasión, sé que no hay nada que hacer, que es una cuestión de piel, y ni tan siquiera me apetece perder el tiempo y seguir leyendo.
Una lástima.
No lo valoro porque no he leído ni el 50%, y porque es una cuestión de falta de química entre el libro y yo.
July 5, 2025
Difícil calificar está novela. Es más una historia de aventuras que un misterio. Muy buena forma de relatar los hechos aunque falla un poco en la ambientación.
February 15, 2021
""And why do you think the animals blazed this particular path?" Spark's had slipped into the tone of a Sophist leading the ignorant step by step to the sacred land of truth.
"Something to do with the availability of water or food."
"Necessity, then."
"Their lives are ordered by it, aren't they?"
"Are you familiar with the Chinese philosophy of feng shui?
"Never heard of it."
"The Chinese believe the earth itself is a living, breathing organism, and just as the human body has veins, nerves, and vital energies running through it, regulating maintenance and behavior, so too does the earth."
"I know their system of medicine is based on such an assumption," Doyle added, wondering what this had even remotely to do with Roman roads in Essex.
"Exactly so. Feng shui assumes the presence of these lines of force and attempts to bring human existence into harmony with them. Practitioners of feng shui are trained and initiated as rigorously as members of any priesthood, increasing their sensitivity to these powers and their ability to accurately interpret them. The building of homes, roads, churches, the entire five-thousandyear-
old Chinese Empire—the most enduring civilization our world has produced—was constructed in strictest alignment with these principles."
"You don't say."
"Aside from his obvious ignorance, filth, and lack of sophistication, what quality could most recommend to us prehistoric man?"
"Something to do with the availability of water or food."
"Necessity, then."
"Their lives are ordered by it, aren't they?"
"Are you familiar with the Chinese philosophy of feng shui?
"Never heard of it."
"The Chinese believe the earth itself is a living, breathing organism, and just as the human body has veins, nerves, and vital energies running through it, regulating maintenance and behavior, so too does the earth."
"I know their system of medicine is based on such an assumption," Doyle added, wondering what this had even remotely to do with Roman roads in Essex.
"Exactly so. Feng shui assumes the presence of these lines of force and attempts to bring human existence into harmony with them. Practitioners of feng shui are trained and initiated as rigorously as members of any priesthood, increasing their sensitivity to these powers and their ability to accurately interpret them. The building of homes, roads, churches, the entire five-thousandyear-
old Chinese Empire—the most enduring civilization our world has produced—was constructed in strictest alignment with these principles."
"You don't say."
"Aside from his obvious ignorance, filth, and lack of sophistication, what quality could most recommend to us prehistoric man?"
June 8, 2017
-La sombra de Twin Peaks tal vez le permitió publicar.-
Género. Novela (dejémoslo ahí… pero tal vez podría entrar en otra clasificación del blog…).
Lo que nos cuenta. Arthur Conan Doyle es un médico joven al que le gustaría triunfar como escritor y que recibe una extraña carta en la que se le invita a una sesión de espiritismo, donde se le advierte que alguien corre peligro, y en la que efectivamente se produce un acto violento.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Novela (dejémoslo ahí… pero tal vez podría entrar en otra clasificación del blog…).
Lo que nos cuenta. Arthur Conan Doyle es un médico joven al que le gustaría triunfar como escritor y que recibe una extraña carta en la que se le invita a una sesión de espiritismo, donde se le advierte que alguien corre peligro, y en la que efectivamente se produce un acto violento.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
June 4, 2009
It grabbed me at the start and slowly lost me as I went along. The characters and action were over the top in a pulp writing style, which is OK with me if handled correctly, but it came off a little silly in this case.
April 20, 2010
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I recently had occasion to think again about the exquisitely strange 1990s television show Twin Peaks, co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost; and that got me thinking again about Frost's two genre novels from that time period as well, 1993's The List of 7 and '95's The 6 Messiahs, the first of which I read way back when it originally came out, which inspired me this month to check them out from the library here in Chicago. Essentially steampunk tales from the dawn of that term's creation, they tell related stories based on the idea of the real Arthur Conan Doyle going on a series of occultish adventures in the late 1800s, accompanied by a secret agent of the Queen named Jack Sparks who ends up providing many of the traits for Doyle's later Sherlock Holmes stories.
