Gaslight Geezers

Welkin Weasels #4

by Garry Kilworth

The first of a highly imaginative new fantasy trilogy set in Victorian times – where a weasel named Mony investigates mysteries from his home in Breadoven Street…

Montagu Silver is a famous weasel detective, intent on solving mysteries. Can he ferret out the truth when he learns that the anarchist Spindrick plans to blow everyone to smithereens with a fiendish bomb? Or find a lemming prince who vanishes almost as soon as he sets paw on Welkin soil?

Genres: Fantasy, Animals, Fiction, Anthropomorphic

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 3, 2001

About the author

Garry Douglas Kilworth is a historical novelist who also published sci-fi, fantasy, and juvenile fiction.

Kilworth is a graduate of King's College London. He was previously a science fiction author, having published one hundred twenty short stories and seventy novels.

Reviews

[David Ellery · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts really well. The pseudo-Victorian world is a steampunk-inflected, pastiche-heavy delight, much richer and more engaging than the Redwall-aping one of the first trilogy. The pacing's good, the humour sharp, to the point of including some pretty pointed social satire, the grisly moments are few and restrained, there's little hand-holding beyond a painfully clunky bit of expository dialogue in the first chapter, and the smaller main cast are more likeable than their ancestors. It's like the seaborne stretch of Windjammer Run, except even better. But, as with Windjammer Run, it doesn't last.

Around the midpoint, the pace flags, the plot and the antagonists all but disappear, and the book bogs down in dozens of pages of drawn-out encounters and episodes that contribute nothing except padding, and a particularly gruesome scene that does the two protagonists involved no favours. There's more dwelling on things and descriptions of things, a completely random digression several pages long, errors creep into the text, and it all becomes a little tiresome. It does pick back up a little in the last few chapters, as multiple coincidences bring the plot and antagonists back, and all that was set up in the first half of the book is ticked off in rapid-fire fashion, but not nearly enough.

This is the third of the four Welkin Weasels books I've reviewed so far to have almost the exact same number of pages, a little over 380, which strongly suggests Kilworth was writing to a target length, and when the plot wouldn't suffice to make it there, out came the padding and the familiar bad habits of the series. On reflection, filler has been a feature of all the books, but it's most noticeable, and most detrimental, here. The result is a book of two halves, one great fun, one greatly frustrating, and I'm really not sure the former is worth the latter.

[Evianrei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sylver and his outlaw gang have been laid to rest, however some of their descendants now walk about a semi-Victorian Welkin! Montagu Sylver (Monty), the descendant of the outlaw leader Sylver from the first three books in the Welkin Weasels series, is a well-known weasel detective! Will he be able to put a stop Spindrick the anarchist's plans and discover the whereabouts of a missing lemming Prince before time runs out?

Gaslight Geezers was a terrific read! It was nice being able to jump into another trilogy in the land of Welkin after finishing Windjammer Run. While I do miss Sylver and the outlaw band, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Montagu Sylver and his comrades solving mysteries in a more developed Welkin.

At first I was having a hard time picturing Montagu Sylver, Bryony, Scruff, Maudlin, Mayor Poynt, and Falshed. Namely Sylver, Bryony, and Falshed, simply because they shared the same name of their ancestors and I had just set Windjammer Run down. I kept picturing the old characters, but this was helped by calling Sylver's descendant Monty instead of Sylver, and the author made distinct mental images of the newer characters as it went on.

It was also very nice to see the progress of the animal/human relationship in Welkin along with the technological advancements. I loved reading about the wacky steam and clockwork contraptions that littered Muggridrear.

I would recommend reading these three books before starting this one, however I do not think it is required.
-Thunder Oak
-Castle Storm
-Windjammer Run

You Might Like This Book If You Enjoy
-Talking Animals
-Mysteries
-Adventure
-Semi-Victorian Settings

You Might Dislike This Book If You Dislike
-Death

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Gaslight Geezers" by Garry Kilworth is a fun fantasy adventure novel set in a cyberpunk land populated by weasels and stoats and the rest of the family Mustelidae. There are lots and lots of puns. A sort of Sherlock Holmes mystery drives the plot with the weasel detective living at 7A Breadoven Street. Get it: not 221B Baker Street but 7A Breadoven Street. If you didn't roll your eyes, you'll love the world of the Welkin Weasels and, specifically, the weasel detective Montegu Sylver. Lots and lots of adventures that don't necessarily make sense.