tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30563672222414708912024-03-05T11:55:09.589-08:00Atmology"Atmology" is the study of aqueous vapour (steam). I plan to use this space to add my voice to the ever-evolving and complex discussion that surrounds Steampunk and the multiplicity of arts it has given rise to. I will primarily be discussing books, but will also venture into film and music.MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-22902874266988365062011-09-20T18:17:00.000-07:002011-09-20T18:40:51.138-07:00Ghosts By Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers. [Review]<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10575798-ghosts-by-gaslight"><img alt="Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1306840949l/10575798.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I find that sometimes the only way I can process an anthology is by reading and evaluating each story individually, and then determining an average score for the work as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case, there were seventeen stories, and each could earn a score of up to five points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With 85 points available, my final score for this anthology is 61, or an average of 3.59, which I have rounded up to a four star rating in my Goodreads account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each story is evaluated below, with the score I gave it, accompanied by my rationale.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I will admit that my score is biased by my disappointment that this collection doesn’t have a much better developed steampunk sensibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand that steampunk wasn’t the sole focus of the stories that were gathered, but if an editor puts this on the cover then I expect to see these themes and tropes appear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, I feel like the victim of a bait and switch, where I’m told I’m going to get something, and then feel duped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these stories could be described as supernatural suspense or horror stories, and it doesn’t make sense to me that the steampunk label was applied for what ends up being less than half of the collection. I feel like this descriptor was added because steampunk is gaining a large following of fans that are hungry for this genre and will eagerly buy this kind of literature. I am left somewhat angry and baffled that a better anthology wasn't assembled by editors who write in this genre and should know better.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">In the stories where the steampunk label does apply, it certainly isn’t because of airships, corsets, or cogs! In these narratives the steampunk is focused within the themes of technology, and the effect technology has on humanity, as well as how this changes the individual or society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honestly, I feel the word ‘horror’ belongs on this cover, not ‘steampunk,’ and I wish that this is what the editors had done. I may or may not have purchased the book, but if I had, I would at least feel better about my final decision. Despite this, there are some fine stories that can be considered steampunk in this anthology, and it is these stories that saved this anthology for me (they've been highlighted in yellow for convenience).</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Iron Shroud (James Morrow):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This story is 21 pages, and takes place in Germany.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story is told through a combination of first person narrative and diary entries, and revolves around a scientist, Jonathan Hobwright, a ‘vibratologist’ who is offered a large amount of money to travel to southwestern Germany to investigate the scientific experiments of a mad scientist. The scientist has killed by his creations, and his family is afraid they will be next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will Hobwright be able to free the ‘nonentities,’ or is he the next victim? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story explores immortality and the possibility of life after death, especially when death can be controlled by science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, the narrative was a bit difficult to follow, which might be the result of a deliberate attempt by the author to have the reader experience Hobwright’s disorientation, but it simply comes across as obscure and frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The steampunk factor isn’t very great, and is limited to the mad scientist’s machine that he uses to gold plate his victims and transform them into immortal nonentities, or slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story a 3 star rating for overall steampunk and difficulty of the narrative.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Music, When Soft Voices Die (Peter S. Beagle): (This story 26 pages, and takes place in England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beagle hasn’t written steampunk before, and this first attempt is actually quite good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This third person omniscient story revolves around four roommates share a home: Vodran (copyist), Scheuch (bank clerk), Griffith (waiter), and Angelos (second-year medical student).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Angelos is denied a true medical education because he is Jewish, but he tinkers and designs gadgets while he attends the university, which keeps him fairly entertained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, Angelos is working on a machine he thinks will allow people to communicate wirelessly over large distances, but as time goes by he discovers that all of the voices are that of people in great pain. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their Turkish property manager comes by to collect the rent and immediately knows that Angelos has used technology to achieve something terrible:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will magic be able to cure the problem technology has created? </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I thought this was an interesting story because of the multi-cultural and retro-futuristic technology, which incorporates the spiritualism Victorians were engrossed with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beagle creates a modified history that was interesting, and incorporated the Turkish elements in a clever fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more I think about this story, the more I like it for its fit into the steampunk genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story earned 5 stars for overall steampunk and elegance of the narrative, and is one of my favorites in the anthology.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Shaddowwes Box (Terry Dowling): (11 pages, and takes place in England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrative begins after Queen Victoria’s death, and her son Edward VII is on the throne. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lucas Salteri is the first person narrator, a tomb raider who is betrayed my Minchin, Benedick, and Kray on a tomb raiding trip to Egypt. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Salteri assumes another identity and lures these men to his home, where they marvel at the automatons called ‘manikins’ that look like the mummies from Maspero’s 1881 DB320 cache from Deir el-Bahir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are manikins in the “better klatsches and salons mecaniques off Fleet Street,” and the men are lulled into believing that Salteri is simply a technology savvy Egyptologist who has found a way to improve on the science to create more realistic machines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once he has the men in his home, however, he reveals a special device that owes nothing to technology. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I never did discover exactly what the horror of the device is, but it doesn’t seem necessary to the ghost story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a revenge narrative, and revenge seems to be achieved. High marks for the adventure narrative and mystery, but the steampunk is subdued in this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story a score of 4 stars for overall steampunk and ghost story elements.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Curious Curse of the Moondawn Daffodils Murder (Garth Nix): (13 pages, and takes place in England.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;">There’s a mysterious murder in a park, and the sergeant calls for Sherlock Holmes, but gets Sir Magnus Holmes, Sherlock’s second cousin somewhat removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turns out there are supernatural forces involved, and Sherlock thinks his young cousin, who is currently a resident of Bedlam, is the perfect man for the job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magnus and his “keeper” Miss Susan Shrike are, indeed, the perfect people for the job, but the greater mystery is who (or what) is Magnus? </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Although this story lacks overt steampunk elements achieved through machinery, the suspense is well developed and the gaslight drama is very well done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far as I’m concerned, the means Miss Shrike uses to control Magnus is all the technology this story needs, and it caught my imagination and interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story wins my “story I would most like to see as a novel” award for this anthology, and is easily my favorite of the collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s delightful ambiguity and intriguing questions, and I would love to see this story expanded to reveal more about Magnus and Susan’s relationship, and well as how Magnus copes with his supernatural abilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 5 stars for overall interest and the supernatural elements used.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Why I Was Hanged (Gene Wolfe): (16 pages, takes place in England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the account is the first person written narrative of Brooks, who is hanged for killing his master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to his death, he summons his barrister and has the whole, sordid tale committed to paper so that future generations will know why he killed his master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brooks tells the story of how he came to be hired as a manservant to a young man, and travels with him to the family home in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While there, he is haunted by the ghost of a young woman who claims that her human self is soon to be slain (since ghosts are not constrained by time, she is travelling back to the time of her death to ask him to rescue her).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this a rescue attempt, or something more diabolical?</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">There is some nice suspense to the story, but even the rereading of it doesn’t make full sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miss Landon is either a cunning genius, or the plot elements feel contrived and convenient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and suspense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Proving of Smollett Standforth (Margo Lanagan): (11 pages, takes place in rural England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A young boy is sent into service with a family and, because of his size, he is given a small attic room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The room is haunted, and the ghost of young woman who rushes across the room initially scares the boy and causes him to lose sleep, but isn’t harmful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then the ghost starts insisting that the boy take an item from her, and the more nights he endures this process, the more damage it does to his physical body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He suffers this in silence until he hears that his younger brother will be coming to stay, and will have to share his room with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will the boy determine a way to defeat the ghost, or will his brother become her next victim?</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story is a traditional gothic yarn, and there really was nothing surprising or unexpected about the narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no steampunk, and the suspense elements don’t save it from being a simple short story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and low level of suspense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Jade Woman of the Luminous Star (Sean Williams): (22 pages, takes place in England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the account of Dr. John Wesley Michaels, who was involved with a bizarre case, and records the written personal testament of Hugh Gordon on the eve of his execution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gordon, an aeronautical engineer, has been found guilty of murdering his wife Margaret, and Michaels has been brought in to interview him prior to his execution. Gordon tells of scientific experiments that reveal the ability to travel between worlds, and he meets a mysterious woman named Abiha, who detects his experimentation and decides to visit him. But then Margaret is murdered and Gordon is seriously injured; is there a greater conspiracy by Abiha’s people to discredit him in order to keep their existence secret, or is Gordon deranged by a delusion?</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: #7030a0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: yellow;">This was not one of my favorite stories in this selection, but it was definitely a mixture of steampunk and gaslight, as the cover of the anthology claims. I found Williams’ story to be mildly reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Barsoom</i> series, with its Princess of Mars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 5 stars for effective use of steampunk and the way it explores Victorian fascination with spiritualism.</span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Smithers and the Ghosts of the Thar (Robert Silverberg): (18 pages.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This narrative is the written personal testament of events as recorded by one of the characters long after the fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story takes place in India, and is inspired by the stories of Rudyard Kipling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A team of four civil servants are working to engineer roads and other public works in the Indian countryside when one of them, Smithers, returns with news that he heard something in the desert that makes it sound as though there are people living in the harsh Thar. The leader of the team, Yule, insists that his two engineers, Smithers and Brewster, go and investigate this phenomenon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brewster returns alone looking like he’s aged a decade or more, with news of a fantastic tribe that lives in the middle of the desert, isolated from the rest of the world, and completely disconnected. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is this place Smithers discovered, and what has happened to him there?</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story has no steampunk elements beyond the profession of the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is some suspense, but the character development is so shallow that I didn’t really like or worry about the characters, or care what happens to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and mild suspense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn’s Balloons (John Langan): <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(21 pages.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> This story takes place in New York and revolves around the spiritualism that was popular there in the 1850’s (though the story is set in 1888).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mark Coleman is an American author who has lived abroad for most of his life abroad before returning home as a middle aged man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He becomes curious about a spiritualist who has mysterious balloons that have been written about extensively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the train to his destination he meets a married couple; the husband is dying, and seeks to make his last days more comfortable by visiting Mr. Dunn, the same man who owns the balloons Coleman wants to see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But things don’t well for the ill man, and his wife begs Coleman to please help her get her husband away from Dunn, who is refusing to let them leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story is high on the gothic factor, and the steampunk is nonexistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not sure what more to say, except that there’s lots of internal storytelling, and it doesn’t seem to move the plot beyond explaining some events outside of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mystery of the balloons is only partially explained, and this limited the suspense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and the multiple digressions within the story.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Face to Face (John Harwood): (10 pages, takes place in England.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maurice Trevelyan and the narrator, Laura, have known each other for a long time, and their relationship has never become a romance because Maurice has a tragedy in his past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maurice and Laura’s story becomes the framefor Trevelyan’s explanation for what happened to the young woman he loved, Claire. Claire was married to an older man to gain security for her family after her father died, and the marriage was an unhappy one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Claire attempted to leave her husband, he threatened her with taking away their child and leaving her mother and sisters destitute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Claire’s daughter suffers a fatal illness, Claire writes a manuscript, and then dies with her daughter’s body in her arms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly thereafter, her husband dies as well under mysterious circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trevelyan has kept Claire’s manuscript for decades, but has never read it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did the manuscript have anything to do with these deaths, and is there such a thing as a book that can kill the reader?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This is another gothic read that was only mildly suspenseful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrative is short, but attempts to tell the story of two couples, and the story ran out before I developed empathy for any of the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give this story 3 stars for no steampunk and general lack of interest.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Bad Thoughts and the Mechanism (Richard Harland): (19 pages, takes place in England/English analog.)</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A 13 year-old is suffering from crippling nightmares and his parents take him to a research center that promises to cure him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they arrive they discover that the scientist has a machine that he is using to “pull” the bad dreams out of his patients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turns out that the aspects of the personality that are pulled out of the patients become trapped in the machine, and cause the machine to act out the horrible acts in the minds of the patients it has been used to treat. Can the young man make his parents and the mad scientist listen to his claims that the machine is haunted before it overpowers and kills its creator?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story is clearly a steampunk story, especially because it examines the question of the role of technology in our lives and the degree to which we are being changed by it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also appreciated that Harland managed to incorporate supernatural suspense into his narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is one of my top three favorite stories in the collection, and I gave it 5 stars for its steampunk elements and well-written narrative.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Grave Reflection (Marly Youmans): (19 pages, takes place in rural America/Eastern seaboard).</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> This story is a narrative of events that is written down and discovered by a family member many years later in the style of Nathaniel Hawthorne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this story within a story, the author describes an event in which he is summoned to his friend’s house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The friend is a twin, and his brother has recently died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only problem is the friend is now being haunted by his dead twin in every reflective surface in the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will the two men find a way to dismiss the ghostly apparition before the living twin goes insane? </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">There wasn’t much suspense in this story, and the narrative unravels in a quiet and uninteresting way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an interesting story, and I understand the inspiration and its role, but there was no steampunk and only barely any suspense. I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and the mild suspense of the narrative.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Christopher Raven (Theodora Goss): (16 pages, takes place in rural England.)</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four women convene at their childhood school for an alumnae event, and discuss what happened in their final year of school, when they were haunted by the ghost of a poet who once loved the lady of the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All women recall powerful dreams in which the reenacted portions of the ghosts’ romance, including erotic events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They revisit their discovery the poet was murdered by the lady’s husband, and that she killed her husband in revenge and had their house turned into a school for girls as an act of revenge. The friends part ways, possibly for the last time, but are they really free of their haunting?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This is a ghost story and, as such, it was interesting but not exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It felt like the women were simply retreading their childhood memories for the benefit of the reader, and they don’t arrive at any new conclusions that might have made this story more complex and ambiguous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt this was a somewhat thin premise for telling a story that is supposed to have suspense or additional energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and acceptable narrative.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Rose Street Attractors (Lucius Shepard): (55 pages, takes place in London.)