The Title of Temperance is book #8 in the series of Adventures of Ichabod Temperance. A standalone, unique, powered by dialogue kind of book. I was slightly worried about the aspect of time travel cause me and time travel stories are just meh, but thankfully the time travel aspect was just to lead into the story and to finish it.
Now, when I say, powered by dialogue, then I mean, this book only has dialogue. All the descriptions and happenings are presented in dialogue form and you know? It worked!
The beginning, for the dialogue reason, was “touch and go” for me as I thought I wasn’t going to be able to read this book fully and I was wrong. With a patient persistence of a low geared 4×4 vehicle and unwillingness to give up at the first sign of discomfort I powered through only to find the book entertaining, funny and interesting.
Ohhh, my noggin. What has happened? I took a whallop upside the head and woke up in a place far from my time and home. Instead of it being the modern era of 1877 like it ought to be, I am in the distant past of England’s Dark Ages! There are mighty warriors in gleaming armour, and beautiful ladies wearing colourful gowns with taffeta secured dunce caps.
This is the castle Camelot! I am in the company of King Arthur and his majestic Knights!
Golly, can you imagine? Me, Ichabod Temperance, an Alabama tinker in King Arthur’s Camelot!
Oh, Goodness, it ain’t took too long before I already have trouble up to my hat’s brim what with Mr. Merlin, Miss Morgana, and a big mean knight in black armour getting bristly with me. Gee whiz, if I ain’t careful, I might end up wrecking there ever having been a Western Civilization!
There was use of old English language… words like “prithee” and … there were defo few more… but it was readable even to a dunce like me. I even found it funny in parts and that is always a good thing.
I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the aspect of Ichabod introducing the “modern” day stuff (from 1877) at King Arthur’s court. The dialogue was constant but never boring and overall I liked it. It was witty and had a show of intelligence about it what with the historical, mechanical and some scientific aspects.
If you’re into something quirky and want to try out something new, I would definitely recommend. You might be pleasantly surprised by this book.
Rating: 3 ***
Hi Liz.
Thank you for reading and reviewing this book.
Cheers!
~Icky. 🙂
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🙂 Thank you for allowing me to read something new and different.
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Awesome :). I have to admit to still worrying about the dialogue part, but if you managed to shift into it, I hope I will be able to do the same this month!
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Yeah, depending on the mood as well, it can become a bot draggy, but give it a go anyway 🙂 At least you’ve tried and found out 🙂
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Having all the action happen in dialogue is an attempt to keep everything in the present tense and active. For me, I find that exposition tends to push things into a passive tense.
I can’t expect this style to appeal to everybody. You girls giving it a chance is greatly appreciated. 🙂
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It was definitely something new for me and honestly- I didn’t miss the long descriptive fillers in between the dialogue. Interesting.. Sorry if I’m being completely dumb, but are there other books out there that only go by dialogue? Was Faust only dialogue or am I blowing bubbles?
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You get fooled into not needing the descriptions, don’t you? 😉
{Annes book is that but even more so. :-O }
I’m not really knowledgeable enough to answer as to how common this is. It is just something I drifted into. Gee, maybe I’m a pioneer bubble blower!
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Yeah, it is a revelation to find out that, really, the fillers are just that… fillers… in that case, you did a wonderful job of something entirely different… I must go Google hunting to find if there are any other dialogue powered books… 🙂
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