Swiftly   by Adam Roberts

Book set in an extension of Jonathon Swift's Lilliputian universe, but really any load of giants and dwarfs would have done. The more factual representation of the mid-nineteenth century is actually the most interesting part of the backdrop.

Contains Roberts' trademark of putting some people into ridiculously outlandish situations, and successfully navigating the torrent of emotional states those people would have to pass through. Unfortunately the situation in this book is a fair bit yukky, and that lessens the appeal of the whole to me.

The science fictional innovation is the idea that we live in a fractal universe, shared with giants and giants' giants, etc, dwarfs and dwarfs' dwarfs, etc, all factors of twelve apart. On the very small scales we arrive at microorganisms waging war within our bodies, keeping us healthy, and on the very large are gods living between the stars. On Earth, Lilliputians and Brobdingagians bracket the human species, and this book is an exploration of that relationship wrapped around a conquest of Britain by France. It is an interesting canvas on which to write, and the story roams nicely around the land.

The problem with this book is its utter dribble of an ending. In fact, the ending does not occur between the covers.

The author states that he has spent some years developing the work, and that it is his most carefully revised work. But parts have been published previously, and it does feel rather like a labour which has been intermittently evolving with a final push for completion.