</strong> Samuel Prothero is an alienist (a Victorian psychiatrist, when the science was still new) who is hired by inventor Jeffrey Richmond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Richmond was very close to his sister until her murder three years prior, and has devoted himself to an invention that will clean London’s foul air and improve the quality of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He builds <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>four ‘attractors’ to collect carbon particles and dispose of them, but one has malfunctioned and is collecting the spirits of those who have not crossed to the other side, including the spirit of Richmond’s sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Richmond wants Prothero to attempt contact with his sister, and to solve the mystery of her murder. But there’s a bigger mystery in Richmond’s house and the real question becomes will Prothero become the murderer’s next victim? </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story is the longest in the book, by far, and I wonder why this author was given so much space when better known authors wrote stories that were less than twenty pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless, this is definitely a steampunk story, and it is one of the strongest additions of this type in the anthology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not my favorite, but it definitely belongs in this collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave it 4 stars for steampunk elements and overall themes within the story.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Blackwood’s Baby (Laird Barron): (30 pages, takes place near Seattle.)</strong> Hunters from all over the world receive a summons to attend a big game hunt in the United States, with the prize as nearly priceless gun and S10,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After arriving at the hunting lodge, however, main character Luke Honey discovers that the hunt is a cover for something far more sinister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This story felt, to me anyway, like a blend of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” with a twist Edgar Allen Poe’s horror was known for, and this may be why I didn’t like this story at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barron’s story would more accurately be described as horror and, as such, it doesn’t seem to have a place in an anthology described as “stories of steampunk and supernatural suspense.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, this story takes place as late as the 1920’s, which makes the feeling that this story doesn’t belong in this anthology even stronger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave it 3 stars for lack of steampunk and incorrect placement in this anthology as this was more of a horror story.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Mysteries of the Old Quarter (Paul Park): (19 pages, takes place in New Orleans.</strong>) French scientist Dr. Philippe Delorme is recruited to give lectures on the use of electricity on human anatomy in New Orleans and discovers that his patron has hired him under false pretenses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Monsieur Maubusson lost his daughter under tragic circumstances, and he wants Delorme to use his knowledge of electricity to reanimate her long enough to find out if she was murdered and, if so, by whom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although he’s initially reluctant, Delorme is persuaded to take up the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the scientist has ghosts of his own, and they may have followed him across the sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This is ghost story in the style of Edgar Allen Poe. I didn’t like the epistolary nature of this story at all because it fractures the narrative so much that it’s difficult to determine what is pertinent and what is a piece of casual information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can tolerate having to piece together the clues to come to a conclusion, but there was so much work involved in this that I forgot what I was supposed to care when I arrived at the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and fractured nature of the story.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Summer Palace (Jeffrey Ford): (21 pages, takes place in an alternate reality or world.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></strong>In this story within a story the narrator tells of discovering the notes of a Physiognomist (something like a police officer, I think) named Cley in the ruins of Well-Built City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the narrator dries out the notes, he reads individual episodes to his friends during evening get-togethers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On one particular night the narrator shares Cley’s report of his visit to a rural estate to look into a murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The caretaker of the estate has died under mysterious circumstances, and Cley has been sent because the man’s family claims there is there is a ghost who is responsible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The estate, which belongs to Cley’s superior, has secrets, and the real question becomes whether or not Cley will be able to solve the murder without being caught in these secrets.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">This was another story I felt was misplaced within this anthology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Summer Palace” is a prequel within Ford’s Well-Built City Trilogy, and is more a work of science fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a little difficult to follow, because there are a plentitude of titles, names, and places that this short story isn’t enough to explain, and I don’t recognize the series “Summer Palace” is based on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outside of the ghostly presence, I don’t see how this story fits in with any of the remaining sixteen tales, all of which happen on Earth and are placed between 1860 and 1925.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an odd way to finish the anthology, and I’m left somewhat bewildered by its inclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave this story 3 stars for lack of steampunk and questionable placement in this anthology.</span></div><br />
<a name='more'></a>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-71107083585141646882011-09-15T14:15:00.000-07:002011-09-18T11:25:07.559-07:00Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurences Novel by Pip Ballentine and Tee Morris [REVIEW].<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9795166-phoenix-rising"><img alt="Phoenix Rising (Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, #1)" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312048721l/9795166.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A few things to note before beginning my preview:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I would like to make it clear that I wouldn’t describe this story as YA; there’s no judgment implied in this statement, only a simple caution since so many steampunk novels can easily fall into multiple age-level categories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This novel contains references to sexual behavior and, although they never become graphic and are mostly suggested, there is the description of an orgy as well as the violent prelude to a near rape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also somewhat graphic violence: there are plenty of fist, knife, and gun fights, as well as explosions, and I would advise parental guidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in, parents should only hand this book to their teenager if they’ve read it first and are comfortable with their child’s maturity level.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Further:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>**Warning!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of my analysis contains spoilers!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to be as vague as possible—and there’s a lot going on in the book I never mention—but I’m trying to give fair warning here!**</span></div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Phoenix Rising</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> begins with a rescue mission:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wellington Thornhill Books, chief archivist for England’s super-secret Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (MOPO) has been kidnapped and secreted away in Antarctica by the malevolent villains known as The House of Usher. As the archivist for the ministry, Books knows all the secrets, codes, and anything else that is of importance to the running of a clandestine government organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His abduction is a significant threat to Britain’s national security, so the head of the ministry, Dr. Sound, immediately dispatches one of his best agents, Eliza D. Braun, to rescue the archivist, dead or alive, with ‘dead’ being the preferred option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Braun is a woman of action who likes to do things her way, and she doesn’t always do things quietly or exactly as ordered: she manages to rescue Books in rather spectacular fashion because she feels that Books’ kill order is unjust, especially given that no one knows if any security breach has actually happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In her efforts to Do The Right Thing, however, she fails to conceal that she—and the agency—were involved in Books’ rescue, and now the enemy knows that the agency is aware of their existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She returns to England with the very scholarly Books knowing that there will be a reckoning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Once back in England, Dr. Sound decides that, while Braun’s were ultimately correct, her punishment for failure to follow orders is to have to work with Books in the archives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The agents are horrified: Books lives an ordered and quiet existence in the bowels of the ministry, and Braun lost her previous partner under painful circumstances and would rather continue her woman of action lifestyle <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alone</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just like the mysterious and powerful items that are kept in the archives, Dr. Sound’s plans for Books and Braun are not what they seem, and his motives for pairing these different personalities seems to be a part of a larger scheme than either of the partners can realize.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Braun makes her unhappiness with her new assignment felt as thoroughly as she can: She breaks things, refuses to keep to schedule, and behaves in the most obnoxious manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then one day she finds the records for her former partner’s last case, and she can’t help but read the details, many of which she has never seen or heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her partner, agent Harrison Thorne, had been investigating a set of particularly vicious murders when he was found, alone and mad, in the slums of London. Although he is still alive, Eliza’s former partner now resides in Bedlam, a babbling shell of a man beyond all medical treatment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eliza resolves to untangle the mystery without the ministry’s knowledge, but in order to do so she must involve her new, unwanted partner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Books believes in rules and structure, and he doesn’t want anything to do with this unofficial investigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, until his natural curiosity becomes engaged and he is slowly dragged into a mystery involving assassins, secret societies, and dangerous subterfuge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I appreciate how stereotypical roles (the man as headstrong, the woman as the more demure voice of reason) are inverted in this story, but this contrast is sometimes to the point of extremes and it takes a little bit for the character development to progress far enough to explain why these characters behave this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Braun initially seems to be too vampy and flirty, while Books is too uptight and, yes, by the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the story progresses, however, the reader discovers that Braun’s outrageous behavior is a weapon as much as her guns or knives; she uses her sexuality both to protect her emotional vulnerability and to incite her enemies into rash behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a woman who desperately misses her family in New Zealand, in particular a brother with a debilitating mental illness, as well as her Maori mentors, who taught her the skills she uses to survive in her distinctly nontraditional profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the narrative doesn’t fully explain her exile to England, there is additional material available on the author website that sheds some light on how her assignment with MOPO is far more complicated than it seems. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Books, on the other hand, initially seems to be a coward, completely unable to defend himself, and afraid of weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader learns that just because Books doesn’t want handle knives, guns, or explosives doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although he’s more than content to let Braun do the work and think poorly of him, he can, and does, competently handle situations when they arise, while making himself look clumsy and foolish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His extreme reluctance to handle weapons has an explanation, and the reader is provided with enough details to understand there is something more going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interestingly, I found I wasn’t frustrated by the lack of a full explanation for his behavior; Books’ anxiety and struggles, as well as those of Braun, seem real and, just as with a real person, we’re not going to learn them all at one time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This added a layer of psychological complexity made this book feel like a part of a larger story, and I’m glad the authors left the reader curious about the London they’ve created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These characters, and the world they live in, are going to develop over time, and I feel like I’ve gotten just enough information to be excited for the next installment of the story. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reviews I’ve read have commented that the character development felt shallow, but I don’t agree that this is the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really liked that Books and Braun come with backstories, and I don’t mind that first half dozen chapters are devoted to developing the relationship between these two very different personalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Books’ upbringing as the son of a wealthy and demanding landowner appears throughout his interior dialogue, and explains why he feels so strongly compelled to do the work he does, which he sees as meaningful and necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Braun’s backstory in New Zealand is a bit more mysterious, but the narrative clearly demonstrates how she has been shaped by the tragedies in her life, and how her work for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (MOPO) is informed by this past. I had the sense that Books and Braun hadn’t worked through these individual conflicts and, after they are thrown together, it makes sense that the initial partnership is destined to be rocky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I also feel that after they have that rough, awkward, slow start, they grow to trust each other and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real </i>partnership forms, not the manufactured partnership where two people are just thrown together and told to get something done and they inexplicably do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the story hints at the possibility of a future romance between Books and Braun (the reader certainly learns that they are attracted to each other), I’m especially grateful that this element, if it does happen, is further down the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The friendship and trust comes first.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On another note, I love the intertextual nods in this book:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are references to Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” [The House of Usher is the group of villains who originally kidnap Books], Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Baker Street Irregulars [known as the “Mission 7” in this story], Agent Bruce Campbell [a nod to the beloved campy actor], and Barnabas and Angelique Collins [the vampire from Dark Shadows and the witch who turned him into a vampire when he broke their engagement].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these references might have made the story feel too derivative, but somehow the narrative pays homage without borrowing too much from these sources of inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is all done in a witty tongue-in-cheek way that doesn’t seem cheesy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too</i> cheesy, anyway.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The only thing I truly did not like about this book is *sigh* the silly cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the just plain absurd “sci-fi fan convention fantasy dress” depiction of Eliza Braun on the cover of the book, for the most part she dresses and behaves like a Victorian woman while in public within the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, her private behavior is a bit outrageous—but this is where the book makes some of its strongest commentaries on gender and class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although she does, on occasion, wear trousers, these few episodes are always in context: she is going into a situation that requires freedom of movement for combat or escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This character does not flaunt social convention without specific and reasonable cause, and I appreciate the way in which these authors balance the historical period with the anachronisms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just wish this were more accurately reflected in the cover art which, sadly, delayed me in actually reading the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I know, I know, never judge a book by its cover!)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">[Warning: a rant cometh!] Did I mention the silly cover?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s silly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in, Agent Eliza Braun NEVER dresses like this in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in, the written story is fun, engaging, and deserving of a cover that doesn’t scream to the book buyer “I’m Steampunk—buy me, buy me, buy me, meeeeee!!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know many readers love this cover, but the fictional (and anachronistic) story is placed within real history, and the dress conventions are observed (with a few reasonable exceptions). I would have loved to see Braun depicted as she is described in the book, complete with a knife and one of her beloved pounamu pistols handy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, the artist did manage to accomplish this with Books who, sadly, is buried in the background and, therefore, cannot rescue the silly cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[End rant.]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Even though there are two authors, I feel the writing reflects one voice and I don’t feel like there was resistance or conflict in the way the story is assembled, though I have read other commentaries where this is cited as a specific problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am inclined to reread these chapters and revisit my opinion on this point, but I find that I am otherwise pleased with this story and the way it is presented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoyed reading Books and Braun’s adventures, which I found much more entertaining and less frustrating than many books I have read in this genre recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would put this book at the top of my recommend pile, which is why I have chosen to give it a five-star rating in my Goodreads account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I keep trying to reassess that rating and change it to a four, but I just can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is the book campy, verging on cheesy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it have a cinematic feel similar to 2009’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock Holmes</i> with Robert Downey Jr.?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it a fun and entertaining story that kept me engaged from the first page to the last?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t wait for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cogs and Corsets: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel</i> in May 2012!!!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-22726721540800374582011-09-11T20:50:00.000-07:002011-09-11T20:50:09.157-07:00Agatha H and the Airship City: A Girl Genius Novel by Kaja and Phil Foglio [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9024346-agatha-h-and-the-airship-city"><img alt="Agatha H and the Airship City: A Girl Genius Novel" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1302968328l/9024346.jpg" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve had a hard time writing this review because I’m a fan of the Girl Genius webcomic, and it feels like I’m speaking ill of the series to offer up criticism on the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has taken me a while to decide that not all great comic heroes have made a graceful transition into novelized forms, and this book falls into that category.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t get me wrong:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is a fun and entertaining read, but it is so because the original story has these qualities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book offers very little that is new to the Girl Genius world, and if you’re looking for a summary of volumes 1-3 of the comic reprints, or you don’t want to read the comic but want to be brought up to speed in a prose form, then this book is for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoyed reading it, and wouldn’t have any problems recommending it to others, but this novel is simply a capable retelling of what has already transpired in the weekly strip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you really want to read this story, buy the graphic novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want the CliffsNotes, or absolutely must own everything Girl Genius you can get your hands on, then buy this book.</span> </div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The story begins with Bill and Barry Heterodyne, who are attempting to identify a way to destroy a powerful threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The source if the threat is mysterious, but they’ve abducted Bill’s wife and son and disappeared, and he’s desperate to find them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill, a powerful ‘spark’ and scion of the Heterodyne family, is trying to get to the bottom of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill’s brother Barry has also inherited the spark genetic trait, and the brothers are powerful inventors and scientists that have fought to bring order to their part of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now Bill is obsessed by a desire to avenge the loss of his family and to bring his people relief from the perpetual destruction caused by renegade sparks in the region.