Almost twenty years later, I had mostly fond if not dim memories of the first book, one of the first steampunk tales I ever read; and indeed, re-reading it again this month, it was in fact as entertaining as my memory had it. But twenty years of genre development has made steampunk a much more sophisticated thing now than it was at its inception, and unfortunately these books now display the weaknesses that come with their age; read now in the wake of much better books that have come after, they seem a little clunkier than they did before, a bit more obvious in their machinations, and with a bad Hollywood tone much of the time, as if Frost were only writing them so that he could then sell the film rights, not surprising when it comes to an industry veteran like himself. Now combine this with the fact that the very concept gets kind of muddled by the second book -- the whole charm of the first one laying mostly in the idea of Doyle being a young, clueless, untested doctor, thrown into the middle of shadowy conspiracies he doesn't understand, an aspect missing in the sequel where he is now a field-tested veteran of the strange -- and it's easy to see why Frost eventually abandoned what could've been the start of a lucrative franchise, and has only penned sports-themed novels in the years since. Interesting for a lark, and for those curious about steampunk's origins, but not something you should go out of your way to read.
Out of 10: 7.9
I recently had occasion to think again about the exquisitely strange 1990s television show Twin Peaks, co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost; and that got me thinking again about Frost's two genre novels from that time period as well, 1993's The List of 7 and '95's The 6 Messiahs, the first of which I read way back when it originally came out, which inspired me this month to check them out from the library here in Chicago. Essentially steampunk tales from the dawn of that term's creation, they tell related stories based on the idea of the real Arthur Conan Doyle going on a series of occultish adventures in the late 1800s, accompanied by a secret agent of the Queen named Jack Sparks who ends up providing many of the traits for Doyle's later Sherlock Holmes stories.
Almost twenty years later, I had mostly fond if not dim memories of the first book, one of the first steampunk tales I ever read; and indeed, re-reading it again this month, it was in fact as entertaining as my memory had it. But twenty years of genre development has made steampunk a much more sophisticated thing now than it was at its inception, and unfortunately these books now display the weaknesses that come with their age; read now in the wake of much better books that have come after, they seem a little clunkier than they did before, a bit more obvious in their machinations, and with a bad Hollywood tone much of the time, as if Frost were only writing them so that he could then sell the film rights, not surprising when it comes to an industry veteran like himself. Now combine this with the fact that the very concept gets kind of muddled by the second book -- the whole charm of the first one laying mostly in the idea of Doyle being a young, clueless, untested doctor, thrown into the middle of shadowy conspiracies he doesn't understand, an aspect missing in the sequel where he is now a field-tested veteran of the strange -- and it's easy to see why Frost eventually abandoned what could've been the start of a lucrative franchise, and has only penned sports-themed novels in the years since. Interesting for a lark, and for those curious about steampunk's origins, but not something you should go out of your way to read.
Out of 10: 7.9
November 5, 2013
It's not often you stumble upon a book that totally sucks you in and ticks all of the right buttons straight away. The List of 7 did that for me.
Sherlock Holmes - TICK
Occult themes - TICK
Victorian setting - TICK
Jack the Ripper - TICK
Egyptology - TICK
Spiritualism - TICK
Zombies, vampires and other monsters - TICK
It felt that this book was written for me - I'm such a selfish reader.
The basic premise is that Arthur Conan Doyle's life is threatened following attendance at a seance; invited by a woman who wants his help. Jack Sparks rescues Doyle and warns him against the dark forces that are stalking him. What unfolds is a manic rush around the country escaping 'the grey hoods' and trying to solve the mystery of the 7.
If you know anything about the era, Conan Doyle, Sherlock or Jack the Ripper some of the 'revelations' in the book will not surprise you, but you will feel quite canny in solving some of the riddles.
The only thing that really irked me while reading this book was the American spellings of words. A book that is so steeped in English culture and history should be written using the English spellings. I know, this is really picky, but I'M really picky!
Other than that - if you enjoy a good romp, love Sherlock Holmes and enjoy your mysteries to have an esoteric edge read this. You won't regret it.
Sherlock Holmes - TICK
Occult themes - TICK
Victorian setting - TICK
Jack the Ripper - TICK
Egyptology - TICK
Spiritualism - TICK
Zombies, vampires and other monsters - TICK
It felt that this book was written for me - I'm such a selfish reader.
