2008-09-15 Excellent! (But not without some Whale oil)

This fantastical adventure chronicles the fortunes of Dido Twite, presumed dead, rescued by a whaling ship and its eccentric skipper, Captain Casket and his reclusive daughter Penitence. While Dido and Penitence are sent to stay with Aunt Tribulation on the lonely isle of Nantucket, bristling with mysterious scientists and Hanoverian conspirators with their sights on London town, Captain Casket is pursuing a giant pink whale. For the most part, this is a well crafted escapade of Dido's further adventures, and the plucky street urchin has her hands full with the dreary Penitence. However, Miss Slighcarp's comeback to the series as a mysterious stowaway and then as a charlatan Aunt are not particularly subtly done, but arguably they make the story more exciting. Professor Breadno's plan to destroy London with a giant canon is stretching the imagination, whilst the finale with the pink whale, the forementioned giant gun and Miss Slighcarp's death is frenetic to say the least. An amusing and thoroughly weird book.