Deja Vu Halloo (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 5)

Delightful. Tone is spot on, plot's a'poppin', and I liked how the time travel aspect works, well done there. And who couldn't enjoy Reggie's narrations with lines like:

Everyone knows the inebriated fall into five camps — the merry, the sad, the sleepy, the angry and those, like me, who develop the ability to see multiple timelines.

The only points of deviation from the originals are a lack of aggressive aunt action (specifically, from an aunt of Worcester - your own relatives are harder to get away from), and Worcester's apparent ability to stay engaged. But otherwise, yeah, I liked it quite a bit.

Take a heaping helping of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, a touch of Arthur Conan Doyle, throw it into a steampunk Edwardian era, and dust with a generous amount of Doctor Who at its wibbly wobbliest, and you'll come up with something very much like the Reeves & Worcester series.

Is it Wodehouse? Not quite. Is it Conan Doyle? Not remotely. Is it super fun silliness? Absolutely.

Chris Dolley’s Deja Vu Halloo is an enjoyable pastiche after P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster comic novels. This fast-paced steampunk story, which concerns a most infernal time loop and a runaway time machine, is just enough of a plot upon which to hang the humor and screwball antics of Reeves, Worcester, Miss Dreadnought, and the supporting characters. Great fun with quite a few laugh-out-loud lines, and a nice little kicker at the end.

NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in MOBI format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (October 2020).

Sherlock Holmes meets Doctor Who in this curious little novella. Reeves & Worcester are a brilliant and witty duo. The latter's one liners and musings literally made me laugh out loud. Although the time-traveling plot gets a little convoluted towards the latter third of the book (indeed, it actually lost me in spots), the the book's closing is PERFECT.

Deja Vu Halloo by Chris Dolley

5 Stars

Another laugh-out-loud entry in the Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries. I absolutely adore Reggie and Reeves. This story is of a time loop that requires judicious amounts of alcohol to overcome. It's Groundhog day, 1906; a time machine enters, Reg & Reeves try to save the world and Emmeline does her part in the madcap adventure. Our heroes/heroine rocket around London searching for clues and a solution before the loop starts over again the next day. Such a fun book-you don't have to be a fan of Wodehouse to enjoy the series. I received a copy-this is my own personal review of the book.

Having recently watched the excellent Jeeves and Wooster television series again, and over the years having read and enjoyed PG Wodehouse, I was hoping that this book would be an enjoyable pastiche of that inimitable duo! Instead, I found a parody, written in a stilted style, very unlike the very readable prose of Wodehouse himself.
However, I did continue reading on realising how short this book is, and found that the attempts to explain time travel and loops in time and how to correct them were not clear or well executed. Other novels I have read involving time travel have been much more adroit in handling anomalies and clearly explaining how their time travel functions.
I had been interested in reading some steam punk, and am hoping show more that this is not indicative of the genre. show less

I received a copy of Deja Vu Halloo by Chris Dolley from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers. I was a fan of P.G. Wodehouse in high school and am currently a fan of steampunk, so this pastiche was perfect for me, plus it had the additional benefit of being amusing at a time in history when that is lacking. Since the cover set the tone for the mystery, I knew what to expect even not having read the previous books in the series. Dolley captures the essence of Wodehouse fun, brings in other people from the time period (e.g., H.G. Wells), and adds in entertaining steampunk elements. While 2020 is almost over, there still remains a need for light-hearted entertainment and the author delivers this perfectly!