The second volume of the Chinese steampunk series Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang starts with
a four-year time jump, which is a good decision. Chang Geng, the fourth prince
of the empire, is now twenty and has grown into a fine young man. He’s spent
the intervening years studying everything possible from martial arts and
military tactics to medicine and accounting. All this for his godfather Gu Yun,
because nothing has diminished his infatuation with the military genius
marquis.
For his
part, Gu Yun has spent the four years securing the silk road to bolster the
economics and the coffers of the empire. But despite his efforts, the country
is getting poorer and more unstable.
The two reunite
by chance and from there on, they’re constantly dealing with a disaster after
another. First, it’s bandits smuggling violet gold, the coveted substance
powering the mechanical devices, which has larger political implications. Then
it’s the inner politics of the empire, which leads to the emperor falling out
with Gu Yun. And before they know it, there’s an invading army outside the empire’s
borders.
During all
this, Chang Geng and Gu Yun work side by side. The younger man has a sharp mind
and has travelled all over the country, getting a good understanding of how
things are. It constantly baffles his godfather, but he soon learns to rely on Chang
Geng’s suggestions. The men grow to be more or less equal in standing, although
Chang Geng takes a role of a caretaker, looking after Gu Yun who still suffers
from the effects of a poisoning.
But there’s
tension between them too. Chang Geng makes his feelings known to Gu Yun, who
cannot accept them. They keep throwing him off though, forcing him to see the
younger man in a new light. The romance didn’t go anywhere yet, but it had a
nudge to the right direction.
Mostly, the
narrative was dominated by politics and war. It’s a confusing mess and would’ve
benefited from a map to clear some things out, but well-written and fast-paced,
keeping the reader’s interest. The volume ends at a difficult place for the
empire and the pair. I’ll definitely need to read on to find out how they’ll
solve everything.
The Grief of Stones is the third book in The Goblin Emperor, Addison’s wonderfully unique
steampunkish world of goblins and elves, and the second in The Cemeteries of
Amalo starring Thara Celehar, the Witness for the Dead. He’s a goblin priest whose
job it is to communicate with the recently, and not so recently, departed on
behalf of their families or the authorities to find out how they died, or to settle
disputes.
The book
starts soon after the previous ended. A marquise wants to know if his wife was
murdered and Celehar sets to investigate. A case follows another and soon he is
trying to figure out how to save foundling girls from an unscrupulous person.
The cases
weren’t complicated, and the overall tone was that of a cosy mystery. But the
latter lead to an encounter that changed Celehar’s life, maybe forever. The rest
of the book deals with the aftermath and the never-ending politics of Amalo.
Celehar is
not alone with his investigations. Out of the blue, he’s sent an apprentice, a
widow who has had no formal training as a priest but who can also communicate
with the dead. And he has the friends he made in the previous book that he can
turn to, and does, despite being much of a loner.
The city of
Amalo is as huge, strange, and complicated as ever. I never knew where anything
was in relation to other places, but it didn’t really matter, though I would’ve
welcomed a map (I don’t know if final versions come with those). There are
trams and air travel, pneumatic tubes and photographing, but the overall impression
is of a highly hierarchical society where traditions matter more than
innovations. And nothing matters more than funeral traditions.
This was a
sad book, much more so than the previous ones. Celehar is maybe ready to open a
little after the tragedy in his past, but the rigid norms of the society make
him afraid of even contemplating friendship, let alone love. He’s lonely. The
cases of exploited girls were sad, and Celehar’s fate saddest of all, even
though the book ends in a hopeful note.
The book wasn’t
as much about the belief in humanity and decency as the previous ones, but it left
me feeling positive in the end. And the hints about changes for Celehar make me
eager to read the next book.
I received
a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve had The Goblin Emperor waiting on my
e-reader for a long time for a suitable time to read it. Now that I have, I
wish I’d read it sooner—and that I could instantly read it again.
The book takes place in the Elfish Empire, in
a world with clockworks and airships, magic and swords—and no humans. The emperor
and his sons die in a tragic airship accident, leaving the youngest son Maia to
inherit the throne. Maia is a half goblin, despised and ostracised by his
father to a remote farm. He doesn’t know the first thing about being a ruler,
the court, or how to conduct himself around other people. He doesn’t want to be
a ruler, but instead of rueing his fate, he sets out to do his best.