The basic premise is that Arthur Conan Doyle's life is threatened following attendance at a seance; invited by a woman who wants his help. Jack Sparks rescues Doyle and warns him against the dark forces that are stalking him. What unfolds is a manic rush around the country escaping 'the grey hoods' and trying to solve the mystery of the 7.
If you know anything about the era, Conan Doyle, Sherlock or Jack the Ripper some of the 'revelations' in the book will not surprise you, but you will feel quite canny in solving some of the riddles.
The only thing that really irked me while reading this book was the American spellings of words. A book that is so steeped in English culture and history should be written using the English spellings. I know, this is really picky, but I'M really picky!
Other than that - if you enjoy a good romp, love Sherlock Holmes and enjoy your mysteries to have an esoteric edge read this. You won't regret it.
October 8, 2025
Este thriller de época victoriana es para amantes de Sherlock Holmes. El autor ha querido hacer un guiño a nuestro investigador más famoso y excéntrico con esta novela en la que el protagonista es Arthur Conan Doyle, creador de Sherlock, y en la que no puedes evitar ver símiles, él mismo se asemeja al doctor Watson, y Jack Sparcks sería nuestro Sherlock sin duda.
El Doctor Arhur Conan Doyle presencia un asesinato en una sesión de espiritismo y a partir de este suceso se desencadena una aventura tras otra en la novela, porque al final, aunque sí existen deducciones por parte de los personajes al más puro estilo Sherlock, lo que más prima son las aventuras y el misterio, rodeado de asesinatos, desapariciones y sucesos paranormales.
La historia está bien pero cuesta conectar con el estilo del libro, no sé si por la traducción, falta de corrección o si es así de inicio, con el paso del libro se va suavizando pero el principio es bastante confuso.
Me ha gustado, como novela para pasar el rato está bien y tiene momentos en los que también me he reído , aunque llega un momento en el libro que eso se corta y es bastante oscuro.
El Doctor Arhur Conan Doyle presencia un asesinato en una sesión de espiritismo y a partir de este suceso se desencadena una aventura tras otra en la novela, porque al final, aunque sí existen deducciones por parte de los personajes al más puro estilo Sherlock, lo que más prima son las aventuras y el misterio, rodeado de asesinatos, desapariciones y sucesos paranormales.
La historia está bien pero cuesta conectar con el estilo del libro, no sé si por la traducción, falta de corrección o si es así de inicio, con el paso del libro se va suavizando pero el principio es bastante confuso.
Me ha gustado, como novela para pasar el rato está bien y tiene momentos en los que también me he reído , aunque llega un momento en el libro que eso se corta y es bastante oscuro.
March 1, 2023
Trotz einiger Längen am Ende doch 4 Sterne
Read
August 18, 2025Comienzo con una breve reseña del libro y dejo para el final unas impresiones más personales, fruto de confrontar expectativas y reflexión:
«La lista de los siete» es una novela de aventuras con elementos de misterio y terror que sitúa la acción en el Londres victoriano. Su elemento más diferencial es el uso de Arthur Conan Doyle como protagonista del relato. La novela se publicó en 1993, lo que puede llevar a pensar que el detalle de usar una versión ficcionada de un personaje real podía ser original en su época, pero lo cierto es que este recurso se viene utilizando desde hace siglos, literalmente. Ahí tenemos el «Zadig» de Voltaire (1747) que usaba al rey Nabucodonosor y a la reina Astarté; o «Ivanhoe» de Walter Scott (1920) que daba el protagonismo al rey Ricardo Corazón de León; o «Los tres mosqueteros» de Alexandre Dumas, que ficcionaba a diferentes figuras históricas como el cardenal Richelieu o el rey Luis XIII. No obstante, es de justicia decir que Frost hace un uso muy interesante de Doyle, creando un personaje ambiguo y contradictorio, aunque sin alejarse demasiado del perfil que una novela de aventuras necesita.
La trama en sí tampoco resulta original en exceso: se aúnan elementos espiritistas, muy alineados con la época, conspiraciones sectarias, ciertos detalles sobrenaturales y dramas familiares. Todo muy canónico, si nos paramos a pensar en el contexto victoriano, pero bien dosificado. La ambientación y los personajes funcionan muy bien, todo está engrasado como solo alguien con un gran oficio puede conseguir. De esas novelas que parecen escritas para trasladarse con facilidad a la pantalla. De hecho, el propio Frost trabajó en un guión cinematográfico, y Guillermo del Toro ha mostrado interés en convertirla en una película, pero en el momento de escribir esta reseña ninguno de estos intentos ha prosperado.
