A beatiful ending to the story of Thaniel and Mori. Though it was a slow read for me, the story was interesting. The middle part was sometimes a bit frustrating because I had no idea about where the story was going. It was worth it though. ( )

Its a well crafted book with an interesting premise, but I was left a bit wanting more. I think I wanted to see more of the relationship between Thaniel and Mori and how Six fit into all this. I liked the premise of ghosts and free electricity. However, I felt Karuda to be a bit ham fisted in his approach. Mrs. Pepperharrow, Mori's Wife in Japan, should have been a more rounded.

I'm glad I read it and I really enjoyed the last chapter, but the book left me wanting more. ( )

Satisfying conclusion. Really expands on how it can affect a person whose every decision turns into The Trolley Problem.

Thaniel is precious; I want to keep him and Mori safe form all the ills of the world. ( )

I've become a real fan of Natasha Pulley's writing, and this book added to my appreciation.
Her stories are what might be called 'light fantasy' - not quite limited to reality, but no witches and dragons.
The writing is so clear and flowing - there's never a clunky sentence and the author's meaning and intent glows in the text.
Most of her books seem to include a gay male relationship among the characters - not my usual territory, and not what I look for in a book, but probably a necessary education for this aging hetero male.
I hope she continues to produce these wonderful books. ( )

After reading Natasha Pulley's first book (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street) and loved it, I dove in hard to this book, the sequel in that series. It was a good book and fun to read, but just a little less than Watchmaker was. I felt the plot wasn't as tightly woven as in the first one, as if she planned the first novel to the nth degree but for this one came up with a basic outline and then let it go where it took her. The characters weren't as impressive, either. Thaniel begins and ends this book mostly the same, very little growth or development. Mori ends quite different, but more on that later. Six was probably the most interesting of them all, but she was barely utilized. Most of the new characters introduced in this novel were formulaic.

Also, I struggled with the concept of the future ghost "images" in the clouds of dust. It's meant to be a clever way to expand Mori's own clairvoyance and make it a useful tool for others as well. I get that. But it just doesn't work. I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that a man walking around with precognitive abilities can see into many possible futures, and I like what she did with that. But this ghost business, I mean seriously, if that was something discovered in late 19th century Japan, the entire course of human history would have been radically changed and our own modern landscape today would be vastly different. Although maybe I'm overthinking that.

Ultimately I liked the book. I did. I'm nitpicking in here, but it's a good one. Well written, and if she ever writes a third in this series, I'll jump at the chance to learn what adventures Thaniel and Mori (and hopefully Six as well) go on next. It's just not quite the same caliber as the first.

That said, let me lay out a theory that I've been working on since I finished this book. I feel like Pulley fell into a common trap when writing about superheroes. And I do feel that's what this is. Mori is not that far off from one of the heros in any of the current spate of Marvel or DC movies. He's a man with a gift that allows him to do great things that nobody else could do, pure and simple: super. And he saves people: hero. Q.E.D.

Anyway, in the first book, you get something of an introduction. Sometimes in comics this comes in the form of an "origin story" but we don't get that in Watchmaker, per se. We get an introduction to Mori as seen through the eyes of an ordinary man, Thaniel, who represents us (the readers) learning about this super person along with Thaniel. This is a common enough trope in superhero fiction. In the first book, we learned what Mori can do and we got a good tale of something great he does. So where can Pulley go after that? This is the trap. Once you've done that, you have to increase the stakes, up the ante. Give Mori some kryptonite. Put him in a situation where his "powers" cannot help him. If he can always see the future, he should never be able to get hurt, so do something to take that way. And make the "great" thing he does even greater than the first. You can't do the exact same things the second time around. The reader will get bored.

Now, whether or not she did this on purpose (based on a personal study of superhero fiction?) is irrelevant. This is where she found herself. And when you increase the stakes and add new elements, you have to work harder to make the plot weave around those in believable ways. And if you want your characters to be beloved (or at least draw on the reader's compassion), you have to build them better, too. Instead I feel she took some shortcuts. Stock characters. Loosely threaded plot lines. (Is that fair? "Loosely?" Let's back off on that and just say, "Not as tightly woven as in the first book.") In short: I think Mori could have easily accomplished what he set out to accomplish without nearly dying and losing his powers while doing it.

But if she is borrowing from common themes in modern cinema, let me lay one more out there. Too many spoilers in here, so I'll hide the whole thing. Leaving Mori without his "powers" at the end of this book is akin to leaving Han Solo encased in carbonite and Luke with his hand cut off at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. And the briefest hint that his powers might be returning is reminiscent of Magneto moving the chess piece at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand. Either way, both are signs of a possible third book coming. Which I'm excited about. ( )