Told solely from Maia’s perspective, the
book follows him through the first bewildering days of his reign to when he
finally starts to feel comfortable in his new life. In between there are power
struggles, coup and assassination attempts, an investigation to his father’s
death, and marriage negotiations where women aren’t given a say in who they want
to marry—a state of affairs that Maia wishes to remedy, but finds nearly
impossible to do.
At first, it seems like he’s alone facing
the world, but little by little he realises that there are people around him that
wish him good and are willing to help him to achieve his goals. The ending is
hopeful yet wistful, as he realises that the one thing he cannot really have is
genuine friendship.
Maia was a wonderful character. Thoroughly
decent, and willing to be the best he can, not just as a ruler but as a
person. He had many insecurities that he made a conscious effort to overcome,
an ability to find good people to rely on, and a skill to bring out the best in
people around him. He wasn’t perfect, but he was willing to apologise and
make amends when he succumbed to anger or weakness. It was wonderful to watch
him grow to become a great ruler.
The writing style was immersive even though
it didn’t dwell on details, glossing over days and events, and often relying on
telling instead of showing. The moments when the narrative paused to give a
closer look on Maia’s life were all the sharper for it. The only confusing thing
was the names. Everyone had honorifics that sounded similar from person to
person, and given names that weren’t used, except occasionally, plus
combinations of the same that made them seem like different persons. I was constantly
lost, but even that didn’t mar my enjoyment of the book. The world would be a
better place if we had more people like Maia in it.
Sedition is a debut novel by E. M. Wright
and it starts Children of Erikkson series. I received a free copy from
NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Sedition is steampunk fantasy set in
alternate Victorian England of airships and biomatons, humans that have been
altered with clockwork parts and mind modifiers. Because of these changes, they’re
no longer considered human and are treated as slaves.
Taryn is a young student of biomechanics with
a secret: she is a biomaton too. She’s been pretending to be human for several
years now, after she was discovered from the streets by a son of an aristocrat.
Then her secret is discovered, and she’s taken to a lair of a cruel lordship
who collects biomatons. Taryn is put through examinations and torture that nearly
breaks her. Only, her mind-control doesn’t quite work like others’.
This started as a four-star book. The language
was smooth, and the first third progressed in a good pace. Then Taryn was taken
captive, and everything changed. The rest of the book lacked a proper plot with
a clear goal that the protagonist would try to work towards. Taryn was passed
along in a progression of scenes where she was submitted to humiliation and/or
torture over and over again, with no recourse. The sadistic cruelty of the
other characters soon became tiresome, especially since Taryn had no agency and
no way to influence her situation. The story happened to her, not the other way
around. The ending was abrupt and came across like a deus ex machina, especially
since the build-up was for a different solution entirely.
Taryn was an interesting character, but not
someone I could identify with. I sympathised with her at first, but even that
became difficult when she had no influence on her situation or any initiative. The
idea that her emotions were dampened was fairly repulsive, especially in how it
made her regard her only friend.
The side characters were odd, to say the
least. Ace was probably meant to be a love interest of a sort, since he was
given his own POV chapters, but he was cowardly and useless. Emmet was mawkish
and then pitiful, through no fault of his own. The rest of the characters were
merely a collection of sadistic torturers that would make Marquis de Sade envious.
At least there was no sexual violence, which was probably due to this being marketed
as YA fiction.
Things could be said about the idea of slaves
as non-human (or vice versa), especially since the book is set at the time when
America was fighting the Civil War over slavery, but since the author chose not
to make the comparison, I’ll leave be. All in all, nothing else kept me reading
than the obligation to review the book. I won’t be following Taryn’s path
longer than this.
The book description promised an alternate Victorian London
where angels rule and everyone lives in a constant fear of one of them falling,
which would be like “a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical
worlds”. Seldom has a book description been so off. What I got was a Sherlock Holmes retelling. I don’t like retellings
and Sherlock Holmes retellings are the most tired of them all. If I’d known it
was one, I probably would’ve skipped this, no matter how much I like the
author.