Sin embargo, todo lo anterior no hubiera sido suficiente para mantener mi interés por la novela, de no ser por otro factor determinante: el ritmo y el estilo, que son puro disfrute. Frost le imprime un pulso realmente adictivo a la novela, gracias a su foco constante sobre la acción física y emocional. Y no es fácil hacerlo en un contexto victoriano, dado al exceso de formas y ornamentos, por lo que cabe aplaudir la capacidad del autor para equilibrar las necesidades clásicas de la ambientación con un ritmo más contemporáneo.
Dicho esto, debo decir que mi sensación al cerrar el libro fue de decepción. El motivo que me llevó a acercarme a esta novela fue saber que había sido escrita por Mark Frost, cocreador de Twin Peaks o Hill Street Blues. Las expectativas nunca son buenas: esperaba que el texto me volara la cabeza y me llevara a los mismos sitios (especialmente a los meandros y abismos de Twin Peaks, lo admito), pero no fue así. Y, claro, luego investigo y veo que Frost ha trabajado en muchos otros proyectos, más convencionales y casi siempre muy exitosos. Desde ese nuevo punto de vista, la novela es totalmente coherente con lo que cabe esperar de un autor que conoce al milímetro su profesión y quiere situar su obra en la narrativa popular. Desde ese punto de vista, «La lista de los siete» resulta incluso un poco ambiciosa y transgresora para el momento que se publicó.
Esto me ha hecho pensar en que una parte importante del éxito masivo de Twin Peaks tuvo que ver precisamente con el papel de Frost para afianzar el expresionismo onírico y surrealista de David Lynch dentro de los códigos de una narrativa popular, capaz de llegar al público general. Eso es lo que consiguió que muchas personas que serían incapaces de enfrentarse a una película de Lynch, se convirtieran en devotos de uno de las fenómenos más importantes de la historia televisiva. Y eso tiene su mérito. Un mérito enorme, diría yo.
Dicho todo esto: si lo que buscas es una novela innovadora, provocadora y disruptiva, podrías acabar igual de decepcionado que yo. Pero si amas las novelas de aventuras y misterio, es muy probable que la disfrutes. Puede que mucho, incluso.
«La lista de los siete» es una novela de aventuras con elementos de misterio y terror que sitúa la acción en el Londres victoriano. Su elemento más diferencial es el uso de Arthur Conan Doyle como protagonista del relato. La novela se publicó en 1993, lo que puede llevar a pensar que el detalle de usar una versión ficcionada de un personaje real podía ser original en su época, pero lo cierto es que este recurso se viene utilizando desde hace siglos, literalmente. Ahí tenemos el «Zadig» de Voltaire (1747) que usaba al rey Nabucodonosor y a la reina Astarté; o «Ivanhoe» de Walter Scott (1920) que daba el protagonismo al rey Ricardo Corazón de León; o «Los tres mosqueteros» de Alexandre Dumas, que ficcionaba a diferentes figuras históricas como el cardenal Richelieu o el rey Luis XIII. No obstante, es de justicia decir que Frost hace un uso muy interesante de Doyle, creando un personaje ambiguo y contradictorio, aunque sin alejarse demasiado del perfil que una novela de aventuras necesita.
La trama en sí tampoco resulta original en exceso: se aúnan elementos espiritistas, muy alineados con la época, conspiraciones sectarias, ciertos detalles sobrenaturales y dramas familiares. Todo muy canónico, si nos paramos a pensar en el contexto victoriano, pero bien dosificado. La ambientación y los personajes funcionan muy bien, todo está engrasado como solo alguien con un gran oficio puede conseguir. De esas novelas que parecen escritas para trasladarse con facilidad a la pantalla. De hecho, el propio Frost trabajó en un guión cinematográfico, y Guillermo del Toro ha mostrado interés en convertirla en una película, pero en el momento de escribir esta reseña ninguno de estos intentos ha prosperado.
Sin embargo, todo lo anterior no hubiera sido suficiente para mantener mi interés por la novela, de no ser por otro factor determinante: el ritmo y el estilo, que son puro disfrute. Frost le imprime un pulso realmente adictivo a la novela, gracias a su foco constante sobre la acción física y emocional. Y no es fácil hacerlo en un contexto victoriano, dado al exceso de formas y ornamentos, por lo que cabe aplaudir la capacidad del autor para equilibrar las necesidades clásicas de la ambientación con un ritmo más contemporáneo.
