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If anything Hive Monkey, the second book in this trilogy is even madder than the first.

Pulp heroes, airships, a borg-like cult and a monkey in search of a troupe. As with the previous novel, this is a really fun read which also has a few serious points to make.

And the sheer believability of the world Gareth L. Powell really is quite incredible.

For the first time in nine books, we have a second Point of View. I was slightly thrown when this happened.

I actually bought this book when it was published. Now, more than a decade later, I have finally gotten around to reading it.

Yes, my unread books pile did grow rather large at one point.

Too much technobabble

Wow. What a cracking start this is off to.

Utterly fascinating, although the depth of detail does make it a bit heavy going at times.

Tonally, this reminds me a lot of Gormenghast. It has the same sort of very slow story that you can just drift along with as details emerge as and when they will.

I wasn't initially convinced, but the novel is growing on me the more I read.

The second book in the trilogy now completed, and I'm still finding if more than a little cliched. The cliche's are all well handled, but cliche's nonetheless.

And Salvatore does like his action scenes. A lot.

Every bit as good as I remembered, if not better.

Three books in one set and the first one is The Sword of Bedwyr.

It's okay, but it hasn't really aged well. There's nothing wrong with it but it does all feel a bit cliched which may well be a reflection of when the book was written more than anything else.

The Small World of 221B is a suitably weird story that I found myself enjoying a lot more than I expected.

The Final Conjuration makes no attempt to re-imagine Holmes, preferring to plonk him unaltered into a high fantasy setting, to brilliant effect.

A Woman's Place was absolutely brilliant -- a near-future Holmes that finally explains why Mrs Hudson puts up with him.

A Study in Scarborough didn't really work for me.

The Lantern Men.

That was dark. If Edgar Allan Poe had written Sherlock Holmes... And decided to set it in Australia.

The Rich Man's Hand was too much of a supernatural story to really fit with Sherlock Holmes.

The Enlightenment era Holmes in Black Alice was superb. This felt like a near-perfect setting for the great detective and I would love to see more like this.

The 1970s Holmes in The Adventure of the Speckled Bandana was a lot of fun, as much for the hints at previous adventures as for the story itself.

First story: A Scandal in Hobohemia

Interesting. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, mainly because it feels more like a first chapter than a short story.

"This novel uses British spellings"

I like it already

And so to the novella, set in 1923 and delivering a delightful mixture of Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton.

Jolly hockey sticks and a murder in the drawing drawing room. This was superb

The mash-up of historical and fictional characters is still fun although The Bloody Red Baron isn't as good as I remember Anno Dracula being. This, however, could be more a reflection of my memory than the novel itself.

The Bloody Red Baron is a powerful novel, though. It takes a bit of time to get started but parts three and four are genuinely gripping.

Not impressed so far

Herbert west working for Dr Moreau. I have to know what happens next

I probably should have read Patternmaster first. While it is a powerful novel with well realised world and a lot to say about interdependence, it did feel a bit anticlimactic after the other three.

Clay's Ark is a bit of an abrupt turn for this series. It may also be the most disturbing alien invasion story I've read.

Mind of my Mind was superb. While this second book in the Patternist series doesn't feel quite as world-encompassing as Wild Seed, it is, in many ways, a lot more gripping.