This is basically a collection of Holmes’ most famous cases
bound together with a superficial plot about Jack the Ripper—a case Holmes famously never tackled. There were
some minor changes, but none of them made the stories truly fresh. The newness,
therefore, rests solely on the world-building.
It’s an alternate Victorian London with everything. There
are both steampunk elements, like airships and automatons, and all manner of
supernatural creatures from vampires and werewolves to ghosts and hellhounds.
And angels. There are three kinds of angels: those bound to a building and thus
worthy of a name, the Nameless who wander about without a mind and purpose of
their own, and the Fallen who are vicious creatures who kill and inflict
supernatural diseases. We actually never meet the latter.
Holmes is an angel called Crow. He is different from other
angels because he is not bound to a building, but isn’t a Nameless or a Fallen
either—a fact that the author didn’t
fully explain until about midway to the book, which left me constantly baffled
with people’s reactions to him. He likes to solve crimes, and he is very good at
deductive reasoning. Unlike Holmes, he doesn’t have any vices—he doesn’t even eat—or
irritating habits, and he is actually very endearing in his constant awe of
humanity.
Dr Watson is Dr Doyle who has survived an attack by a Fallen
in Afghanistan and is suffering from the consequences, which will lead to a
metamorphosis. Since the actual flavour of the change is kept as a secret for a
while, I’ll discuss it in the spoiler section at the end of the post. It plays
some role in solving the cases; perhaps the only worthwhile alteration the
author has made to the stories. The good doctor has another secret too, even
more tightly guarded. Considering the importance given to it, I would’ve wished
it actually had some sort of impact—it definitely would’ve
opened the story to a whole new level—but
it was glossed over and life went on like it didn’t even exist. More about that
in the spoiler section.
Considering the interesting world the author has created, it
seems criminal that she’s wasted it on Sherlock Holmes. The angels had a
fascinating society that could’ve formed a basis to a completely unique plot,
and Crow had such an interesting backstory that he could’ve carried a book on
that alone. The alterations don’t even really influence the original stories.
It wasn’t until midway to the book that they started to have any effect on the
cases, and the suspects remained ordinary humans in pretty much all of them.
This being said, I found the book interesting enough to keep
reading. I even gave it four stars. The author has recreated the atmosphere of
Conan-Doyle’s originals well, the narrative style works and never wavers, and I
liked both Crow and Dr Doyle. If there’s ever a follow-up, I hope the author
goes to town with the world and gives the two a proper plot and a unique story.
And now to the spoilers.
***
You have been warned.
The first spoiler concerns what Dr Doyle is changing into. A
hellhound. It’s a somewhat helpful change, as it gives Doyle an ability to
smell both natural and supernatural traces. It also allows the author to play
with the story of the Hound of Baskerville and add fresh scenes about them trying to
find a cure for it with Crow. In the end, it allows the doctor to find Jack the
Ripper too. However, it reveals the secret to the police who rush in to arrest
Doyle, as unregistered creatures are illegal—though
the author fails to explain why this is.
Being a hellhound is surprisingly easy for Doyle. There’s
some pain and some shame, but at no point in the narrative does the doctor
mourn or berate the change. The author is too tied with the original Holmes
stories to give room to such ruminations. And just when the story got
interesting, a deus ex machina allows the doctor to remain free.
The other secret is bigger and an even greater wasted
opportunity for the author. At the mid-point of the book, out of the blue—there are literally no hints whatsoever—it turns out, that Dr Doyle is in fact a woman. I’d
say my mind was blown, and it kind of was, but it would’ve made a greater
impact if it had been at least hinted at.
And it would’ve mattered more, if this new reality had been
incorporated into the story somehow. But life goes on like before. We don’t
learn why Dr Doyle pretends to be a man. Is it for purely practical reasons, as
it’s the only way she can practice medicine? Or does she in fact identify as a
man? She seems to be attracted to women, but then nothing comes of that. And how
does it work? She’s spent decades as a military doctor on campaigns and no one
even guessed until she ended up in hospital after being attacked by the Fallen
angel. Does she have a naturally manly body? A low voice? And what about the
periods? How does she deal with them? So many questions and not a single answer
given. So I don’t understand why the author felt necessary to make such a
change. Being a hellhound was bad enough for the poor doctor. Why did he need
to be inflicted with being a woman too?
