steampunk Archives - Page 4 of 4

Yzabel / July 25, 2013

Review: The Light Ages

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Magnificent dark fantasy set in a steampunk milieu, The Light Ages reimagines Industrial Age England transformed by magic, as two lovers find themselves on opposite sides of a violent class struggle that could destroy their world

The discovery of aether changed everything; magic mined from the ground, it ushered in an Industrial Age seemingly overnight, deposing kings and rulers as power was transferred to the almighty guilds. Soon, England’s people were separated into two distinct classes: those who dug up and were often poisoned by the miraculous substance, and those who profited from it.

Robert Borrows has always wanted more than the life of poverty and backbreaking toil into which he was born. During a visit with his mother to an isolated local manor, he discovers Annalise, the beautiful and mysterious changeling whom aether has magically remolded into something more than human. Years later, their paths will cross again in the filthy, soot-stained streets of London, where Robert preaches revolution while Annalise enjoys the privileges afforded to the upper class—the same social stratum that Robert is trying to overthrow. But even as they stand on opposite sides of the great struggle that divides their world, they are united by a shocking secret from their childhood. And their destinies will be forever entwined when their world falls to ruin.

The Light Ages continues with The House of Storms, set one century later.

Review:

(I got this book from NetGalley, in exchange for a honest review.)

There’s quite interesting world-building here, and I really liked discovering what the author developed in “The Light Ages”. An England dominated by Guilds, owing their rank and power thanks to the mysterious aether and how it made spells and progress possible. “Changelings”, people affected by aether to such an extent that they start developing odd features and end up locked in asylums, or being experimented upon. The very Victorian contrasts of classes, of haves and have nots, of high-standing in society and extreme poverty. The prose describing all those aspects was also often beautiful, and reminiscent of past writins.

Some parts of the book had definite echoes of Great Expectations, yet with a much bleaker take on it, and as such, I felt that no matter what, the ending would be a bittersweet one. Contrary to it’s title, it’s the kind of story where hopes, as noble as they are, just seem doomed to be squashed; and even when dreams are actually fulfilled, it’s always with a tinge of sadness, and sacrifices to be made. I’d recommend it to people who don’t mind their steampunk to be of the grittier kind.

What I liked less were the characters themselves. I found the narrator too passive to my liking, letting himself be carried away by events, and it’s not before way into said events that he finally starts to take things into his hands… somehow. The same problem happened with other characters: significant happenings tended to be drowned between long introspective passages, people weren’t so well defined, and as a result, getting attached to anyone else in the story was hard. The world was more interesting to me than the people evolving in it, and this prevented me from enjoying the book as much as I wanted.

Yzabel / July 8, 2013

Review: Her Ladyship’s Curse

Her Ladyship’s Curse by Lynn Viehl

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

In a steampunk version of America that lost the Revolutionary War, Charmian (Kit) Kittredge makes her living investigating magic crimes and exposing the frauds behind them. While Kit tries to avoid the nobs of high society, as the proprietor of Disenchanted & Co. she follows mysteries wherever they lead.

Lady Diana Walsh calls on Kit to investigate and dispel the curse she believes responsible for carving hateful words into her own flesh as she sleeps. While Kit doesn’t believe in magic herself, she can’t refuse to help a woman subjected nightly to such vicious assaults. As Kit investigates the Walsh family, she becomes convinced that the attacks on Diana are part of a larger, more ominous plot—one that may involve the lady’s obnoxious husband.

Sleuthing in the city of Rumsen is difficult enough, but soon Kit must also skirt the unwanted attentions of nefarious deathmage Lucien Dredmore and the unwelcome scrutiny of police Chief Inspector Thomas Doyle. Unwilling to surrender to either man’s passion for her, Kit struggles to remain independent as she draws closer to the heart of the mystery. Yet as she learns the truth behind her ladyship’s curse, Kit also uncovers a massive conspiracy that promises to ruin her life—and turn Rumsen into a supernatural battleground from which no one will escape alive.

Review:

[I got an ARC of this book through NetGalley.]

Great world-building, revealed little bits by little bits and not through huge info-dumps, as the heroine faces the various circumstances that would demand some explanation for the reader to understand things better. A glossary is included at the end of the book, but I thought I could get most of the specific vocabulary just by using the context. The alternate history developed here seemed believable enough to me, and I went with it without a problem.

