Monday, April 11, 2011

"Steamed" by Katie MacAlister [Review]

I’m going to preface my review by saying that I read a lot of romances. I would even venture to say that I’ve read thousands since I was a teen in every genre: Historical, contemporary, paranormal, suspense, you name it. Over the years I’ve learned that my expectations necessarily need to be adjusted according to the tone and style of the text, but to say that I was disappointed by this book is an understatement, and what follows is a bit of a rant. I fully acknowledge that I am possibly being too hard on a novel that is meant to be playful and not taken too seriously, but I also believe that even the most playful literature needs to be plausible with regards to the behavior of the characters. I read because I love to take journeys in my imagination, and I don’t like it when I feel myself jarred back to reality, especially because the characters have chosen a line of action that feels inconsistent. Unfortunately, I would strongly suggest that those new to the genre avoid this one until they have read enough to be able to develop some understanding of context.  I would never suggest that a book shouldn’t be read, but I will offer my honest opinion and hope that it will be accepted in the spirit it is being offered.

The basic idea of Steamed: A Steampunk Romance revolves around Jack Fletcher and his sister Hallie, who are transported from our world to a parallel universe because of an accident caused by Hallie’s very unwise and silly behavior in Jack’s lab. The year is the same, 2010, but Jack and Hallie wake up in an England that is still Victorian in appearance and scientific technology. Jack and Hallie find themselves on the Tesla, a dirigible captained by Octavia Emmaline Pye and her small crew of misfits. Jack embraces the change of venue and takes his presence in an alternate universe in stride—it’s his geeky, steampunk-convention-loving dream come true, after all, and he immediately begins to flirt with Octavia [read: chase after her like she's a cat in heat]. By contrast, Hallie broadly laments what has happened because it means being cut off from the things she loves most: The internet, her laptop, and her cellphone. [Note to self: Please God, may I never have family or friends like these, who would give their loved ones hardly any thought if they were ever suddenly separated.] I know this book is meant to be a lighthearted, irreverent erotic romp, but Jack and Hallie’s emotions don’t feel real.  Hallie is not only self-centered, but she behaves like a child having a tantrum and ends up getting herself arrested and sentenced to die as a spy.  Jack spends the first chapter of the book fending off the amorous advances of his female coworkers (which feels like an attempt to convince the reader of how attractive Jack is) and the rest of the book feels like an excuse to have Jack and Octavia talk dirty to each other and then have sex.  I like a good sex scene as much as the next girl, but I need more plot than this, and I need characters that behave with at least marginally realistic behavior.
I was especially concerned by the treatment of the lead female character. Octavia Pyle is thirty years old, has been with the Southampton Aerocorps since she was 16, and fought for respect and advancement in a male-dominated field. She is a woman who should, simply by virtue of her rank and experience, be a professional with some level of self-control and awareness of the consequences of her actions. Added to this, she is a member of the secret revolutionary group known as the Black Hand, and her service in this capacity requires her to be a savvy political player who can keep her wits about her to avoid exposure. The minute Jack wakes up on her ship, however, she becomes an oversexed bimbo who can’t think straight and who makes one bad decision after the other. She comes across as an incompetent klutz who can be controlled and manipulated easily by her libido, and isn’t convincing as either an airship captain or rebel. I had a hard time generating sympathy for Octavia, especially when she and Jack are endlessly babbling at each other while having wild sex instead of worrying about the fate of the crew or planning their next move. For example, in a forehead slapping move Jack and Octavia engage in wild sex in a secret hallway while waiting for another couple to finish in a nearby bedroom so that they can speak the male of the second pair. Unsurprisingly, they’re caught because they make so much noise having sex. This scene is just one among many that demonstrate Jack’s inability to keep his penis in his pants and the ridiculousness of the plot twists the reader has to endure.