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The story then picks up over a decade later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “Heterodyne boys” have both disappeared and their good friend and partner, Baron Wulfenbach, now rules over the region with an iron fist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story begins with Agatha Clay, who is being raised by her foster parents Adam and Lilith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All her life Agatha has had visions of invention and creation that ended with debilitating and excruciating headaches. Despite this, she has enrolled at Transylvania Polygnostic University under the watchful eye of Dr. Beetle, who keeps her on despite her repeated catastrophic failures to create anything that actually works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then one day, while on her way to school, Agatha is mugged and the locket that Lilith <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">insists </i>Agatha wear every day is stolen; Adam and Lilith are strangely panicked by this, and move to relocate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the pair is gone making arrangements, a tired Agatha lies down for a moment to rest and, when she wakes up, she discovers that she may have built a machine in her sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An incredibly powerful machine has caught the eye of Baron Wulfenbach, who consolidates his power by isolating new sparks whenever one is found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Baron makes a tactical error: He thinks the spark is the man who stole Agatha’s locket, and that Agatha is merely a girlfriend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Baron takes the pair up to his floating capitol, the airship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Castle Wulfenbach</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the airship Agatha is finally free of her headaches and, even though she doesn’t understand why yet, she has too much to deal with to give it any thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Baron’s son, Gil, is also on the ship, and he knows that there is more to Agatha then his father is able to see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the one who identifies her as a spark, and keeps that information from his father so he can recruit her to help with his projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agatha also learns that the Baron often forces the families of his vassals to send their children to live on the airship for the majority of the year as insurance for good behavior, which is why the Baron abducted her—he sees her as a way of controlling his latest spark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agatha begins making friends with these fellow hostages while she tries to figure out who she is and why she keeps waking up in the morning in only her underwear and with machine grease all over her hands. Eventually, Agatha learns that not only is she is a spark, but the daughter of Bill Heterodyne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since her father and uncle are missing and presumed dead, she is now the last scion of her family and a target for all the ruling sparks, who will want to control the populace through her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She can either submit to the Baron, or she can escape in the hopes of restoring her family and solving the mystery of what happened to her parents. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the reasons I was somewhat disappointed with this book is because it offers so little additional information about Agatha or the world she lives in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agatha suffers terribly from incapacitating headaches for most of her young life, and her attempts to create, which fulfill a deep-seated instinctive need, are constantly frustrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This condition is definitely presented as a problem in the book, but her headaches seem to be more of an inconvenience than a major crippling roadblock to her development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ‘get’ that Agatha’s self-esteem and inability to self-actualize has been seriously compromised throughout her life, but this reality is presented in a way that feels cardboard and two-dimensional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is acceptable in a comic because of the limitations of the format, but I expected more internal dialogue and complexity from Agatha. A novelized format certainly allows for greater exposition and detail, and this just didn’t happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This criticism applies to Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Agatha’s potential love interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s the son of Baron Wulfenbach, who took over the area Agatha lives in when she was a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gil honestly believes himself to be different from his father, and his relationship with Agatha informed by her inability to trust that this is truly the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gil is constantly tested by the Baron, which he resents, but at the same time this has caused him to pick up many of his father’s opinions and attitudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is an area where a novelized version of this story could really shine to create an ambiguous and complex character, but Gil never quite develops. As a result, Gil is a caricature that falls flat. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like a missed opportunity for additional content that might not fit into the comic format, and deprives both Gil and his father Baron Wulfenbach of the ambiguity that would help this story transcend from just a copy of another format into a version in its own right.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I feel even more strongly about this after having asked Kaja Foglio at a recent convention if she and co-author Phil had gained any new perspective about Agatha through the writing process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kaja responded that no, they pretty much understand who Agatha is as a character and there were no additional refinements in the writing process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This begs the question of why bother with writing the novelized version of the story then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If story is complete in its graphic form, it seems to be needlessly redundant to create a novelized version that is simply a retread of what these authors have already done better in a previous text.</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I will repeat my opening statement that this was a fun read, and I enjoyed it, but the novel never moves beyond just ‘ok’ to something more interesting and thought provoking. It also doesn’t help that the story suffers because the artwork, which is a powerful component, is missing altogether in the prose narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The comic succeeds because of the engaging art and, without it, much of the charm and heart of the story simply never appears on the page. I sincerely hope that Kaja and Phil have been paying attention to what their readers are saying about this book, and are taking this feedback to heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that I will buy the second novel in the series, <em>Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess</em>, when it comes out in Spring 2012, and it will be nice surprise if this new novel adds value to the series.</span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-22062780990651575062011-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:002011-09-07T14:25:58.327-07:00The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><img height="475" id="il_fi" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1297987541l/9166877.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="309" /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I started reading this book with high hopes: The advance reviews had been positive and I’m always anxious to read new Steampunk young adult fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It helps that this author released a short story prior to this book that established the main character of this novel in an exciting way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But after reading the whole story I find that there are some world building issues that lend a schizophrenic quality to this book that the narrative never able to rise above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The novel is just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too</i> derivative: even the author describes her book as an attempt to combine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">League of Extraordinary Gentlemen </i>and the X-Men!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the flaw I couldn’t get past:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cross draws on so many existing stories that her unique narrative gets lost and diminished to the point where I wonder where her original story is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The resulting mixture lacks world building, contains a number of clichéd love triangles, and includes the inexplicable use of hyper-advanced technology for a Victorian world. </span></div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The story revolves around Finley Jayne, a young woman who is employed as a maid in a noble household.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever since her employment she has been warned by the other maids to steer clear of the son of the house, who preys on the female servants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Predictably, Finley is caught alone in the hallway late one night, and she is forced to defend herself from a brutal attack by allowing her ‘darker side’ to take over and fight off the villainous advances of the young lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her mysterious and violent darker side, however, takes no prisoners, and serious physical damage is done, so much so that Finley knows she won’t be able to explain it later, so she flees into the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While on this wild flight the young woman runs into another young lord on—wait for it—a velocycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, a steam-powered motorcycle analog that races about London at high speeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, the same London that is crowded with much slower-moving horse-drawn carriages during this time period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I digress.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Griffin King is the eighteen year-old Duke of Greythorne and he feels terrible that he just mowed down this young woman with his high-powered machine, but he also senses that there is something more to her, so he insists on taking her home with him to his mansion in Mayfair. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It helps that Griffin is the leader of a team of young ‘supers’: Griffin can access the ‘aether,’ his best friend Samuel Morgan is superhumanly strong, and teammate Emily O’Brien is a sixteen year-old super genius who is always inventing new gadgets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Added to the mix is Griffin’s young aunt and guardian Cordelia, the telepathic Marchioness of Marsden, and Jasper Renn, the hyper-fast and mysterious teenaged American cowboy, and the result is a team that works directly for Queen Victoria and charged with keeping the United Kingdom safe from the things that go bump in the night. Griffin’s experience with this group of young people tells him that there is more to Finley, and he immediately recruits her to help with solving a mysterious series of thefts that are a potential threat to the British monarchy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Finley has two personalities, and her darker side is determined to take over and finish what she started in her previous place of employment. The lord who attacked her, Felix August-Raynes, has the facial piercing that marks him as a follower of Jack Dandy, the young crime lord who controls London’s underground, and Finley’s other half wants to make sure that Dandy is aware of the attack and the behavior that prompted her response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She dresses like she’s in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Matrix </i>in short trousers, tall boots, and a black duster, and jumps on the chrome-covered velocycle (for which she has absolutely zero training) and zips off into the night to find Dandy. [On a side note, I had a lot of trouble with the ridiculous clothes the girls wear, which have more to do with a Steampunk convention than the Victorian period this book is set in, but there are bigger fish to fry than the wardrobe, so I’ll limit myself to this one sentence.] </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Jack Dandy Finley meets is a knee-meltingly gorgeous and bold twenty-one year-old who seems deeply intrigued by the young woman who has invaded his territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dandy and Finley flirt back and forth…uh, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">verbally spar</i>, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>until he learns of the attack on her delectable person, and then he changes, his cockney accent disappearing and his dark personality emerging long enough to soulfully promise her that the problem will be taken care of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, and if she ever needs a safe place, his door is always open to her, yes, delectable person. Cue the Griffin-Finley-Jack love triangle and a moderate gag reflex at the sweetness of it all!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Finley returns to the Greythorne estate to discover that no one except Griffin trusts her now because of her erratic and unpredictable behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To further complicate matters, Cordelia has returned from a mission elsewhere to identify Finley as the daughter of one of the members of an expedition to the center of the earth led by Griffin’s parents two decades prior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finley Jayne is really Finley Jane Sheppard, and she is the daughter of the original Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her father’s transformation was possible because the expedition discovered a substance they called Organites, which they found “emit[ ] energy that [can] be used to power anything from one machine to an entire household.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, Thomas Sheppard learned that the Organites could “attach themselves to the human tissue and cop[y] its composition, so that when applied to [a] wound, they work[ ] to rebuild flesh and heal[ ] injury…without even the tiniest scar,” and he decided to experiment on himself using a compound he created, which split his personality (27).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thomas dies when Finley is an infant, so he never learns that he had altered his DNA so profoundly that his child inherited her split personality as a genetic mutation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his wife knew there was a problem, and she hid Finley by changing her identity and then getting remarried. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is only one story in which every character has a complicated backstory and, rather than using allusion and promising a larger exploration later, Cross tries to include all of these backstories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Cordelia was part of the original King exploration that discovered the Organites, and she has many insights she is reluctant to share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This in itself is enough for this first book, but then there is the additional story that includes her husband’s disappearance six years prior, and how she wears a chain from nose to ear for every year he has been missing while she continues to travel throughout the world in search for him. There’s a lot of facial piercing in this novel, and it is pointed out in the narrative at every opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another love triangle is introduced through Sam-Emily-Jasper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emily’s past is mysterious, but she is also connected to the Griffin family expedition, and it is somehow responsible for her super intelligence. Sam is fatally injured in a battle that occurs prior to the start of the book and Emily replaces much of his anatomy, including his heart and an arm, with mechanical parts and metal reinforcement. Sam struggles with the knowledge that so much of him is now metal, and he spends a great deal of the book slamming doors and generally being whiny because his friends loved him so much that they went to extreme lengths to save him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is one of the silliest plot elements, because the formerly trustworthy and secretive Sam becomes incapable of keeping secrets—with disastrous consequences. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But wait, there’s more!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>American Jasper Renn is as mysterious as Emily, but his super speed is also derivative of exposure to the Organites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, he is has travelled to England to escape some unknown trouble with the law in the states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just in case the reader has any doubts about who the intended audience for this book is, there are so many boys, so little time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And speaking of love interests, Griffin seems to know the most about the Organites and is the one who encourages research into how his team has been changed into ‘meta-humans’ by their exposure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also doesn’t admit to his friends his lack of knowledge about the limits of his powers or how dangerous he can be if he loses control of all the energy he harnesses. He is the Professor X of the team, and the ‘aether’ he’s working with is a magic smoke that conveniently seems to be whatever he needs it to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Then, somewhere over two-hundred pages into the story, the reader is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">finally </i>given some information about the villain who has been mentioned throughout like an afterthought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Machinist has been stealing random items and now the mystery is to figure out why and to what end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Machinist seems to know a great deal about the team and their vulnerabilities, which keeps him a step ahead of the team as they race all over London to figure out his evil plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who is he, what is his nefarious goal, and will the team be able to stick together long enough to keep him from getting it? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with the League/X-men mash up per se, but I do have a problem with the general mess that results when additional stories are blended in, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankenstein</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journey to the Center of the Earth</i>, and even the major plot of Disney’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Mouse Detective</i> (which, coincidentally, is also set in London circa 1897).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, this book is a work of steampunk and meant to be anachronistic, and I’m prepared to accept science and gadgets that are advanced in a retro-futuristic manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just not as convinced by the attempt to shoehorn a number of modern pop-culture references into a single, fictional story set in historical Victorian London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy the novel is compromised by the sense that I’ve heard this story before married with my disappointment over the frenetic character development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This narrative lacks the elegance and excitement the novella prequel inspired, and Cross’ originality suffers through the attempts to connect a significant number of established science fiction elements into a novel that has been announced as the first in a series.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is so much going on in this story that it feels like a bit of a hot mess, especially when it comes to the technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, technology is, and should be, a central motif in steampunk, but articulated, fully functional prosthetics that behave like cybernetic devices? Sam’s artificial arm is covered in skin created by the Organites and, like his artificial heart, doesn’t require external power of any kind and is accepted by his body with no signs of rejection. Then there’s the ‘personal telegraph machine’ each of the members of the team carry: This device is described as a “flat machine smaller than a deck of playing cards…all the rage now for fast communication” on which what sounds like a lot like text messages can be sent and received wirelessly (21).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This explanation sounds like the answer a steampunk would give when chided at a convention for using their cell phone in public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Similarly, Griffin owns an Aether machine, which is the “perfect receptacle for Aetheric images…[that] also double[s] as an analytical engine and…[i]s connected through telegraph and telephone lines, sharing important and often coded political information” (107).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This device has a connected printer to copy articles and pictures he finds on what sounds a great deal like the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than attempt to describe or invoke new devices, it appears that Cross has simply inserted modern machines and devices, like the velocycle, and then tried to describe them using Victorian terms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s even a scene where Emily brings in a camera on a tripod to photograph Finley the camera has an internal system by which it can develop the print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just couldn’t see how, even with the discovery of Organites, all this sophisticated and advanced technology came to be, and it felt contrived and overblown within the Victorian setting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m also not a fan of the kind of attraction Finley has for Griffin King and Jack Dandy, even though both of these young men are compelling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though one is supposedly “good” and the other “the bad boy,” both come across as having hearts of gold and willing to do anything for Finley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dandy, especially, should have been more complex and ambiguous: he is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lord of the London underground</i> and yet there is never anything to explain how he achieved this status or how he manages to hold on to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He basically tells Finley that he likes her so much he’ll “play her game,” even though he believes he is destined to lose her affection to Griffin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finley’s attraction to these young men, however, is predicated on how dangerous they can be: Griffin is a “young man capable of many dangerous things” (76) and Finley recognizes that [s]he might have the strength to harm [Dandy], but he wouldn’t go down easily, and she might not survive the altercation…and as with Griffin, this elevated Dandy in her estimation” (95).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find myself, ‘dark side’ or not, more than slightly horrified that she is torn between two young men because knows she can’t beat them up. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m always saying that I believe young readers are intelligent and deserve well-written stories and, as far as that goes, this one isn’t that original, but it isn’t horrible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It kept my interest from beginning to end, and it has a good cliffhanger to lead into the next book in the series, which I will likely buy and read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I found this book lacks the magic that helps a story transcend being merely good to become great, and I feel like the biggest problem overall is the inadequate focus of the narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kady Cross has a lot of ideas, and she seems determined to put them all into this one story, and the result is a novel with so many plot lines that none of them rise to the surface and shine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m hoping that now that some of these stories have been introduced the next novel will spend more time with developing characters and a tight plot and less time with introducing gadgets and transparent plot developments. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-28436778882376866532011-09-06T18:31:00.000-07:002011-09-06T19:17:44.620-07:00The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong><img height="427" id="il_fi" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1303414416l/11130686.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="270" /></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong>Note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time of the publication of this blog entry this novella was still available for free from amazon.com as a Kindle download.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know how much longer this will be the case, but it’s worth checking the website</strong>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story serves as an introduction to a new young adult series by Kady Cross called The Steampunk Chronicles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first of these books, The Girl in the Steel Corset, was released on May 24, 2011, and continues Finley’s adventures as she discovers who her father was, exactly what she is, and if there are others in the world like her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I think this short story is an excellent introduction to the series:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pacing is elegant, the action is well written, and Finley is a gem of a character with enough of a backstory to warrant this kind of supplemental material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This prequel is a brilliant move because it gives the reader a chance to see some of Finley’s life before she is thrown into the events of the series, and quite frankly, I’m impatient to see where she goes from here!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the kind of YA literature I like:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s smart, there are a lot of details about Victorian England embedded in the text, and the characters have the kind of ambiguity that promotes ethical development in young adults. This is the kind of book I look forward to recommending to a school librarian or putting in a classroom library.</span></span> </div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In this novella the reader is introduced to Finley Jayne, a young woman who lives in late nineteenth-century London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike many heroines in young adult fiction, Finley has a loving mother and stepfather she loves and has a close relationship with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But her parents are book merchants who are barely keeping their heads above water, and the teenaged Finley has to work away from home to support herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This might be a less complicated endeavor for anyone other than Finley:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s different, and she knows it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matters come to a head when Finley is fired for striking another servant in the household where she is employed—the servant was abusing her small charge—but everyone is horrified when Finley strikes the woman and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">literally </i>knocks her teeth out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finley returns home in disgrace and trying to figure out what she’s going to do next now that she can no longer count on an all-important letter of reference to secure a new job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Finley doesn’t have to go looking: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beautiful Lady Morton walks into the bookshop one day looking to hire Finley as a companion for her daughter, Phoebe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Finley learns more about Phoebe she becomes confused:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could a young woman who is engaged and about to be married need with a companion?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Lady Morton offers an incredible salary and Finley can’t say no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It helps that Phoebe is a lovely girl, and the two young women become fast friends. As events unfold Finley discovers that Lady Morton knows that Finley is more than she appears, and has hired her as a sort of body guard for Phoebe, whose marriage was arranged by her father without her mother’s permission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is Phoebe’s fiancé Lord Vincent up to, and what, exactly, does Lady Morton expect Finley to protect Phoebe from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amidst all of this, she has to figure out her other, powerful, half and make decisions about how she controls or uses her ability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I appreciate how Kady Cross seems to have figured out many of the concerns that are central to Steampunk: Finley’s life is deeply affected by her social class, her gender, and the technological development of the world she lives in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although these issues are still prevalent today, and we may never be free of these questions, the nineteenth century was difficult for women and children in particular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cross seamlessly weaves in these details, and shows the ways in which these groups were vulnerable without imposing conclusions on the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This attention to detail gives the story a kind energy and realism that makes it easy to engage with the narrative, and to see how the lives of all of the characters are shaped and directed by class and gender. </span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-17006393016077260802011-09-02T11:47:00.000-07:002011-09-02T11:47:08.086-07:00Dead Iron by Devon Monk [Review]<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="466" id="il_fi" src="http://booksellers.penguin.com/nf/shared/ImageDownloader/1,,~opt~customer~prod-ss5~pc2~US~4~static~images~covers~9780451463968B_jpg,00.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="310" /></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s a bit difficult to decide the genre of Devon Monk’s <em>Dead Iron</em>: It’s a little bit Western, a little bit fantasy fairytale, a little bit steampunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With so many different elements in play chances were high that the result would be a confused and unfocused mashup, and I will admit to owning this book for months before I could bring myself to read it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, however, this book avoids these pitfalls and delivers a new and distinct world that gracefully introduces and blends these disparate elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result is an intriguing story in which elements remain just that, and serve as the framework on which to build a complex and thoughtful story. This is not to say that there weren’t things that might have been done better—but more about that later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the most fascinating aspects of this story is that it captures what it might have been like on the historic American frontier, a place in which a new history was being forged by an ever-growing number of immigrants from all over the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These immigrants brought their creation stories, myths, and beliefs to a new world that was already teeming with a native population rich in all of these aspects. As the frontier was trying to sort itself out between the ancient and the new, steam technology brought rapid change and an additional source of conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why<em> Dead Iron</em> is appealing and believable: Although it is clearly a work of fantasy, it builds from a point of emotional authenticity that serves as the springboard for the fantastical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although there is a new mythical foe from an alternate place (the Strange), humans who can use magic, and fantastic machines (matics), the characters are archetypal within this well-told tale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Devon Monk’s writing style is clear and easy to follow, and I found the way the story developed engaging and interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The imagery has the feel of the stylistically textured cinematic production of a dark fairytale, such as that found in Burton’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sleepy Hollow</i> or Hardwicke’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Riding Hood</i>: There is the battle of good against ultimate evil, both internally and externally, for the central characters Cedar, Mae, and Rose; The Madder brothers are tricksters who also fulfill the role of the (possibly magical) Helper; Rose is an orphan who is adopted by an abusive mother figure and must overcome evil with the aid of a magical item; and Shard LeFel is unambiguously the villain who must collect seven pieces (a magical number) to build the Holder that will allow him to open the door (a magical portal or liminal space) to another place. I believe the fairytale aspects are part of the reason I enjoyed the novel so much: The visuals of the story, and the way in which they are built within a familiar frame, helped me to identify important elements and remember them as the tale progressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also made the book satisfying in terms of how the action built and was resolved even though the story is the first in a trilogy and the conclusion is open-ended. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The story begins with Cedar Hunt, an educated man who has been driven, like so many others, to the frontier because of tragedy and loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His wanderings lead him to the town of Hallelujah, Oregon, where he lives a solitary life for two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is restricted by a “curse” that forces him to live as a werewolf for three nights each month, and he begins the book confused by, and resistant to, the lycanthropy that has been placed on him by a Pawnee god. His self-loathing is further intensified by a belief that he is responsible for his brother Wil’s death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Cedar considers his lycanthropy a curse, it comes with the advantage of making him an excellent hunter, and his desire to atone for his past sins leads him to use his skills to benefit others whenever he can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the first pages of the novel the reader learns a child has been abducted under mysterious circumstances, and of Cedar’s committment to recover him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mission is further complicated when he is informed by the Madder brothers that the brother he believes he killed is possibly alive and being held prisoner by Shard LeFel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The triplets are willing to provide information about Wil’s location in exchange for a promise to retrieve a device with unknown powers, but no matter how desperate Cedar is to recover his brother, the little boy must come first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He makes an amended vow to seek their item only after he has completed his quest to find the boy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mae Lindson is the resilient Western woman who has chosen to marry Jeb, a black man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This couple relocated to Hallelujah for the opportunity at reinvention the frontier offers, but learned that there is only so much tolerance for their mixed-race marriage, even here. As the book begins Mae, who is a powerful witch, realizes her husband has been killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She knows that the people of the town will not tell her the identity of the murderer: Jeb is black, and there will be no justice for his murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is unaware that his killing is related to her magical ability, or that she has bound her husband to her, even in death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jeb is determined to protect the love of his life and, despite his death, continues to walk the earth in an attempt to protect her from the unknown intentions of Shard LeFel and the forces of the Strange. Jeb’s perseverance and Mae’s commitment to Jeb in the face of grave injustice, makes their tragedy the heart of this novel.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Rose Small is the orphan with a magical past of some kind no one seems to quite understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was taken in by the Smalls as a young child, and treated horribly since, and this makes her able to see and do things that other characters are unable to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has been born with an innate ability to create machines, but is limited because of her gender and unmarried status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The frontier should be an optimal place for her as well, but her magical past ensures her status as an undesirable, and her dreams of a future in which she will have free reign to create seem unattainable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Shard LeFel isn’t human, but one of the Strange, the brother of a king of an alternate, magical place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s the clear villain of the story, exiled to Earth for crimes against his brother, and determined to return and take revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>LeFel has already been on Earth for 300 years, but the term of his sentence has come to an end, and his time is up: either he finds a way to return to the place from which he came, or he dies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My only quibble with LeFel’s story has to do with the revelation that the king of the Strange cares about Earth and seeks to protect it from evil forces; if this is the case, why did he send his clearly evil and traitorous brother to Earth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>LeFel’s determination to return to his kind leads him to perform acts of extreme cruelty, and I found this bit of exposition difficult to reconcile. Dead Iron is the first book in a trilogy, and I am hopeful this question will be answered—or at least explored—in future installments. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With so many points of view, the chances were high that the story would become disjointed and too difficult to follow, but I found this wasn’t the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Cedar Hunt is on the cover of the book and the implication is that he will be the main character of the story, the overall production felt like an ensemble cast movie, a move that complimented the imagery of the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters in this novel are one of its most attractive features, and I enjoyed seeing how one character’s decisions shaped the thought process and actions of another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although LeFel is unambiguously evil in his intention and action, the behavior of the remaining characters is anything but easy to classify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cedar does his best, but he is cobbled by a lack of control over his lupine self and the devastating tragedy in his past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My main complaint about Cedar is that he is close-mouthed to his eternal detriment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no matter how much I wanted to yell at him to just tell another character something, this is an important element of Cedar’s character: He has no friends and is in self-exile, and it makes sense that he will be untrusting and less than forthcoming with others. Like Cedar, Mae is compelled to use her abilities for positive outcomes, but her desire to get justice for her husband may compromise her ethics and lead her down a path she can’t return from. Rose is less complicated in her intentions, but is on the verge of womanhood without knowing who she really is or why she was abandoned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her future is threatened if she can’t figure out how to move forward without the answers she desperately needs. The shifts between the points of view between so many principal characters could have been confusing, but instead it lent verisimilitude to the town of Hallelujah with the complexity of real interaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I also liked the way the steampunk elements were woven into the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I appreciate that machines exist where they should and, even though the matics and other steam-powered creations are objects of fantasy, they fit within the story and are used in a way that makes sense. There is no hard sell of the steampunk elements in the story—they simply exist as part of a greater world and are used as tools of that world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conflict between the mystical and technological worlds is interesting, even beyond the fantasy aspects, and poses the questions that keep steampunks from a good night’s sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, my favorite storylines had to do with Mae and Rose, who represent the race and gender conflicts that have become central to steampunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, Wild West themes are becoming prominent in steampunk as the genre moves from its Victorian England origins into a broader world view, and I would have liked to have seen a greater presence on the part of the Native American population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am hopeful that this is an element that reappears with greater force in the future since Cedar’s curse originates with the Pawnee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Overall, I find myself far more excited about this is book, and the forthcoming additions, than I thought I would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoyed the writing, and felt like the story unfolded in a way that made sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can also say that, although this book is intended for adult audiences, it is suitable for ages 13 and up, and wouldn’t hesitate to put it in a school or classroom library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div></span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-74689940241677656072011-06-15T09:36:00.000-07:002011-06-15T09:36:22.458-07:00Corsets and Clockwork edited by Trisha Telep [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I begin my review with the comment that, overall, I feel this collection is worth the money, and I would recommend it to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like I need to preface my review with this statement because reading this collection of stories was difficult for me, and a lot of that has to do with the way in which it is labeled as a collection of 13 Steampunk romances. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of all of these stories, I feel only four could be described as Steampunk, a handful more qualify as romances, with the rest perhaps falling under the label of urban fantasy or horror or some combination thereof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am concerned by the uneven story selection and by how the description on the back cover promises the reader Victorian adventure, but only a fraction can be described this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, of the thirteen primary characters, four are males and believe me when I say it doesn’t pay to be both the primary character and a male in any of these stories—no happy endings for the boys here!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s all a bit of a mess with good stories that fit the descriptions provided blended with stories that would have had a greater chance to shine in a different collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My favorite stories overall are the first and the last in the collection; Kiersten White’s “Tick, Tick, Boom,” in particular, shines and I was absolutely relieved to read this gem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sincerely hope White writes more Steampunk in the future, as she seems to understand some of the major concerns of the genre with regards to the questioning of social class, gender issues, and the use of technology in an evolving world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lesley Livingston’s “Rude Mechanicals,” Michael Scott’s “Deadwood,” and Adrienne Kress’ “The Clockwork Corset” are also exciting and have resulted in a strong desire to see more from these authors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dru Pagliasotti’s “Code of Blood” is an interesting departure from “A Clockwork Heart,” and I’m also excited to see more from her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My short summaries and reviews with ratings 1 (worst) to 5 (best):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rude Mechanicals</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Lesley Livingston.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agamemnon Wentworth Farthing and his nephew, Quintillius, run a failing theater in London, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day Quintillius is approached by the mysterious inventor Kingfisher and offered a special ‘actor’ for a performance, the Actromaton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Actromaton looks like a human female and responds to the name Jewel, and Kingfisher assures the Farthings that ‘she’ will be able to perform as Juliet, and create the sensation the theater needs to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is this deal too good to be true? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story was clever, and has some surprising twists that left me shocked in the best way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The storytelling is taut and concise, with the Steampunk focused to the automaton Jewel, which is perfect for this short story (4).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Cannibal Fiend of Rotherhithe</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Frewin Jones</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. This short story is told in three parts and begins with Hector MacAlindon, a lonely and surly fisherman, who comes across a mermaid one day as he is fishing in his submersible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though she is fairly hideous and doesn’t speak, he decides to take her as his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four months later, she dies giving birth to a daughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hector decides to raise the child he names Silka—and raises her in isolation and chained to prevent her escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then he attempts to begin a sexual relationship with Silka and she escapes and heads for London to find the true love she has been promised in the fairytales she has read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the way however, she kills and eats several men who try to take advantage of her vulnerable state, and she realizes she doesn’t know the rules of human interaction or the mermaid aspect of her hybrid nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the third part of the story she meets Tobias Hart who, like her, is on the run from the authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In her quest to find her true love Silka has killed many men, and she is now fleeing from the police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is Tobias Silka’s found true love, or will she eat him for dinner? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Although I enjoyed this twisted fairytale, I’m not certain what makes it Steampunk beyond the train on which Silka travels to London and the airship that makes an appearance at the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would call this story an urban fantasy, and warn readers that there are some mild gross out moments. (3)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Wild Magic</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Ann Aguirre</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pearl Magnus is the daughter of a high ranking family who hides the secret that she has far more fairy power than she lets on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her world is one that relies on science, and has long since given up magic and criminalizes its use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day she is in the market and comes across a portrait of a young man; she is unable to resist the purchase and quickly comes to realize that the young man in the picture, Pick, is in a magical world called the Wild and the portrait is his portal to her world. He tells her that others like her want to restore the Old Magic, and that he needs her desperately to help in this task. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story feels like a variant of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twelve Dancing Princesses </i>fairytale, and isn’t Steampunk in any way I could discern—this is fantasy, plain and simple. The story also loses points for lack of complexity and excessive triteness. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Deadwood</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Michael Scott.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story takes place in the Wild, Wild West circa May 1868.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>16 year-old Martha is on an airship headed west when she meets a young man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s wearing a special bulletproof vest and carrying a couple of guns and introduces himself as “JW.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly after, the airship is taken hostage and landed in the Midwest, in a little town called Deadwood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The captain of the ship tells the passengers that they are all going to be sent to work in the mines that are helping the make the wealthy of Deadwood even wealthier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martha and JW must collaborate to liberate the airship and the prisoners in the town. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story is a fine YA addition to the ‘Wild Wild West’ subcategory that has recently made inroads in Steampunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this alternate history airships are the primary mode of travel instead of trains, and the evil villain is plotting to take over the world with automatons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Author Michael Scott gets bonus brownie points for his creative manipulation of history and use of historical figures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Code of Blood</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Dru Pagliasotti.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story is told in five parts and takes place in the “Republic of Venice” in 1815.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Napoleon has long desired this territory because of their machinery and control of elemental spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all the leaders who can control the elemental spirits are captured, the last remaining scion of these noble houses, Chiara Dandolo, must sacrifice her blood—and possibly her life—to save Venice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I wouldn’t call this story Steampunk as much as I would call it urban fantasy, especially because it is set in a historical period outside the Victorian or Edwardian eras, but I can’t quibble with the use of clockwork automatons and the way machinery is widespread throughout the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a fun story to read because of the romance that develops for Chiara, and the preoccupation with alchemy definitely lends a Victorian feeling to the tale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(4)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Clockwork Corset</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Adrienne Kress</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imogen is a wealthy young woman whose mother died when she was young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has been raised by her father in a monstrously huge house filled with clocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The servant who tends the clocks has a son, Rafe, and the two children grow up together, always inseparable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Rafe is called to war, to tend the massive clockwork machines that are keeping their side going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imogen is worried about Rafe, so she dresses like a boy and travels to the front line to protect him if she can. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story reads a bit like a fairytale, and I can imagine it being turned into an animated short.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, unfortunately, a little simple and unchallenging, and the titular ‘clockwork corset’ is a predictable plot twist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite this, the story was entertaining, and is one of the few I would label Steampunk in this anthology. (4)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Airship Gemini</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Jaclyn Dolamore</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. Siamese twin sisters Patience and Faith are on an airship as entertainers when a mage comes aboard and decides to divide the sisters using magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sisters don’t want to be divided, but their guardian insists even though one or both might not survive. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story loses points for incoherence and general lack of appeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are silly plot twists, excessive gore, and an overall lack of anything that could be labeled Steampunk outside of the airship the story takes place on. (1) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Under Amber Skies</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Maria V. Snyder.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story takes place at the beginning of WWII in Poland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young Zosia Jadwiga Nowak hasn’t seen her inventor father in months and her mother isn’t being forthcoming. Will Zosia figure out the mysteries surrounding her parents before the Germans come? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This was one of my favorite stories in the collection despite its being set in WW II, outside of the Victorian or Edwardian periods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story is thematically complex, and it asks the reader to think about the ethics of war and the way societies use machines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, there were surprising plot twists that kept my interest and made me long for a lengthier story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(4)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">King of the Greenlight</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> City by Tessa Gratton</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>17 year-old Everest Aleksander the Younger has a pair of problems:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s engaged to be married to Alys Greentree of the Chenworth Niobes and is a fire worker heir to the council seat of the Prometheans, but he can fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever decides to travel to Greenlight city, a mysterious Oz-like place where a king wizard called Titan lives that might be able to explain why he has more than one gift and perhaps train him in the use of his magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story is a fantasy, and there is no Steampunk that I could detect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are fairytale aspects, but the feel is more Hans Christian Anderson than Grimm Brothers (i.e., there’s a twist, and it doesn’t end well for the hero).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Emperor’s Man</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Tiffany Trent</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Garrett Reed is a colonel in the Imperial House Guard in New London who has disturbing memories of having been something else in his past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day His Most Scientific Majesty assigns Garrett to escort his daughter Athena into the forest to protect her during the Imperial Manticore Hunt but things aren’t always as they seem! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is another story that reads like the French fairytale <em>Donkeyskin</em>, but it is saved from fully falling into this category with an interesting (Steampunk?) plot twist at the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chickie Hill’s Badass Ride</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Dia Reeves</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sue Jane Mahoney is dating Chesney Albert Hill, affectionately known as “Chickie” by all his friends. Chickie is a prolific inventor, always adjusting things, including creating a time machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The teens are on a date one night when they are told a small boy has been kidnapped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will they rescue him before the worst happens? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story is set during the Freedom Ride of 1961, and felt far more like urban fantasy than Steampunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all honesty, the only Steampunk I could detect were the decorative tubes on a modified car which fill with steam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, there isn’t any Steampunk in the story and this engrossing horror story would have been better suited in an anthology within that genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Vast Machinery of Dreams</i> by Caitlin Kittredge</b>. Not sure how to describe this story, which is fragmented and feels like a drug induced dream, each segment of which begins with, “This is what happened.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt Edison is fourteen [fifteen?] and can’t seem to keep a job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants to write stories, and it seems as though his head is exploding with all the things he wants to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He meets a girl [Claire, Isabelle?] and she eventually tells him that her race needs humanity to dream of them in order for them to continue to exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt disappears. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As with the previous selection, this feels like a horror story, and there is little discernible Steampunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure when throwing a scene with clockworks into a story made it classifiable as Steampunk, but it’s an annoying trend that emphasizes how much this tale belongs in a different type of anthology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tick, Tick, Boom</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Kiersten White</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. Catherine, daughter of Lord Ashbury is a secret inventor who creates bombs for the protestors who are trying to bring about social changed in England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By day she is the perfect daughter, by night she runs the streets of London dressed as a boy and delivering the devices she makes to their buyers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Franklin Greenwood comes into her life as a potential suitor and Catherine is concerned that her father is not only going to marry her off, but to a terrible prig and stick in the mud. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is by far my favorite story in the collection, with interesting plot twists and a fantastic nod to stories like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Scarlet Pimpernel</i>, and is one of the reasons why I would recommend this collection to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The teenager in me has given it a standing ovation, and hopes that Kiersten White will consider writing it as a novel length text because I simply can’t get enough!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Off the Chart for Awesomeness)</span></div></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not to say that I think any of these stories are bad, no matter how I rated each! It just that many of these selections feel like they're in the wrong anthology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I commend contributor Dia Reeves for providing a story with strong black characters, and Michael Scott’s fun with history. I also appreciate how this collection is appropriate for young adult audiences, and I would have no difficulty in handing it to a tween or teen to read or with putting this book in a school library. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-73226749761437787422011-06-15T07:49:00.000-07:002011-06-15T07:49:03.616-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: Corsets and Clockwork<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What you need to know before reading this book:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This collection of stories is aimed at a young adult audience, and is appropriate with regards to content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this book were a movie, it would be rated PG for scenes of violence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <img height="500" id="il_fi" src="http://www.trashionista.com/Corsets-and-Clockwork1.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="328" /></span></div><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8918559-corsets-clockwork"><span style="color: blue; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">From Goodreads:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dark, urban fantasies come to life in the newest collection of Steampunk stories, Corsets & Clockwork. Young heroes and heroines battle evils with the help of supernatural or super-technological powers, each individual story perfectly balancing historical and fantastical elements. Throw in epic romances that transcend time, and this trendy, engrossing anthology is sure to become another hit for the fast-growing Steampunk genre!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This collection features some of the hottest writers in the teen genre, including: Ann Aguirre, Jaclyn Dolamore, Tessa Gratton, Frewin Jones, Caitlin Kittredge, Adrienne Kress, Lesley Livingston, Dru Pagliassotti, Dia Reeves, Michael Scott, Maria V. Snyder, Tiffany Trent, and Kiersten White.</span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-87791386957480636272011-06-15T07:26:00.000-07:002011-06-15T07:26:05.839-07:00Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I admit that as I started reading this book I felt a great deal of trepidation: I haven’t read much speculative space fiction set in a Victorian or Edwardian setting, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to enjoy this kind of story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kenneth Oppel’s Matt Cruse series takes place in a slightly alternate history than we are familiar with, and this is an early twentieth-century technology that relies on dirigibles as the main form of travel and transport, which I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this book, however, Matt, Kate, and a new cast of characters train for space travel, and I began reading the novel unconvinced that author Kenneth Oppel could make this kind of travel plausible given the type of technology he had already established in his world building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I chastised myself for my resistance, however, especially after considering the tradition Oppel is operating within:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>French author Jules Verne wrote about space travel in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the Earth to the Moon </i>(1865) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Off on a Comet </i>(1877), American writer Edward Everett Hale theorized about space stations in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Brick Moon</i> (1869), and English author H.G. Wells wrote about space colonization in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The First Men in the Moon </i>(1901).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also examples from Russian writers as well!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly, there is a tradition of speculative space travel fiction spanning over a decade and a half, and rather than ask whether or not space travel is possible for this world, I needed to ask if it is internally consistent with the world Oppel has created and the literary tradition he is operating within as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My attitude safely in check, I was able to read this final book of Oppel’s trilogy with new eyes and embrace the adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with the previous novels in this series, Oppel has created a quest narrative that is action-packed and rich with tropes that are meaningful and relevant to young adult audiences, and the text reads like an action movie with vivid imagery and beautifully written adventure that kept me scrambling to see how Matt and Kate’s story ends.</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Matt manages to foil a terrorist attack on the tower—he always seems to be in the right at the right time—and then plans a special birthday celebration for Kate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With all the excitement around space travel, companies have started to sell the right to name the stars, and Matt has purchased a star to be named after Kate; he plans to present her with the certificate during a romantic and private stargazing session at a local observatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, he gets the surprise of his life when she tells him that she has been summoned home to Canada by her parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that she is of marriageable age and from a wealthy family, her parents feel it is time that she is married and properly settled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt is devastated; the social divide between them is significant, but while they’ve been in Paris, he’s been able to put off thinking about the future and how their lives will take them in different directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But all is not lost: The owner of the company Matt once worked for, Mr. Lunardi, has thrown his hat into the space race and is looking to recruit “astralnauts” for his program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Matt and Kate are selected as candidates, and the training will take place in Lionsgate City in Canada, where both their families live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After years abroad, Matt and Kate are going home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Upon arrival in Canada both return to their respective homes and Matt is made to feel, once again, their difference in social class when he is invited to the de Vries estate with his family for a garden party. Matt sees Kate with her family for the first time, and recognizes that her parents not only have plans for Kate, they have potential mates already lined up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is obvious that Kate’s parents are going to pressure her to get married, but that still seems a while off with both Matt and Kate are due to start astralnaut training in the city. But even this gets thrown into doubt when Matt discovers that Kate is guaranteed a spot as a science officer, while he is going to have to compete against over a hundred other candidates for his spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite this, he makes friends within the program, particularly Tobias Blanchard, an underwater welder with a fear of heights who is also of a similar age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the other candidates try to show their independence and refuse to work together, Matt and Tobias take care and support each other, and their relationship is especially important to Matt as he struggles with his feelings for Kate and the risks in the mission he is hoping to be a part of.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But before there can be a mission, there’s a whole series of problems that must be dealt with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kate and Matt are asked to travel to the home of famed journalist Evelyn Karr to recruit her for their space mission; even though Matt’s spot isn’t assured, he knows that if Evelyn doesn’t go, Kate’s parents won’t let her go either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Babelite infiltrates the training facility and plants a bomb, which must be located before it detonates and sets back the program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there are Kate’s activities as a suffragette: she aligns herself with a militant faction and brings embarrassment to the space program, as well as exposing Matt to expulsion from the program when Kate tricks him into being present while she vandalizes a building during an organized protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite being allowed to continue in the program after the mishap with Kate, Matt isn’t one of the three chosen astralnauts, but Tobias is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And finally, at the ceremony announcing the crew of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Starclimber</i>, Kate walks in wearing another man’s engagement ring, her “ticket to outer space” (169).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only after one of the three chosen crew becomes injured that Matt is selected to go, and he must make his journey into space despite being furious with Kate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But Matt’s feelings for Kate and his insecurities about space travel must be set aside as they prepare for launch into space and the mysteries they will discover there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are new adventures, new forms of life for Kate to discover, and a new catastrophic failure that leaves the crew struggling for their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re in a race against time to figure out how to survive this most recent disaster.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">As with the first two books, it is the blended storylines that make this story such a smart and fun read:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s insecurities are real, and his feelings for Kate reflect true teenage confusion and discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters are complicated, and motivated to operate in ways that give them depth that sometimes feels lacking in novels written for young adults, and this is the main reason why I would strongly recommend this novel to reluctant readers, especially boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times the plot seems slow and reflective, but the number of plotlines creates an intensity that is engaging and makes this book hard to put down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the reader gets to meet Matt’s mother and sisters, and to see the special connection he has with them, even though he has been gone for a considerable portion of his life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s desire to protect and provide for his family has been important throughout the series, and I appreciated that Oppel allows the reader into this relationship: Matt always weighs his decisions against how they will impact his family not just because of his character, but also because he truly loves and cherishes his relationship with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found the relationship between Matt and his mother to be especially poignant; it is clear she loves him greatly, but she wants him to have the freedom to develop into who he is meant to be. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">One of my favorite parts of the book is initially the one that caused me the most unease: The method Oppel has chosen for his manned space exploration, the space elevator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this method there is a counter-weight planted deep in the earth and a cable attached to a rocket that is in geo-synchronous orbit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This idea for space travel dates back to 1895 and Russian scientist and author Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and modern scientists continue to argue that it may be the most practical and cost-efficient method for mass space travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll freely admit that I’m not the best with scientific concepts, but this is one that is entirely consistent with the futuristic storytelling conventions of the Victorian period and fits with the technology available to the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters prepare extensively for the rigors of space travel and, unlike other texts, there is a real sense that these ‘astralnauts’ will be severely tested in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my strongest criticisms with this book has to do with the suffragette storyline that involves Kate and the repeated comments she makes throughout the story about being free to pursue her interests and career choices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I think it is an important element of the story (and it definitely fits in with the true history of the first two decades of the twentieth century, I feel like this was never fully developed beyond both Kate’s fiancée and Matt telling Kate that they will allow her the freedom she is asking for as they vie for her hand in marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like a poorly developed element of an otherwise well-written adventure narrative, and feels a little strident or designed to placate the female readers of a male-dominated story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m glad that Oppel inserts it at all—the target audience for this book should be thinking about these issues—I just wish it were done a little more gracefully.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">This book is rated ages 10 and up, and I feel this is a fairly accurate rating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are episodes of terrorist violence, physical violence, as well as death, and these require a degree of maturity to understand, but they shouldn’t be problematic for the age 10 and up crowd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is limited romantic contact between Matt and Kate, and this relationship develops in a way that is age appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Additionally, the vocabulary is simple enough to allow a YA audience to fully engage with this text, but I find that the easy vocabulary doesn’t mean a simple story; the imagery is vivid and powerful, and some of the best moments in the novel occur in the dialogue between the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I highly recommend this story for children and adults who love space adventure, but particularly for reluctant readers who need high interest material to keep them engaged with the text.</span></div></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The final book in the Matt Cruse trilogy picks up a year after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skybreaker</i>, and the reader finds seventeen year-old Matt on summer break from the Academy and working in Paris as the pilot of the aerocrane <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Atlas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>The world is in a space race, and the two most powerful nations in the world, France and Canada, are furiously working to be the first to succeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>France is constructing the Celestial Tower, a massive structure that will reach all the way to space, and is employing a vast number of workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This works out for Matt:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needs the income to help support his mother and little sisters back in Canada, and although he is highly doubtful of the success of the project as a whole, the money is welcome and this job keeps him near Kate, the young woman he increasingly sees as vital to his happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the French project isn’t without its political issues, and in addition to his emotional confusion, Matt has to navigate the threat of violent protesters known as “Babelites,” who feel that space travel is an abomination and are trying to destroy the tower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-84277779493422452942011-04-27T14:30:00.000-07:002011-04-27T14:30:03.350-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Starclimber" by Kenneth Oppel<strong><u>What you need to know before reading this book:<br />
</u></strong><em>Skybreaker </em>is the final book in the Airborn trilogy and features the adventures of Matt Cruse, a seventeen year-old air academy student, and Kate de Vries, a wealthy passenger of an airship Matt worked on in the past and now his love interest. Although this book is rated ages 12 and up, the writing is vivid and engaging, and I believe adult readers will enjoy this work as well. Although there is violence in this text, there is no profanity and very limited romantic expression, which makes this text ideal for young readers and classroom libraries.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" id="il_fi" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnPEhVG90BDYk-41aS8kgFO1C1q9NTo8_SqHRHeO62-_lQ7C0J7iRkd9KVoqb14iiSqcPyAbOpAEBjTtycPUmZjKxp3Ye3-HaGZNuCIR8shP48G0qRtERjVz3y7lBPjRxDKLbGDujrIEs/s400/Starclimber.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="265" /><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">From Goodreads:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">An exhilarating journey to the stars—or a heartbreaking battle for survival? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Pilot-in-training Matt Cruse and his love interest, Kate de Vries, an expert on high-altitude life-forms, are invited aboard the <em>Starclimber</em>, a vessel that literally climbs its way into the cosmos. Matt secretly plans on asking Kate to marry him, but before they even set foot aboard the ship, Kate announces her engagement—to someone else. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Despite this bombshell, and Matt's anguish, they embark on their journey into space, but soon the ship is surrounded by strange and unsettling life-forms, and the crew is forced to combat devastating mechanical failure. For Matt, Kate, and the entire crew of the <em>Starclimber</em>, what began as an exciting race to the stars has now turned into a battle to save their lives.</div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-60989551964981921522011-04-11T20:11:00.000-07:002011-04-11T20:11:08.254-07:00"Skybreaker" by Kenneth Oppel [Review].<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">One of the biggest issues with a trilogy is that the middle book tends to be a bridge for the first and last book, and it feels like you’re just marking time until the author produces the conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luckily, Kenneth Oppel has avoided these pitfalls with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skybreaker</i>, and the end result is a quest narrative that is action-packed and rich with tropes that are meaningful and relevant to young adult audiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But perhaps the best thing about this book is that it reminded me of why I love to read and write about literature:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book reads like an action movie with vivid imagery and beautifully written adventure that kept me scrambling to see what was going to happen next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, this literature major was able to sit back and enjoy the ride, which is a rare pleasure in my world!</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">The second book in the Matt Cruse series picks up a year after the piratical adventures in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airborn, </i>and the reader finds sixteen year-old Matt living in Paris and attending school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt has been given credit for the defeat of air pirate Vikram Szpirglas and a grateful Sky Guard as rewarded him with enough money to pay for tuition to the Airship Academy and to continue to provide for his mother and little sisters while he takes time off work—the reward doesn’t make him rich, but pays the bills while he follows his dreams of someday becoming the captain of his own ship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s love interest, Kate de Vries, has also chosen to study in Paris, but her wealthy parents are able to place her at the Sarbonne and, while the connection between the pair remains strong, Matt’s insecurity over the disparity in their wealth is becoming a much bigger issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">And then Matt is sent by the academy on a training mission as an assistant navigator on the airship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flotsam,</i> and a series of events leads the crew to discover the mythical ship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion, </i>missing for over forty years and presumed lost at sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion </i>was one of the first airships built and belonged to famed inventor, Theodore Grunel, who forty years prior loaded his vessel with all his belongings and incredible wealth and then promptly vanished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the crew of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flotsam </i>finds the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion </i>floating at 20,000 feet, well above safe levels for airships, and they determine that some catastrophic fate befell the crew who died when their airship rose beyond breathable oxygen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite this conclusion, the captain of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flotsam </i>decides to risk all to retrieve the ship and his orders and unwise attempts to achieve the necessary altitude expose his crew to lethal hypoxia, nearly killing them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s actions save the day, and he is able to return to his studies in France and to tell Kate about the incredible adventure he has had.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">The irrepressible Kate decides that since Matt remembers the coordinates of his sighting of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion</i> they should make an attempt at recovering the vessel; there is rumored to be an incredible collection of taxidermy on board, and the budding biologist wants it for herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only problem is that there is no way for a standard airship to safely reach the necessary altitude, but there is a new class of ship, the skybreaker, that can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Kate works on finding a captain willing to accept this mission, Matt finds that the news of his adventures have gained him a new notoriety and he is now being followed by a variety of individuals who want the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion</i>’s coordinates, and are willing to go to great lengths to get them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt discovers that he is being followed by the mysterious gypsy girl Nadira, who claims to have the key to the locks of the holds on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyperion. </i>Similarly, he is invited to a meeting with a man who claims to be Matthias Grunel, grandson to Theodore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>But things are not always as they seem, and Matthias Grunel isn’t who he claims to be, while Nadira becomes the means for Matt to escape yet another scrape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">The pair meets up with Kate, who has found a young, daring air captain willing to take the job: Hal Slater owns the sleek <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sagarmatha </i>and is keen to achieve the fame and fortune sure to accompany the recovery of the legendary ship. As the group takes to the air Matt’s insecurities begin to overwhelm him, especially when he realizes that the young, attractive Hal has set his sights on Kate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, Matt begins to have feelings for Nadira, who is as beautiful and intelligent as Kate, but from a more socially similar class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Matt struggles with his feelings for both of these young women, he also becomes obsessed with recovering Grunel’s wealth, sure that “money [will] conjure [his] happy future like a genie’s lamp” (209), solve his problems, and help calm the “buzzing hive of covetousness” Hal inspires in him (173).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with the first book, adventure ensues:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mystery of Theodore Grunel’s death is far more complicated than it appears, there are new creatures to discover in the skies, and another set of air pirates that must be dealt with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">As with the first book, it is these blended storylines that make this story such a smart and fun read:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s insecurities are real, and his feelings for Kate and Nadira reflect true teenage confusion and discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters are complicated, and motivated to operate in ways that give them depth that sometimes feels lacking in novels written for young adults, and this is the main reason why I would strongly recommend this novel to reluctant readers, especially boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times the plot seems slow and reflective, but the number of plotlines creates an intensity that is engaging and makes this book hard to put down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt continues to grieve for his father, but in this book there is a far greater focus on his mother and how his actions can mean the difference between security for this woman who has already lost so much and poverty. I appreciated the verisimilitude of the characters’ actions and feelings:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hal is charming and smooth, but also sometimes prideful and greedy; Nadira carries important secrets, and far more is riding on her success than just finding the treasure; Kate may appear to be careless, but her future depends on enough success to use as leverage against her family; and Matt has to determine who he is as person and what is important to him as he makes the transition into adulthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">I will reiterate from my previous review of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Airborn </i>that this story, and the other two that complete this trilogy, are also considered to be part of the Steampunk Canon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have to say that I completely agree with this assessment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are airships and air pirates, flying machines that function like helicopters but are open to the elements, and enough brass and goggles to keep most enthusiasts of the subgenre happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I enjoyed most, however, is that these elements are well-blended into the reality of the world Oppel has created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never felt like this book was trying to convince me that it belongs in this category, I just knew it was and couldn’t stop reading because this adventure is so well written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, this text addresses many of the themes that are prevalent in Steampunk literature, and it is no accident that explorations of class, gender, protection of the environment, and a rejection of societal status quo are present in this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young Matt comes to realize that education is a key component for a change in his social status, and Kate learns that, although dreams are worth fighting for, the journey is a little easier when she can connect with others in a meaningful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a whole this book was a refreshing read, and I appreciate the seeming effortlessness with which it accomplishes its thematic goals.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;">This book is rated ages 10 and up, and I feel this is a fairly accurate rating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are episodes of gun and physical violence as well as violent deaths from natural causes, and these require a degree of maturity to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is limited romantic contact between Matt and Kate, as well as between Matt and Nadira, and these relationships develop in a way that is age appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Additionally, the vocabulary is simple enough to allow a YA audience to fully engage with this text, but I found that the easy vocabulary doesn’t mean a simple story; the imagery is vivid and powerful, and some of the best moments in the novel occur in the dialogue between the characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I highly recommend this story for children and adults who love swashbuckling adventure, but particularly for reluctant readers who need high interest material to keep them engaged with the text.</span></div></span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-91956478643347253792011-04-11T19:42:00.000-07:002011-04-11T21:39:16.288-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Skybreaker" by Kenneth Oppel<div style="text-align: left;">Oppel, Kenneth. <u>Skybreaker</u>. New York: Eos. 2007. $6.99 Massmarket Paperback.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong><u>What you need to know before reading this book:</u></strong><br />
<br />
<em>Skybreaker </em>is the second book in the Airborn trilogy and features the adventures of Matt Cruse, a fifteen year-old cabin boy on an airship, and Kate de Vries, a wealthy former passenger and now love interest. Although this book is rated ages 12 and up, the writing is vivid and engaging, and I believe adult readers will enjoy this work as well. Although there is violence in this text, there is no profanity and very limited romantic expression, which makes this text ideal for young readers and classroom libraries.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/428036.Skybreaker" id="link_0"><img alt="Skybreaker (Matt Cruse, #2)" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512x9kpjvkL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
From Goodreads:<br />
<br />
<span class="reviewText"> A legendary ghost ship. An incredible treasure. A death-defying adventure.<br />
Forty years ago, the airship <em>Hyperion</em> vanished with untold riches in its hold. Now, accompanied by heiress Kate de Vries and a mysterious gypsy, Matt Cruse is determined to recover the ship and its treasures. But 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface, pursued by those who have hunted the <em>Hyperion</em> since its disappearance, and surrounded by deadly high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions soon find themselves fighting not only for the <em>Hyperion</em>—but for their very lives.</span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-65825001649365389902011-04-11T19:31:00.001-07:002011-04-11T19:31:33.969-07:00"Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel [Review].<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This book of young adult fiction begins with a mystery:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The airship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora</i> and young cabin boy Matthew Cruse come across the hot air balloon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Endurance</i>, seemingly abandoned to the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A closer inspection reveals her fatally wounded captain, Benjamin Malloy, an old man circumnavigating the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Benjamin has fallen afoul of air pirates, and they are the cause of the damage to the air balloon, but there is a greater mystery to be solved:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Benjamin has seen a strange animal that looks like a blend between a bat and a large cat flying in the skies, and believes he has discovered a new species. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Matt is young, only fourteen, he has spent years in the sky as a cabin boy, and never seen anything like what Benjamin describes, and the old man dies shortly after, his descriptions of the ‘cloud cat’ seen as the final ravings of a dying man.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><a href="" name="cutid1"></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The story continues a year later with more insight into how the now fifteen year-old Matt is employed on an airship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matt’s parents immigrated to the United States from Europe on an airfreighter while his mother was pregnant, and Matt was born prematurely while the ship was still in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His earliest memories derive from being told the story of having been ‘airborn,’ and this forms a mythology around which he builds his identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After arrival in America Matt’s father went to work for the Lunardi line, and he eventually become a sailmaker on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora</i> before his death from a fall while working on a repair on one of the ship’s giant gas cells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The captain of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora</i>, knowing that Matt’s family would be beggared by this loss, offers Matt a job on his ship so that he can replace some of the income his father used to make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Matt, this offer is a Godsend: It offers him the best opportunity he will get to stay connected to the father whose death he cannot come to terms with, as well as the chance to perhaps follow in his father’s footsteps as a sailmaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as it seems Matt is going to get the much-desired promotion to sailmaker, heiress Katie de Vries boards the Aurora; she is Benjamin Malloy’s teenaged granddaughter and is determined to find out what happened to her beloved grandfather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She discovers that Matt was the crew member responsible for her grandfather’s rescue and one of the last people to speak to him, and she immediately begins to seek him out at every opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These meetings set off complaints from her chaperone, Marjorie Simpkins, revealing a class structure reminiscent of Victorian England, in which it was not acceptable for classes to mingle in a social context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Kate is undeterred and, as Matt discovers he has been passed over for promotion in favor of Bruce Lunardi, Kate becomes an attractive distraction from his crushing disappointment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kate presents Matt with her grandfather’s diary, in which he chronicled his travels and recorded the details of the animal he saw in the skies over a mysterious uncharted island. These entries report that the cloud cats, like Matt, live their lives in the air, and are even born while their mothers are in flight. Initially Matt grapples with believing the entries; how is possible that such a species exists that no other air crew has seen or recorded?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the teens work to solve this mystery, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora </i>is attacked by the same air pirates that are responsible for Benjamin Malloy’s death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pirates board the ship, murdering one of the crew members, before stealing their wealth and leaving a highly damaged <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aurora </i>headed into a major storm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The airship winds up marooned on the island Benjamin discovered but, with no way to fill the sails things begin to look grim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kate, however, views this as an opportunity to vindicate her grandfather and achieve her dreams, and talks Matt into exploring the island with her under the guise of looking for materials to fix the grounded vessel.