Dicho esto, debo decir que mi sensación al cerrar el libro fue de decepción. El motivo que me llevó a acercarme a esta novela fue saber que había sido escrita por Mark Frost, cocreador de Twin Peaks o Hill Street Blues. Las expectativas nunca son buenas: esperaba que el texto me volara la cabeza y me llevara a los mismos sitios (especialmente a los meandros y abismos de Twin Peaks, lo admito), pero no fue así. Y, claro, luego investigo y veo que Frost ha trabajado en muchos otros proyectos, más convencionales y casi siempre muy exitosos. Desde ese nuevo punto de vista, la novela es totalmente coherente con lo que cabe esperar de un autor que conoce al milímetro su profesión y quiere situar su obra en la narrativa popular. Desde ese punto de vista, «La lista de los siete» resulta incluso un poco ambiciosa y transgresora para el momento que se publicó.
Esto me ha hecho pensar en que una parte importante del éxito masivo de Twin Peaks tuvo que ver precisamente con el papel de Frost para afianzar el expresionismo onírico y surrealista de David Lynch dentro de los códigos de una narrativa popular, capaz de llegar al público general. Eso es lo que consiguió que muchas personas que serían incapaces de enfrentarse a una película de Lynch, se convirtieran en devotos de uno de las fenómenos más importantes de la historia televisiva. Y eso tiene su mérito. Un mérito enorme, diría yo.
Dicho todo esto: si lo que buscas es una novela innovadora, provocadora y disruptiva, podrías acabar igual de decepcionado que yo. Pero si amas las novelas de aventuras y misterio, es muy probable que la disfrutes. Puede que mucho, incluso.
July 12, 2025
Un libro estupendo. Una aventura por el Londres victoriano con Arthur Conan Doyle. Un viaje de huida desesperado donde una secta satanica sigue los talones a nuestros protagonistas. Una novela entretenida y reflexiva. Con su parte crítica y filosófica, llena de guiños. (Blavatsky, Bram Stoker…. )…Incluso algún muerto viviente. Está llena de guiños y se lee de forma muy ágil. Es del creador de Twin Peaks pero tiene el sabor de los clásicos. Me ha encantado. 🥰
October 8, 2020
Con dudas entre las dos y las tres estrellas visibles, se me queda en unas 2.5 estrellas que, a la hora de la verdad, no dan para más.
Lo más curioso del caso es que, aunque esta consta como mi primera lectura (y como tal a mí me constaba también a priori), tengo la sensación de haber leído esta novela con anterioridad, hace seguramente no menos de veinte años.
Toda la trama, aunque bastante (arque)típica de por sí, con sus cultos y misteriosas órdenes diabólicas; con Arthur Conan Doyle como protagonista, Bram Stoker como artista invitado, y un protagonista (y antagonista) claramente reminiscentes/inspiradores de Sherlock Holmes y su némesis... Pues sí, todo esto me ha sonado harto familiar...
Y la cosa es que esta novela recuerda a otras del género 'thriller' histórico como "El Alienista", se lee a buen ritmo y está plagada de aventuras a lo "El Secreto de la Pirámide"; pero, a la hora de la verdad, sus personajes no enamoran como los protagonistas de tales títulos.
Y así, al final del día, se queda uno con el entretenimiento justo del momento, pero sin que la cosa pase a mayores... y de ahí probablemente el olvido. Y a otra cosa, mariposa.
Por cierto, que siendo el autor quien es, no he podido evitar percibir ciertas reminiscencias 'twinpeakescas' en lo esperpéntico de algunas situaciones, y ciertas actitudes 'agente-cooperianas' por parte de nuestro particular agente, Sparks. Pero, en este caso, prescindiremos de partes sucesivas.
Lo más curioso del caso es que, aunque esta consta como mi primera lectura (y como tal a mí me constaba también a priori), tengo la sensación de haber leído esta novela con anterioridad, hace seguramente no menos de veinte años.
Toda la trama, aunque bastante (arque)típica de por sí, con sus cultos y misteriosas órdenes diabólicas; con Arthur Conan Doyle como protagonista, Bram Stoker como artista invitado, y un protagonista (y antagonista) claramente reminiscentes/inspiradores de Sherlock Holmes y su némesis... Pues sí, todo esto me ha sonado harto familiar...
