The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross [Review]

Note:  At the time of the publication of this blog entry this novella was still available for free from amazon.com as a Kindle download.  I don’t know how much longer this will be the case, but it’s worth checking the website.

This story serves as an introduction to a new young adult series by Kady Cross called The Steampunk Chronicles.  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.  Personally, I think this short story is an excellent introduction to the series:  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.  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!  This is the kind of YA literature I like:  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. 

Corsets and Clockwork edited by Trisha Telep [Review]

I begin my review with the comment that, overall, I feel this collection is worth the money, and I would recommend it to others.  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.  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.  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.  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!  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. 

Next Book to be Reviewed: Corsets and Clockwork

What you need to know before reading this book:

This collection of stories is aimed at a young adult audience, and is appropriate with regards to content.  If this book were a movie, it would be rated PG for scenes of violence.

 

From Goodreads:

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!

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.

Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel [Review]

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.  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 like.  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.  I chastised myself for my resistance, however, especially after considering the tradition Oppel is operating within:  French author Jules Verne wrote about space travel in From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Off on a Comet (1877), American writer Edward Everett Hale theorized about space stations in The Brick Moon (1869), and English author H.G. Wells wrote about space colonization in The First Men in the Moon (1901).  There are also examples from Russian writers as well!  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.  My attitude safely in check, I was able to read this final book of Oppel’s trilogy with new eyes and embrace the adventure.  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.

"Skybreaker" by Kenneth Oppel [Review].

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.  Luckily, Kenneth Oppel has avoided these pitfalls with Skybreaker, 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.  But perhaps the best thing about this book is that it reminded me of why I love to read and write about literature:  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.   In other words, this literature major was able to sit back and enjoy the ride, which is a rare pleasure in my world!

Next Book to be Reviewed: "Skybreaker" by Kenneth Oppel

Oppel, Kenneth.  Skybreaker.  New York: Eos. 2007.  $6.99 Massmarket Paperback.

What you need to know before reading this book:

Skybreaker 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.

From Goodreads:

  A legendary ghost ship. An incredible treasure. A death-defying adventure.
Forty years ago, the airship Hyperion 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 Hyperion since its disappearance, and surrounded by deadly high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions soon find themselves fighting not only for the Hyperion—but for their very lives.

"Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel [Review].

This book of young adult fiction begins with a mystery:  The airship Aurora and young cabin boy Matthew Cruse come across the hot air balloon Endurance, seemingly abandoned to the sky.  A closer inspection reveals her fatally wounded captain, Benjamin Malloy, an old man circumnavigating the world.  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:  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.  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.

Next Book to be Reviewed: "Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel

Oppel, Kenneth.  Airborn.  New York:  Harper Collins.  2005.  $8.99 Massmarket Paperback.

What you should know before reading this book:

Airborn 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.

 

From Goodreads:

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. . . .

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.

In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing 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. 

"Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest [Review]

[Originally posted to my Livejournal blog on Sep. 25th, 2010].

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.

Next Book to be Reviewed: "Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest

Priest, Cherie. Boneshaker.  New York: Tor. 2009.  $15.99 (Mass Market).

What you need to know before reading this book:

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. 

From the back cover:

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Thomas Riley" by Nick Valentino [Review]

[Originally posted on Livejournal Sep. 26th, 2010].

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!

Next book to be Reviewed: "Worldshaker" by Richard Harland

Harland, Richard.  Worldshaker.  New York: Simon and Schuster. 2009.  $16.99 Hardback.

What you need to know before you read:
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.

 

From the dust jacket:
Col Porpentine understands how society works:  the elite families enjoy a comfortable life on the Upper Decks of the great juggernaut Worldshaker, while the Filthies toil Below.  And Col himself is being groomed by his grandfather, the supreme commander of the Worldshaker, to be his successor.  He has never questioned his place in the world, nor his illustrious future.

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 Worldshaker 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.

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.