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At this point in the book the action picks up as the various story lines begin to collide into each other:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The now grounded Matt must finally face that his father is gone and no matter how much time he spends in the air, he simply can’t outrun reality; Kate admits that her trip to document the cloud cats is as much a pilgrimage to honor her grandfather as it is from a desire to prove her intelligence to the world and to make a place for herself in a scientific community that doesn’t accept women; the teens begin to have feelings for each other that neither of them understand or know how to properly deal with given the differences in their social class; and, in the midst of all this they must face the pirates, who have returned to ensure there are no witnesses to reveal the island is their secret home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to give too much away, because the details of this story are important and could easily become spoilers, but the plot lines converge neatly and every thread is placed meaningfully.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">These blended storylines are perhaps what makes this book such a smart and fun read: There’s a lot of action, but there is a lot of introspection as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The number of subplots could have undermined the cohesion of the overall story, but they somehow manage to create a complete, varied picture that is enjoyable and highly entertaining. Oppel has created an interesting alternate reality that incorporates actual cities with created ones, and replaces transatlantic ocean liners (Cunard Line?) with the massive airships of the Lunardi line, and the result is an exciting new world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters are complicated, and motivated to operate in ways that give them depth that sometimes feels lacking in novels written for young adults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are flawed characters, but their flaws are human and relatable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Matt believes that if he can just stay in the air then he will remain close to his father’s spirit, and his grief and journey to come to terms with the tragedy and senselessness of his father’s death is both heartbreaking and cathartic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kate, on the other hand, Kate comes from a wealthy family, but her parents view her as a commodity; their wealth and expectations imprison a young woman with a much different view of her future and though at times her single-minded pursuit of the cloud cat leads to terrible danger, the reader can understand how she cannot accept a failure that would leave her doomed to a life devoid of challenge and intellectual exploration. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This story, and the other two that complete this trilogy, are also considered to be part of the Steampunk Canon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have to say that I completely agree with this assessment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are airships and air pirates, flying machines that function like helicopters but are open to the elements, and enough brass and goggles to keep most enthusiasts of the subgenre happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I enjoyed, however, is that these elements are well blended into the reality of the world Oppel has created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never felt like this book was trying to convince me that it belongs in this category, I just knew it was and couldn’t stop reading because this adventure is so well written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, this text addresses many of the themes that are prevalent in Steampunk literature, and it is no accident that explorations of class, gender, and a rejection of societal status quo are present in this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young Matt comes to realize that education is a key component for a change in his social status, and Kate learns that, although dreams are worth fighting for, the journey is a little easier when she can connect with others in a meaningful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a whole this book was a refreshing read, and I appreciate the seeming effortlessness with which this book accomplishes its thematic goals.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This book is rated ages 10 and up, and I feel this is a fairly accurate rating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are episodes of violence and two significant murders, as well as other deaths from natural causes, and these require a degree of maturity to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is limited romantic contact between Matt and Kate, and their relationship develops in a way that is age appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Additionally, the vocabulary is simple enough to allow a YA audience to fully engage with this text, but I found that the easy vocabulary didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment because of the plot elements and human interest within the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I highly recommend this story for children and adults who love swashbuckling adventure, but particularly for reluctant readers who need high interest material to keep them engaged with the text. </span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-39678589784741386422011-04-11T19:27:00.000-07:002011-04-11T19:38:06.890-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Airborn" by Kenneth OppelOppel, Kenneth. <strong>Airborn</strong>. New York: Harper Collins. 2005. $8.99 Massmarket Paperback.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>What you should know before reading this book:</u></strong><br />
<br />
<em>Airborn </em>is the first book in the Airborn trilogy and feature the adventures of Matt Cruse, a fifteen year-old cabin boy on an airship, and Kate de Vries, a wealthy teenage passenger and eventual friend. Although this book is rated ages 12 and up, the writing is vivid and engaging, and I believe adult readers will enjoy this work as well. Although there is violence in this text, there is no profanity and very limited romantic expression, which makes this text ideal for young readers and classroom libraries.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><u><img alt="" height="507" src="http://normalteens.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/airborn.jpg" width="307" /></u></strong></span></div><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><strong><u>From Goodreads:</u></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. Like riding a cloud. . . .</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling <em>Silverwing</em> trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.</span> MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-59823349556970457452011-04-11T18:46:00.000-07:002011-04-11T18:46:18.937-07:00"Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest [Review][Originally posted to my Livejournal blog on Sep. 25th, 2010].<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Boneshaker was the first novel I read that could be considered "Steampunk." This is a genre that has captured my imagination and caused me to get more excited about reading than I have been in a long time. Every week my "to be read" pile grows by two or three books, and I can honestly say that I make trips to the bookstore about every other day as the result of my new Steampunk obsession! After having read a dozen books in this genre I now also know how lucky I am that this was where I started, with a gem I am convinced will become a defining text for those who will follow.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><a href="" name="cutid1"></a><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker takes place in a world in which the American Civil War has never ended, with the consequence that the states added after 1865—and the development of territories into states in the Pacific Northwest—are delayed as the country’s resources become increasingly depleted. This Washington Territory is part of a forgotten frontier in which life is a challenge and there is little hope that conditions will improve in the foreseeable future. Seattle, however, has suffered a catastrophic event that forced the inhabitants to wall off the city and form a non-city they refer to as Outskirts. Within the city is Blight, a toxic gas that kills; this in itself is horrific enough, but the gas also animates the corpses into zombie-like beings that need sustenance but are no longer conscious. The wall serves the double purpose of both keeping the gas and the ‘rotters’ contained within the city and protecting those who live outside its walls until such time as a central government can finally be established to deal with the problem. It isn’t a perfect or perhaps even long term solution, but it is the best the remaining residents can do when there is no additional aid available. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is widely held by the survivors that the source of the Seattle explosion is inventor Leviticus Blue, Briar Wilkes’ husband, but little is known about how the events of that fateful day unfolded. As the book opens the reader quickly learns that there is still a great deal of mystery well over a decade later, and one of the reasons for this is that Leviticus hasn’t been seen since Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine went for its fateful test run. Were the events of the day a tragic accident and did Leviticus die after his machine completed its rampage and the toxic gas began to kill off Seattleites? Or did he purposely set out on a crime spree and then disappear with the proceeds, discarding his family in the process? While this is matter of curiosity to the general populace, it is a source of profound distress to Briar and Leviticus’ son Ezekiel. Born more than six months after Leviticus’ disappearance, all Zeke knows about his father comes from the small amount of information his mother is willing to give him. He grows into young adult hood being taunted and ostracized by peers who view him as a tangible reminder of the living conditions they must endure, and this causes him to become obsessed with discovering everything he can to contradict the rumors and speculation that paint his father as a villain who destroyed his community and threw away his family. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems fitting that Zeke’s need to learn about his past and the circumstances around his father’s disappearance prompt him to plan an excursion into Seattle. He discovers a passage known only to the drug dealers who trade in lemon sap, a drug made from the toxic gas. He also learns that there are a dwindling number of Seattleites who never left the old city; they make and exchange the drug for the supplies they need to survive within its walls. Zeke gathers the supplies he needs to be in the city for less than a day: An old gas mask and some replacement filters, a lantern, an old map of the city, some food, an old gun and ammunition, and some random items he can trade for more food or information. But what begins as a simple day-long excursion goes horribly wrong when there is an earthquake that collapses the tunnel, trapping Zeke within the old city. Now Zeke must use his best judgment to determine who he can trust within the walls. Although Zeke has endured great hardship during his life, he is only fifteen and naïve, and the old city is a place where even small mistakes can be fatal. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Briar is nearly overcome by panic when she discovers where her son has gone. Already sensitive to her failings as a mother and the hard choices she has had to make, she feels like Zeke’s search for answers is her fault and immediately sets out to bring him back. Life has made Briar strong and determined and she will do whatever it takes to rescue Zeke, including making a bargain with air pirates to fly over the old city in a dirigible from which she can make an extremely risky descent. Her plan is desperate, but she knows that Zeke’s filters can only last him for a brief amount of time. She realizes now that, although she may not owe the truth to the world, she owes it to the young man she has raised. She also realizes that she is Zeke’s best advocate and, if she becomes overwhelmed by fear and unable to rescue him, his chances for survival become extremely limited. She may feel like the worst mother in the world, but he’s the most precious and important part of her life, the only good part of what was a terrible episode. She will rescue him or die in the attempt. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I found, as I read, that I closely identified with Briar: We’re both in our mid-to-late thirties and parent to a teenager. She’s not a perfect parent; as a single mother she works long hours at a terrible job to take care of her son. She knows that she doesn’t spend enough time with him, and that his hours spent wandering the streets of their neighborhood are putting him in harm’s way, but she doesn’t have a choice—the alternative is absolute poverty. Further complicating the situation is the mystery surrounding the accident in Seattle in 1863 and the subsequent death of her father, the disappearance of her husband, as well as the deaths of a large percentage of the people in the area. Briar knows the truth of what caused these events and decides that it is in everyone’s best interests if the past remains a mystery. Her determination to protect her son from the truth, and to then to rescue him when her efforts backfire, resonates with me and how I would react given a similar situation. In other words, Briar felt ‘real’ to me, and as I read the story I felt her sense of urgency and willingness to do whatever it takes in a way that added quality and depth to the overall story. Yes, there are airships, and air pirates, and machines, and many of the traits that make a Steampunk story exciting, but at the core this is a powerful story about a mother, her child, and the complicated family history that has brought them to this crisis point. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I appreciate how Priest resisted the urge to write a romance into her story. Captain Cly, who helps Briar with getting into and out of the city, is a strong and worthy contender for the position of romantic interest, but this story is about Briar and Ezekiel. She is a woman on a mission and no one—not even a man with whom she has meaningful history—is going to come between her and finding her son. I will admit, however, that I liked this character so much that I really didn’t want her to be alone; she is so beautifully written that, as a woman, I wanted her to have someone to lean on and partner with. That being said, I understand that Briar’s focus is absolute and it just doesn’t make sense that anything of a romantic nature that might distract her from her mission should happen. I felt that Priest’s refusal to venture into romance was a masterful touch that lends strength to the text as a whole and helps transform it from simply a work within the genre to a future Steampunk classic.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This novel is well-written and both the people and technology are described in a way that makes them plausible and consistent within the story Priest has written. The descriptions of living spaces and general environment are vivid, and played out in my imagination as though I were watching a film; in fact, this is a book I would love to see made into a film. Although I sometimes became lost in the descriptions of the machines used to bring fresh air into the spaces where the surviving humans live, this didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the story, which I inhaled because of my concern for both Briar and Zeke. This is simply an extremely well written text that used Steampunk elements in a clever and interesting way without overwhelming the story of the city of Seattle, its fictional demise, and the effect of these events on a cast of survivors. </span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-8549637016143887182011-04-11T18:30:00.000-07:002011-04-11T18:30:38.131-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Boneshaker" by Cherie PriestPriest, Cherie. <em>Boneshaker</em>. New York: Tor. 2009. $15.99 (Mass Market).<br />
<br />
<u><strong>What you need to know before reading this book</strong></u>:<br />
<br />
Although there are zombie-like humans in this story and a significant amount of suspense, this book is age appropriate for children 12 and up. There is also violence as well, but it is limited to a small number of skirmishes; the greatest emphasis is on Briar Wilkes' rescue of her son Ezekiel and the mystery of the Boneshaker machine. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="413" src="http://craphound.com/images/Boneshaker_Cover_Front.jpg" width="275" /></div><br />
<strong><u>From the back cover:</u></strong><br />
<br />
In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska's ice. Thus was Dr. Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine Born.<br />
<br />
But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.<br />
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Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue's widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenage boy support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.<br />
<br />
His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-9165301248624730812011-04-11T18:26:00.000-07:002011-04-11T18:26:39.368-07:00"Thomas Riley" by Nick Valentino [Review]<span class="reviewText"><span style="font-size: small;">[Originally posted on Livejournal Sep. 26th, 2010]. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="reviewText"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m worried that this review is going to sound negative and over critical because I enjoyed this story, and I adore its Steampunk characteristics, but I have many concerns with how it was written and subsequently edited. It has been said that the devil is in the details, and this story, which is interesting and action packed, suffers because of the many little problems that plague it. I am well aware that this is a work of young adult fiction meant for the 13+ crowd, but I find this group to be intelligent and capable, and they are worth a text written with the same degree of polish and sophistication as those written for adults. That being said, I also get the impression that this author is early in his career and developing his writing style, and I am anxiously awaiting any future works he may write because I feel he has great potential to produce fantastic Steampunk stories. If he should ever read my humble review I would encourage him to engage a group of teen and adult beta readers to help him refine plot elements and spot the grammatical errors we all make when we write--I know I would volunteer for this task, and there are many others who would gladly do so as well!</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="" name="cutid1"></a>The story revolves around master inventor Thomas Riley and his apprentice Cynthia Bassett. The pair lives and works in West Canvia, a nation that has been at war with neighboring Lemuria for so long that no one can remember how it all started in the first place. Thomas and Cynthia are working in their workshop one fateful day when a West Canvian soldier arrives with the fatally wounded daughter of their ruler, and Thomas is ordered to extract the young woman’s soul so that it can be placed in a new body later. The ethics of soul extraction is never discussed, or how a “suitable body” for the soul will be acquired, but Thomas doesn’t have any choice: either he performs the procedure, or the girl’s father will have him jailed for treason (18). The procedure carries great risk, and of course it goes terrifically wrong with the young woman’s soul becoming trapped inside of Cynthia after the chemical solution used in the process explodes. The only other person who knows how to safely extract a human soul is Isaac Maier, Thomas’ counterpart in Lemuria, so the pair sets off to locate Maier and return with him to West Canvia, and adventure ensues. <br />
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This book’s problems begin with its structure and I feel it desperately needed a competent copy editor. For example, at various points in the text punctuation was missing or incorrectly used. My favorite scene that illustrates this takes place on page 207: <strong>“Die,” she screamed on every swing.</strong> The character is screaming!!!! There should be an exclamation point after the word “die” to convey to the reader emotion and excitement!!!! In a further example of sloppy copy editing, on pages 226 and 227 the word “descent” is used three times, and misspelled “decent” twice. In other places words are used twice; in some sentences words are omitted altogether. My list of grammatical errors is fairly lengthy and I could devote a great deal of space to this topic. I realize I’m more aware of these kinds of mistakes because I’m a graduate student in English and an educator, but seeing these errors repeatedly as I read made me mentally reach for my red correction pen and interfered with my ability to enjoy watching the story unfold. <br />
<br />
And since I’m on the topic of editing, I’d like to devote a moment to word choice throughout the novel. There were times when I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some of the descriptive language used! In one scene a young man is holding an “out of date gun,” as though guns expire like milk or medication. How about ancient, antique, or old/old fashioned? In another scene he describes some of the members of a rescue party he is leading as “typical pirate thugs with unshaven faces full of scars, wild eyes, and a facial twitch most commonly associated with maniacs” (229). I’m so glad to know that maniacs have facial twitches, as this will now help me identify them if I should run across them in the future. In a final example, the book makes a single reference to an individual with a British accent (208). This wouldn’t be so odd except that nowhere, at any point, does the story make reference to Britain, only to the fictional countries of West Canvia, Lemuria, and the (real island chain) Republic of the Seychelles (I had to look it up; it’s located east of the southern tip of Africa). This confused me as a reader: Is this story placed in the world we know, or in a fictional one created for the book? The problems I have listed above should have been dealt with by an editor who asked these questions so that I could spend more time thinking about the plot and the character development. <br />
<br />
I thought the plot of the book was interesting and fun to read, but there were some plot twists that are never resolved. One chapter is entitled “Phantoms” and involves the main character and a large stone placed in his pocket; later in the chapter this stone is hit with a shot from the villain, shattering it and releasing a large group of zombie-like people of all ages into the room. This event deeply scares the villain, who flees screaming in terror, and leaves Thomas confused and with only a vague idea of what might have happened. He tells his partner Cynthia that he will try to explain what he thinks these phantoms are later, but he never returns to this point and the story concludes without any resolution of this development (and great unlikelihood that it will be if there is a sequel). Yes, the villain Isaac Maier is, well, villainous, but why is he scared when he flees the room to escape the zombies? The zombie people never do anything to warrant the implementation of a zombie plan or fear on the part of those who have to move through them! I assume that these entities are souls that have been extracted and stored by the villain, but this is never established and there is no purpose to the number of pages and time spent on this development, which doesn’t further the story to any useful degree. <br />
<br />