Y la cosa es que esta novela recuerda a otras del género 'thriller' histórico como "El Alienista", se lee a buen ritmo y está plagada de aventuras a lo "El Secreto de la Pirámide"; pero, a la hora de la verdad, sus personajes no enamoran como los protagonistas de tales títulos.
Y así, al final del día, se queda uno con el entretenimiento justo del momento, pero sin que la cosa pase a mayores... y de ahí probablemente el olvido. Y a otra cosa, mariposa.
Por cierto, que siendo el autor quien es, no he podido evitar percibir ciertas reminiscencias 'twinpeakescas' en lo esperpéntico de algunas situaciones, y ciertas actitudes 'agente-cooperianas' por parte de nuestro particular agente, Sparks. Pero, en este caso, prescindiremos de partes sucesivas.
January 19, 2015
Un libro entretenido, más de aventuras que de novela negra, que se lee rápido y te hace pasar un buen rato.
Tiene de elemento curioso que esté protagonizado por un joven Arthur Conan Doyle, que aún no ha comenzado a escribir sus novelas de Sherlock Holmes, pero en el libro aparecen hechos que podemos reconocer que son de las novelas de Holmes, haciendo Frost un guiño al lector, "mostrando" las fuentes de inspiración de Doyle, que no es el único escritor que aparece... Bram Sotcker también tiene su momento en la novela.
Y me han gustado especialmente algunos momentos de reflexión, algunos párrafos que se cuestionan sobre la esencia del ser humano, sobre su bondad o maldad innatas, sobre la alienación de la sociedad industrial, sobre el poder... Le añaden un punto filosófico al libro que no le pega demasiado, pero que a mi me han gustado mucho
¿Recomendable? depende de lo que se espere de la novela. Entretenimiento y aventuras ligeritas, sí. Novela negra bien trabada, no...
Tiene de elemento curioso que esté protagonizado por un joven Arthur Conan Doyle, que aún no ha comenzado a escribir sus novelas de Sherlock Holmes, pero en el libro aparecen hechos que podemos reconocer que son de las novelas de Holmes, haciendo Frost un guiño al lector, "mostrando" las fuentes de inspiración de Doyle, que no es el único escritor que aparece... Bram Sotcker también tiene su momento en la novela.
Y me han gustado especialmente algunos momentos de reflexión, algunos párrafos que se cuestionan sobre la esencia del ser humano, sobre su bondad o maldad innatas, sobre la alienación de la sociedad industrial, sobre el poder... Le añaden un punto filosófico al libro que no le pega demasiado, pero que a mi me han gustado mucho
¿Recomendable? depende de lo que se espere de la novela. Entretenimiento y aventuras ligeritas, sí. Novela negra bien trabada, no...
March 5, 2009
For fans of both The Somnambulist and The Anubis Gates (and how could you like one and not the other?) along with fans of dark fantasy, steampunk, New Weird, victorian fantasy and adventure fiction in general I recommend The List of 7 wholeheartedly. The protagonist is Arthur Conan Doyle, long before he wrote Sherlock Holmes and was knighted. He becomes ensnared in a web of intrigue involving amassing evil forces, dark magic, criminal masterminds, seances and spiritualists, deductive reasoning, drug addiction and bloody murder. The pacing is fast, the characterization is deft, the mood is weird (what else would you expect from a co-creator of Twin Peaks) and the story is original and riveting. I tore through this novel.
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2025
La historia comienza con Arthur Conan Doyle, un medico y aspirante a escritor, que es “invitado” por una mujer la cual le ruega que vaya a una sesión de espiritismo, en esa sesión resulta que será testigo de una serie de asesinatos y se ve arrastrado a un “complot” , por ello tendrá que salir huyendo del lugar de la mano de Jack Sparks, un agente secreto de la corona que juro proteger a la Reina Victoria.
Jack Sparck es un personaje misterioso, un loco fugado del hospital o un agente secreto que jura proteger a la Reina Victoria, este, seguirá la pista de un grupo de siete personas, una sociedad secreta, una secta, a la que se la llama “La Hermandad Secreta”
Doyle debido a una novela que escribió, creyendo que era ficción, se encuentra en el punto de mira de esta Hermandad, parece ser que no era tanta ficción como esperaba, asique entre el y Sparks se embarcan en una aventura llena de suspense, en la que habrá situaciones que parecen completamente improbables.