While we’re on the topic of odd character development, the repeated references to Jack Fletcher being a Quaker should be examined. At one point, I thought these references were a Chekhov’s gun plot device—something obscure in the beginning of the story that becomes important at the end of the story--but this is not the case. Outside of using Jack’s Quaker status to make certain that the newly formed airship pirates will be nonlethal pirates this is an unimportant detail that could have been completely left out without harming the overall story. It is as though someone bet Katie MacAlister a hundred bucks that she couldn’t put a Quaker in one of her romances and she took them up on that bet. Ultimately, the concept of warm and fuzzy, conscientiously objecting pirates just seems silly and reinforces the disposability of the overall story.
But wait, there’s more! While we’re on the subject of Jack, allow me a moment to laugh over his portrayal as a studly nerd. He’s supposedly a genius and an accomplished nanotechnology engineer with an odd history of accidentally saving the day by stumbling into problem situations. He’s also Nathan Fillion gorgeous, with a rebellious lock of hair that hangs over his forehead. (Octavia obsesses over it so much I couldn’t resist putting a reference here!) But this hot, brilliant man does nothing remotely brilliant on the Tesla outside of a few references to working with the airship’s engineer to learn the ship’s systems, and his purpose on Octavia’s vessel seems to be reduced to that of ‘walking erection.’ Oh, a possessive walking erection who has to constantly assert his ownership over Octavia to other men who may, or may not, be her former lovers. By the end of the book I was truly over his boorish behavior--it wasn’t cute or loveable at all—and I kept hoping Octavia would deck him just to shut him up.
As far as plot goes, let’s just discuss for a moment the constant references to steampunk throughout the book. Recently, blogger G.D. Falksen wrote in an entry about worldbuilding in steampunk novels, “…it’s important to remember that a steampunk setting, like any setting, should feel plausible and internally consistent. One of the biggest risks a writer new to steampunk fiction faces is trying to overstate the point. When you start trying to “prove” that the setting is steampunk, it inevitably feels forced and has the opposite effect.” In other words, the first rule of fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club. This book works so hard to remind the reader that it is a steampunk romance that it is hard for me to believe that anyone who is a true fan of the genre wouldn’t be at least mildly annoyed by the way numerous references throughout the novel both breaks the suspension of disbelief and subtly pokes fun at the people who are fans and cosplay to any degree. This leads me to believe that this romance was written for people who don’t know what steampunk is, and these readers are basically being presented with a caricature—both of the genre, and the people who embrace it. Thanks, but no thanks. There are better “steamy” romances (Gail Carriger’s The Parasol Protectorate series, Meljean Brook’s The Iron Duke, etc.) that provide steamy romance and sexiness as well as a plot that is meaningful.
Another major issue that must be addressed is structural: The book is told in first person throughout, but the chapters change from Octavia’s point of view to Jack’s with no warning. I sometimes found myself a full page into a new chapter before I realized the narrative voice had changed, and had to start over to reorient myself. I don’t really have any objections to stories told in the first person, but I have a serious problem with a mass market paperback that is deliberately confusing to the reader. The editing feels heavy handed and clumsy, and the quality of the overall story suffers because of it.
The characters in this book remind me of a Ke$ha song (“stop, talk, talk, talking that blah, blah, blah.”) Holy diarrhea of the mouth, Batman! Octavia and Jack spend most of the book enacting barroom flirtation by babbling innuendos and erotic thoughts at each other. Worse, they seem to do it when they most need to focus on the issue at hand and come up with a plan to get themselves and the crew of the Tesla out of the most recent scrape they have landed in. It was seriously eye-rollingly bad at points, and their inane chatter at critical points (i.e., like when they discover that Jack’s sister Hallie has been sentenced to die as a spy) made me alternately angry and disgusted. Seriously, at times the book felt like a porn parody of what a steampunk romance, and I just felt insulted and disappointed when it was over.  I’m supposed to like these people and hope for their success? Not bloody likely. While I don’t know if my feelings about this book will necessarily keep me from reading other stories by Katie MacAlister, I do know that I will likely not be encouraging other people to read this one.

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