Along a similar vein is the capture of Cynthia Bassett by the Lemurians. This twist would be an excellent opportunity to expand on her history, strength, and intelligence, as well as for the reader to learn about the Lemurians through her observations. After she is taken, however, the story remains with Thomas and the reader gains little additional information about her condition until the final chapters. There is no real reason to have any antipathy towards the villain outside of a couple of pages of posturing in dialogue and, as a result, it is difficult to develop any degree of panic, fear, or concern for Cynthia. <br />
<br />
Author Nick Valentino would have greatly enriched this novel if he had spent more time on character development, and a little less time on describing the guns, clothing, and vessels they use to travel. This kind of character development is especially important for young adult readers who have a greater tendency to see things in terms of absolutes and are developing a sense of justice. The YA audience isn't as willing as an adult audience to keep reading if the characters lack development: Flawed characters are welcome, poorly developed characters, not so much. While I enjoyed the action of the story, I didn’t develop feelings for the characters, and this is disappointing, and I am that much more disappointed because it is making me think twice about putting it in my classroom library. Its a little like seeing a rainbow and realizing that a color is missing: Still beautiful, but incomplete.<br />
<br />
Despite the faults I found with this book, there are elements that are well done and are worth mentioning. For one, the science of the book made sense, and many of the devices described sounded plausible. Author Nick Valentino works a little too earnestly to establish this text in the Steampunk genre--if I were motivated I would count exactly how many times the word “goggles” appears, but it is enough to say it does so very frequently—but the machinery described feels real and logical in construction. There is also a sufficient variety of weaponry to please adventurous teens: acid shooting guns, an improvised non-lethal weapon using pepper, and a variety of steam-powered devices to name a few. Additionally, the relationship between Thomas and Cynthia is sweet, if underdeveloped, and I am left hoping that there will be future installments that continue the story and add more to the universe Valentino has created. I would encourage others to enter this world, and to ask for more…I have a feeling there are some fantastic stories coming!<br />
<br />
Addendum: I met Nick Valentino at the Wild Wild West Steampunk Exhibition held in Tucson, Arizona in March, 2011. I sheepishly told him I had blogged about his book and that my review had been, well, less than favorable. To his credit, Nick was a complete sweetheart about it, and told me that he welcomed the criticism, particularly because he had recently been picked up by a new publisher to continue writing a series based on these characters! Congratulations, Nick! He also told me that many of the unresolved threads in <em>Thomas Riley </em>will be revisited in the future, and readers will be rewarded for their patience. I look forward to seeing the next installment in Thomas and Cynthia's adventures. MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-36404060225434144302011-04-11T18:01:00.000-07:002011-04-11T18:01:00.868-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Thomas Riley" by Nick ValentinoValentino, Nick. <u>Thomas Riley</u>. Laurel, MD: Quake. 2010. $13.99.<br />
<br />
<u><strong>What you need to know before reading this book:<br />
</strong></u>This book is clearly marketed for young adults and is marked ages 13 and up. Although there is some violence and characters die, the violence and language is kept at a level appropriate for middle school.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim6n60r2hh-UKFiu5TztPzH5r5x1CZXGo3PVxPy3WDZsYxH5U4d6T1tSXyodMDpPmPXqmD0WNpPm6ot-SLJtX6VA9zideuvhFob-8dM024hRiJiDvrbOjDA91GRSYsJqyN75AfVHB8moo/s1600/Thomas+Riley.jpg" width="300" /></div><br />
<u><strong>From the back cover</strong></u>:<br />
<br />
<span class="reviewText">For more than twenty years West Canvia and Lemuria have battled one another in a constant war. </span><br />
From the safety of his laboratory, weapons designer Thomas Riley has cleverly and proudly empowered the West Canvian forces with his brilliant designs. But when a risky alchemy experiment goes horribly wrong, Thomas and his wily assistant, Cynthia Bassett, are thrust onto the front lines of battle.<br />
Forced into shaky alliances with murderous sky pirates in a deadly race to kidnap the only man who can undo the damage--the mad genius behind Lemuria's cunning armaments--Thomas' own genius is put to the ultimate test.MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-10639200194456418962011-04-11T17:54:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:54:07.301-07:00"Worldshaker" by Richard Harland [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The first time I read this story I liked it, but was a little underwhelmed by what I thought was too simple a story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book is rated for 10-13 year-olds, and the vocabulary and chapter length has been modified to accommodate this young audience. As a result, Col seems a little too naïve, and in places the text feels ideologically heavy handed to me; if I had written my review after my first reading, I would likely not had much positive to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time I read Harland’s text I had already read Scott Westerfeld’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathan </i>(a work of YA literature that has been very well received by adults) and Cherie Priest’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boneshaker </i>(an adult work that could easily be read by teens), and I felt that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Worldshaker </i>suffered in comparison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A second reading, however, caused me to pause and reconsider my original criticism about this work; while I still believe it to be somewhat lacking the maturity level of other YA authors in this genre, I think adults will enjoy this book if they understand the concerns I have pointed out and read the text with a little patience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steampunk literature is well-known for exploring concerns about class, the mass-produced and non-unique nature of modern technology, and the environment, and Richard Harland’s book wastes no time establishing itself within the genre in an approachable manner that should be enjoyable for both children and adults.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><a href="" name="cutid1"></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The book opens with the 16 year-old Colbert “Col” Porpentine being awakened by warrant officers searching his room for a ‘filthy’ girl who has escaped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within the next few chapters the reader learns that Col is the child of a wealthy, high ranking family who lives aboard the huge vessel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Worldshaker</i>; at two and a half miles long, three quarters of a mile wide, and over thirteen hundred feet tall, the ship is home to “ten thousand people and two thousand Filthies” (29).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Europe has been destroyed ecologically by the industrial revolution and a series of wars, and the reigning monarchs and nobles of Europe have withdrawn to massive steam-powered ships on which they can continue their privileged lives, navigating both on sea and land, leaving destruction in their wake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British have retreated to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Worldshaker </i>and recreated the society they left behind and, although at first glance this world looks peaceful and well organized, it doesn’t take long for the reader to lean Col’s world is deeply corrupted and seething with personal and social politics.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The biggest issue within the book is the division within the classes; the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Worldshaker </i>uses the class system established during the first Queen Victoria’s reign and, two hundred years later, preserves the customs and traditions of Victorian England with little change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Society aboard the ship has become intensely stratified, and these distinctions are rigid: There are the ‘best families,’ the nobles and gentry who serve Her Imperial Highness Queen Victoria; the artisans and middle-class tradespeople who provide consumer goods and services; the Menials, who are ominously described as ‘modified’ Filthies and form the servant class of the vessel; and the Filthies, the lowest class of workers who live in the bowels of the ship and feed coal to the boilers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Col’s classmates mimic these class divisions by imposing them within the microcosm of their school school: There are the children of the best families, who reign supreme over the rest of the school;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the blockies (destined to become the ship’s officers), grindboys (the children of supervisors or tradespeople, and destined to eventually replace their parents), the climbers (children of the professional class, who aspire to join the best families), and the crawlers (also the children of the professional class, but without the connections and wealth to be upwardly mobile).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The frustration the reader experiences with this class system mirrors Col’s increasing realization of the damage his society is inflicting on others, and nowhere is this more obvious that in his emerging friendship with Riff.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Riff is fourteen years-old and it is her escape from the warrant officers that sets the events of the story in motion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a Filthy who has been brought up from the bowels of the ship to be ‘modified’ into a Menial, but manages to hide herself in Col’s room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Col has been raised to believe that Filthies are not human, unable to acquire language or feel pain, and their ‘modification’ into Menials makes them happier and healthier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His meeting with Riff reveals that this is not the case, and triggers a stunned reevaluation of what he has been taught and, as Col spends more time in the presence of the intelligent and spirited young woman, he learns of the terrible cruelties his society not only permits, but encourages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a defining moment he listens to his grandmother Ebnolia tell a restrained Riff, “Let me show you the wire they use for sewing [….] not only for the tongue, but all parts of the body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll sew you up inside, where nobody can see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have far more movement than you really need, you know” (323).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is followed by a description of the “gold buttons” known as “limiters, to limit your mind […] you have so many more thoughts than you really need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you’ve been limited, you’ll still have lots of nice small thoughts, but no nasty big ones” (325).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The level of society on the ship with the most power has lost the ability to challenge the ethics of their behavior and, although Col resists challenging what he has been taught, he comes to realize that his world is unacceptable and in desperate need of change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Col comes to understand that a major part of the problem lies in the education, or lack thereof, in those around him, and this becomes another major issue in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is sent to Dr. Blessamy’s Academy to study under Mr. Gibber, and the role of educational institutions in creating critical thinkers is thrown into sharp relief. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The education that Col receives is a joke: in one scene the teacher, Mr. Gibber describes an acute angle as, “Clean, keen, sharp and wholesome.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast, an obtuse angle is “wide open […] lax and undisciplined […] sloppy, slack, degenerate” (90).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Col quickly learns that the education he receives is shaped to preserve the status quo of the class divisions and not for the progress of the individual or society as a whole. Further complicating and already difficult situation is how the educational challenges extend to girls and ‘lower’ social classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Gillabeth, Col’s older sister, is denied formal education altogether because it is unseemly for a young woman of her class to go to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast, Riff is denied access to education altogether because of her status as a Filthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of these girls are intelligent, capable, and starving for knowledge, but are utterly denied.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Each of the girls uses their intelligence, but in highly different ways: Gillabeth schemes against her brother, eventually revealing her ambition to be the first Supreme Commander of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Worldshaker, </i>while Riff educates Col about the injustice of his society and reveals the extent of the damage the ship causes every time it has to cross land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the first time “Col remember[s] the three hundred and forty rollers, each weighing right hundred tons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course Worldshaker would mash everything it rolled over!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course it would leave a trail of destruction!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why had he never thought of it before?” (227). Riff is able to teach Col what Gillabeth has already learned, that his way of life “means cruelty and bullyin’ and tramplin’ on anyone weaker. Some get crushed underneath, some crushed inside” (228-9).Col is deeply horrified over the needless destruction of the land and the living, and has to face his part in the consequences: Even though the decisions are made by others, he has to accept responsibility for changing how things will be done in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually his sister is made to see how such a transformation will help to improve her life as well and, although the siblings don’t implicitly reconcile, there is a sense of hope for the future.</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> This is the saving grace of the book:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It delivers the message of steampunk, its philosophy of respect for self, others, and hopes for the world, all in a way that tweens can engage with and understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harland even introduces an age appropriate whiff of romance between Col and Riff:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Col spends more time with Riff he learns to see the world through her eyes and challenge the assertions that have been developed by the generations who have lived on the Worldshaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He learns to recognize the injustices of the class distinctions, and the cruelty with which the Filthies and Menials are treated, and begins to develop compassion, empathy for others, and a sense of social justice as a result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also begins to see the shallowness of the feelings of those in his social class, and there is the gradual emergence of deeper, more complex feelings for Riff including jealousy, then the desire to be admired, followed by protectiveness towards her and a sense of joy when in her presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Additionally, as Col’s relationship with Riff develops, he also becomes a better and more caring individual, more willing to make sacrifices necessary for change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="" name="cutid1-end"></a>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-61616520805722199352011-04-11T17:49:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:49:21.793-07:00Next book to be Reviewed: "Worldshaker" by Richard HarlandHarland, Richard. <u>Worldshaker</u><em>. </em>New York: Simon and Schuster. 2009. $16.99 Hardback.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>What you need to know before you read</u>:<br />
</strong>This book is a work of young adult fiction and is rated grade 6-10 by The School Library Journal. Based on my previous experiences with YA fiction, I would rate this text as appropriate for children as young 10. This book features parental expectationn, prejudice and the division of social classes as central themes, and parents should be prepared to answer questions about these issues. There is also some romantic overtones, but they are kept well within the range of what is acceptable for a work rated 10 and up.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6696340-worldshaker" id="link_1"><img alt="Worldshaker" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1258489230l/6696340.jpg" style="height: 381px; width: 401px;" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong><u>From the dust jacket:<br />
</u></strong>Col Porpentine understands how society works: the elite families enjoy a comfortable life on the Upper Decks of the great juggernaut <em>Worldshaker</em>, while the Filthies toil Below. And Col himself is being groomed by his grandfather, the supreme commander of the <em>Worldshaker</em>, to be his successor. He has never questioned his place in the world, nor his illustrious future.<br />
<br />
When Col meets Riff, a Filthy girl on the run, his world is turned on its head. All his life he has been taught that Filthies are like animals, without the ability to understand language or think for themselves. He has always known that all they are good for is serving in the Below, keeping <em>Worldshaker</em> running. But Riff is nothing like he ever expected. She is clever and quick, and despite the danger, Col is drawn to her. Can all Filthies be like her? If Riff is telling the truth, then everything Col has always believed is a lie. And Col may be the only person with the power to do something about it--even if it means risking his whole future.<br />
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Richard Harland's sweeping steampunk saga of romance, privilege, and social conscience will take readers on the ride of a lifetime to an enormous moving city that is at once strange and familiar.</div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-17774030013120142792011-04-11T17:42:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:42:49.708-07:00"Steamed" by Katie MacAlister [Review]<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><a href="" name="cutid1"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The basic idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steamed: A Steampunk Romance</i> 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. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div></span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-35071175068767203092011-04-11T17:38:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:38:38.338-07:00Next Book to be Reviewed: "Steamed" by Katie MacAlisterMacAlister, Katie. <u>Steamed: A Steampunk Romance</u>. New York: Signet. 2010. $7.99 Mass Market Paper Back.<br />
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<strong><u>What you should know before you read this book</u></strong>:<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">This book is a romance with mature themes and is not appropriate for teenage readers due to frequency of detailed sexual situations. Although this book is clearly labeled as a Steampunk romance, readers who have already read Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series should be forewarned that this book is <em>not </em>of the same caliber and reviews have been extremely mixed.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXoIQjapQTrA7Lz7r3egT2dIWOGvWMNlsXw3-VgyTMmRcCtZanodaOQS130FAks1s2wd_OeHOStulLR2p3p5yeqeGDOywQYbMZs4FthFHhvisU3RBhzVGOliiQg_Dp2Eo9JKiHWhDlFTAt/s320/steamed200.jpg" width="200" /><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><u><strong>From Goodreads:</strong></u><br />
<span class="reviewText">Computer technician Jack Fletcher is no hero, despite his unwelcome reputation as one. In fact, he's just been the victim of bizarre circumstances. Like now. His sister happens to disturb one of his nanoelectromechanical system experiments, and now they aren't where they're supposed to be. In fact, they're not sure where they are when… <br />
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…they wake up to see a woman with the reddest hair Jack has ever seen-and a gun. Octavia Pye is an Aerocorps captain with a whole lot of secrets, and she's not about to see her maiden voyage ruined by stowaways. But the sparks flying between her and Jack just may cause her airship to combust and ignite a passion that will forever change the world as she knows it…</span></div>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056367222241470891.post-30748999856056503082011-04-11T17:33:00.000-07:002011-04-13T16:04:36.587-07:00I used to blog on Livejournal, now I'm on Blogspot<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's nothing personal, really. I originally joined Livejournal because a friend swore up and down that she was going to be my blogging partner and we would comment back and forth on the Steampunk books we read and...well...that just didn't work out as promised. I'm a graduate student in English, though, and reading and writing about literature comes as naturally to me as breathing; so while my friend has become increasingly busy with other projects in her life, I've continued with my commitment to be an avid student of all things Steampunk! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is my mission statement and purpose for being here, really; I plan to use this space to add my voice to the ever-evolving and complex discussion that surrounds this genre and the multiplicity of arts it has given rise to. Lloyd Alexander wrote, "In some cases...we learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself." I feel this is the best way to approach my work here:</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Arial;"><strong>"Writing and reading are such private acts that we forget how fundamentally social they are: We hear stories read by others and we like to tell others about the stories we read; we learn to write from others and we write for others to read us." (Mike Rose, <em>Lives on the Boundary</em>, 1989.) </strong></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will primarily be discussing books, but don't be surprised if I venture into film and music, which I consider additional forms of literature. With all of this in mind, moving my blog over to Blogspot makes sense: I already use google for so many other things in my life and 'follow' other bloggers on this site, and this seems like a fun place to continue with my ramblings in an area I still have so much to learn about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what is "Atmology," you ask? It is the study of aqueous vapour (also known as steam). Aren't I clever? Well, not really...all my other witty blog titles were already taken, so I became desperate. After an hour of playing around with every possible idea I could come up with I finally decided to look up the 'ology' for steam and presto! I forsee many, many conversations in which I have to explain this title, but here I am, and I hope my ramblings will be read and enjoyed by others. Watch this space because in the coming days I will be moving over my previously published entries and--hopefully--adding new entries to the collection.</span>MariaEmBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13987234545579869096noreply@blogger.com0