Me gusto mucho como recorremos con Doyle ese Londres victoriano, como el autor introduce en la historia muchos guiños hacia autores y personas reales, además de ciertas reflexiones sobre el ser humano que me han resultado interesantes.
No considero que la historia sea un thriller, pero si me ha gustado como el autor deja en un trasfondo como Doyle podría haber llegado a crear a Sherlock Holmes, siendo Sparks su “modelo”.
Un libro muy entretenido con un final totalmente preparado para próximos libros. Si esperas un thriller no es tu libro, ya que te vas a encontrar mucha acción, elementos “fantásticos” y mucha acción.
Jack Sparck es un personaje misterioso, un loco fugado del hospital o un agente secreto que jura proteger a la Reina Victoria, este, seguirá la pista de un grupo de siete personas, una sociedad secreta, una secta, a la que se la llama “La Hermandad Secreta”
Doyle debido a una novela que escribió, creyendo que era ficción, se encuentra en el punto de mira de esta Hermandad, parece ser que no era tanta ficción como esperaba, asique entre el y Sparks se embarcan en una aventura llena de suspense, en la que habrá situaciones que parecen completamente improbables.
Me gusto mucho como recorremos con Doyle ese Londres victoriano, como el autor introduce en la historia muchos guiños hacia autores y personas reales, además de ciertas reflexiones sobre el ser humano que me han resultado interesantes.
No considero que la historia sea un thriller, pero si me ha gustado como el autor deja en un trasfondo como Doyle podría haber llegado a crear a Sherlock Holmes, siendo Sparks su “modelo”.
Un libro muy entretenido con un final totalmente preparado para próximos libros. Si esperas un thriller no es tu libro, ya que te vas a encontrar mucha acción, elementos “fantásticos” y mucha acción.
July 31, 2025
“Que las acciones definan al hombre ante el mundo, mientras la música de su alma interpreta para un único espectador” ~ La lista de los siete de Mark Frost.
Traducción: Alberto Coscarelli.
El joven Arthur Conan Doyle recibe una invitación para asistir a una sesión de espiritismo con el fin de desenmascarar a un falso médium. Acude a la cita y en este punto su vida da un giro ya que asiste a un brutal asesinato y gracias a la irrupción de Jack Sparks que lo rescata escapa de correr la misma suerte.
A partir de ahí, ambos se ven envueltos en una huída sin cuartel ya que una serie de seres negros los persiguen por toda Inglaterra. Ellos en busca de respuestas y los caballeros del mal detrás de ellos convierten esta novela en una historia de fantasía y de aventuras en torno a la lucha entre el bien y el mal, aunque Doyle dude en más de una ocasión al lado de quién está.
Maravilloso. Te atrapa desde el primer momento y te ves abocada a esa huída frenética al lado de Doyle y de Sparks, un personaje, por otro lado, súper divertido. Además de las aventuras que no cesan, y por consiguiente tampoco lo hace la acción, el libro se lee muy bien ya que es mayoritariamente diálogos. Te lo bebes.
Traducción: Alberto Coscarelli.
El joven Arthur Conan Doyle recibe una invitación para asistir a una sesión de espiritismo con el fin de desenmascarar a un falso médium. Acude a la cita y en este punto su vida da un giro ya que asiste a un brutal asesinato y gracias a la irrupción de Jack Sparks que lo rescata escapa de correr la misma suerte.
A partir de ahí, ambos se ven envueltos en una huída sin cuartel ya que una serie de seres negros los persiguen por toda Inglaterra. Ellos en busca de respuestas y los caballeros del mal detrás de ellos convierten esta novela en una historia de fantasía y de aventuras en torno a la lucha entre el bien y el mal, aunque Doyle dude en más de una ocasión al lado de quién está.
Maravilloso. Te atrapa desde el primer momento y te ves abocada a esa huída frenética al lado de Doyle y de Sparks, un personaje, por otro lado, súper divertido. Además de las aventuras que no cesan, y por consiguiente tampoco lo hace la acción, el libro se lee muy bien ya que es mayoritariamente diálogos. Te lo bebes.
July 27, 2025
Entretenido y divertido, como una partida de la llamada de cthulhu. Tiene el peor epílogo de la historia.
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