First Giant Thief Reviews Shockingly Positive

One of my more self-explanitory post titles there, so I guess I might as well skip the usual beating around of bushes...

Publishers Weekly's is actually more of a plot summary than anything,but it's a very positive plot summary so I'm not complaining.  Our robot overlords have cleverly ellipted it into the following, more blurbable quote:

“Best known for an eclectic variety of short stories, Tallerman debuts with a breezy novel of a man with his eye on the prize … Tallerman’s charming, devil-may-care hero has plenty of swashbuckling roguishness to carry him through the planned sequels.”

Which is certainly nice.  But it didn't make my day quite as much as this from blogger / writer / culinary historian Gill Polack.  This is actually pretty much my dream Giant Thief review, so everything from here on in will likely be a disappointment, but I suppose I can't blame that on Gill.  Of the many quotable bits, I think I'm going to pick this out as my favourite, if only because it looks like it might be pretty negative until you get to the end:

 "It's an old-fashioned novel. It's not big and it's not pretentious. It's non-stop and full of incident (often bloody incident, but incident). It is, however, entirely charming."

Then, yesterday, I found this from Fantasy Nibbles, which is almost as positive, but does actually list a criticism ... and a fair one, damn it all!  Still, how wounded can my pride be when I get quotes like this?

This really is a fun read. Saltlick is adorable, I want one! It’s straightforward, linear, smack down the middle fast-paced goodness.

Last, and not really a review as such, but The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf and Book Review picks up on the opening line of Giant Thief for lavish praise, and notes that eighty pages in, it's "given [him] a perpetual grin so far."

And all that in the first week!  Bloody hell!  Will week two bring the inevitable-seeming critical backlash?  Can anyone beat that Gill Pollack review?  Guess I'll just have to wait and see...