The heroine’s an interesting morsel, too. She doesn’t keep her tongue in her pocket, yet she doesn’t go on a feminist rampage every ten pages (which might have become boring after a while), and finds way to cheat the system in order to get what she wants (which is much more clever and logical, consider the powers she’d be up against if she were to blatantly stand up more than she already does). She’s resourceful in many ways, and has managed to create her own little network of useful people—whom good Torian society would deem ‘scum’, but can all contribute to Kit’s schemes for her to get the information she needs. I also liked how she went about discarding magic as something that doesn’t exist, and to explain this through logics and scientific explanations, when the true reason is actually quite clearly hinted at… she’s just the only one who can’t see it, much as if she was standing in the eye of the storm.

My main quibble with this story is how there’s no real conclusion to it. I know books ending on cliffhangers is all the trend these days, but this is too much to stomach. It reads like the first part of a whole book, rather than like volume 1 of a trilogy. Although it seems the next books are due soon enough (every two months or so?), it makes passing fair judgment harder. I wished the author had solved at least one plotline here—and I don’t mean the romantic one (that one might’ve been best kept for later, actually).

I may rethink the mark I’m giving “Her Ladyship’s Curse” later on: the world’s really interesting, and I want to know what’s going on behind the scene. For now, I’m keeping it at a solid 3… Well, alright, 3.5.

Yzabel / January 29, 2013

Review: The Greyfriar

The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Vampire predators run wild in this exciting steampunk adventure, the first in an alternate history trilogy that is already attracting attention. In 1870, monsters rise up and conquer the northern lands, As great cities are swallowed up by carnage and disease, landowners and other elite flee south to escape their blood-thirsty wrath.

One hundred fifty years later, the great divide still exists; fangs on one side of the border, worried defenders on the other. This fragile equilibrium is threatened, then crumbles after a single young princess becomes almost hopelessly lost in the hostile territory. At first, she has only one defender—a mysterious Greyfriar who roams freely in dangerous vampire regions.

Review:

I found it hard at first to get into the story, because I couldn’t properly wrap my mind about the geography and politics of the world described in this book—it’s nothing complicated, though, so I guess it was just me, probably reading too late at night as usual, in a language that remains not my own. The problem didn’t last for long anyway, and then I got sucked in.

I want to mention that for once, too, the label ‘steampunk’ is better applied than it usually is to a lot of novels lumped in this genre. I love the steampunk aesthetics, I love in in art and clothing, but I find that too often, an author will slap a few cogs and a dirigible and call it ‘steampunk’. The keyword being ‘steam’. Here, though, we are given a world where such technology is the norm; while it’s not the core of the story, it’s still present enough to be felt throughout the novel.

The vampires are ruthless and inhuman, yet cunning in their own ways. Having the point of view of both humans and vampires throughout the narrative allows the reader to see how each species perceive each other like nothing more than animals, especially since the vampires don’t seem to care about fine clothing, architecture, arts, poetry, and so on, thus making them ‘inferior’ in the eyes of humans. I liked that take, because if we reverse it, it’s also logical: why would immortal creatures bother with the very means through which the short-lived humans strive to make themselves ‘immortal’?

The real identity of the mysterious Greyfriar was easy enough to guess, but that was alright, because the author didn’t try to actually hide it from the reader (if he had tried to do so, on the other hand, it would have fallen flat, for sure). For me, it actually tied quite well with the use of certain clichés that, in retrospect, also make a lot of sense. Greyfriar: a mysterious man who never shows his face and hides his eyes behind smoked glasses; fights like a hero of legend; fights ‘the good fight’, alone, in dangerous territories, isolated from all other humans. Greyfriar was from the beginning an image, a symbol, and I found the reason behind that image somewhat touching, even.

One thing I regularly had problems with, though, was the shift in points of view. It switches between characters several times in a same chapter, sometimes even from one paragraph to the other, yet it’s not an exact omniscient third person POV either. This tends to make me lose focus, and wonder “Wait, what? It was about Flay, and now we’re in Cesare’s thoughts? Huh?”

This put aside, I enjoyed the story, and the gritty side there was to it.