The Somnambulist.  I snagged an early review copy of this via LibraryThing's fantastic signup feature, liking the description of Victorian intrigue and the comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  While it shares similarities of magic and setting with Susanna Clarke's masterpiece, it's a shorter and much less inspired lark, whose second half falls flat for want of more plot.

There's already a lot made of the novel's opening among other early reviewers, and it's a doozy, telling the reader the book is unbelievable and not worth reading out of any sort of literary merit. It's a clever conceit, at once lowering and raising expectations, and for the first half of the novel, it manages to be greater than the sum of it's parts. Unfortunately, the same elements that made endeavours like The Prestige and Neverwhere so entertaining in the hands of clever artists make The Somnambulist ring hollow in Barnes' less competent hands.

Though titled The Somnambulist, the gentle giant is more of a sidekick to Edward Moon, the Holmesian magician detective character Barnes uses to take us through the paces of murder and discovery amidst the familiar and subtly unfamiliar backdrop of Victorian London. Faced with a pair of bizarre murders that tickle his mental fancy, Moon and his giant companion follow a series of clues that lead them through the upper echelons of national espionage and the underpinnings of the criminal underworld, with a break for a secret society of poets worthy of Mary Shelley. The first portion of the book gestures towards a greatness that makes it worth reading for what might have been.

The latter portion begins to fall apart with the introduction of stock assassins and the revelation of it's narrator. The same intrusive narrator who sets up your expectations, knocks them down again by forceably arriving as a major player without having told us enough about himself. This thinness of characterization is much of the book's failing, as its inability to deal adequately with the magnitude of it's supporting cast leaves us hanging uncomfortably, wondering why anything happened. We're introduced to a modern Merlin-esque zeitgeist who lives his long life out of order, an albino conspiracist, a bearded prostitute, a pair of comic immortal murderers, and the title character himself, whose main job seems to consist of walking through the novel drinking milk and getting stabbed.

If you can forgive this clumsiness, there's much to like. I still really enjoy the beginning for what we learn of Lud and Gog and Magog, and Coleridge and the very Russian corporation. Barnes has the ability to draw compelling sketches of inner workings and wheels within wheels. Just don't be disappointed when the blueprints don't match up to the finished building.

Read January 2008
Early Review copy from Harper Collins
Released February 2008