My Lindsay Buroker binge continues
with three books. Deadly Games and Conspiracy are books three and four of The Emperor’s
Edge series, and Tangled Truths is book three in Death Before Dragons series. So
far, I’ve been happy with both.
While the two series are set in
completely different worlds—Emperor’s Edge takes place in a
steampunkish world with magic and Death Before Dragons in our world with addition
of otherworldly creatures—they have some similarities.
The main couple consists of an extroverted woman and a highly secretive,
unemotional man/male; there’s a larger plot going on in the background that the
main character tries to unravel, and both have action and mayhem aplenty.
Romantic stories advance in glacier pace, although a bit faster in case of Val
and Zav in Death Before Dragons who don’t have the baggage of past misdeeds
between them like in the case of Amaranthe and Sicarius in The Emperor’s Edge.
Tangled Truths by Lindsay Buroker
In Tangled Truths, Val has to face both
her past—i.e. ex-husband and teenage daughter—and dragons bent on revenging the death of Dob. The latter
seems to be easier for her, as she isn’t one to contemplate her emotions. And
she has an assignment that for once doesn’t require her to kill anyone, which
takes her a little out of her comfort zone. But Zav is there to help, if
reluctantly, and the ending takes their relationship to a new level.
Deadly Games by Lindsay Buroker
In Deadly Games, Amaranthe’s group
becomes involved in investigating the disappearances of athletes competing in important
games. When two of her men are taken too, it takes the case to a different level—at the bottom of a lake. The additional point of view is
that of Basillard, the former slave. He has learned that Sicarius has killed
the ruling family of his people and wants to avenge them. But when they are
both held captive, he changes his mind. And he has an important role at the
end, when he gets to meet the emperor, who has an odd request. He wants
Amaranthe’s group to kidnap him.
Conspiracy by Lindsay Buroker
In the next book, Conspiracy, the group
sets out to fulfil the emperor’s request. It’s not easy, especially since he
has to be taken from a moving train full of soldiers. The group is experiencing
internal strife too. Akstyr, the magic practitioner, is planning to sell
Sicarius to bounty hunters, upsetting the rest of the group when they learn of
it, and Sicarius goes on a killing spree that upsets Amaranthe and complicates
their mission. On top of that, Forge, the group working against the emperor, is
moving to overthrow him and they have technology unlike anything that has been
seen in the world where everything works on steam. And then the book ends in a cliff-hanger
when the action is at its peak. Luckily the next book picks up with the same
exact scene—I already checked.
All in all, both series remain
satisfying and I’ll continue with my binge. In addition, I’ve acquired several
other series by Buroker, so I won’t run out of reading any time soon.
I’ve been on a Lindsay Buroker binge
this past week, after getting hooked on her Death Before Dragons series. I
subscribed to her newsletter and was given a four book bundle of her fantasy
books (she writes sci-fi too) as a thank you. I picked The Emperor’s Edge,
which starts a series with the same name. It’s her first book, and while it’s
not perfect, it’s interesting and good. I instantly continued with Dark Currents, and then read a short story The Assassin’s Curse.
The Emperor’s Edge is set in Turgonia, a steam-punkish
empire, but not an alt-history/pseudo Victorian one. Technological advancements
are based on steam; there are trams, cars and factories among other things, but
society’s norms aren’t Victorian. Women handle the commerce and have consequently more freedoms, and men the war.
Society is divided to the warrior caste and the rest. Magic exists, but not in
Turgonia where it’s been banned.
Dark Currents by Lindsay Buroker
The main character is Amaranthe Lokdon.
She’s an up-and-coming enforcer, one of only a few women in the police force.
She comes to the notice of the young emperor Sespian and through him the man
who is holding the emperor’s reins. The regent
sends her to kill Sicarius, the most notorious assassin of the empire. Things
get a bit out of her hands and before she knows it, she’s a wanted criminal
running from the emperor’s soldiers. But she also discovers a plot to kill the
emperor and decides to clear her name by saving him. For that, she enlists
Sicarius to help her.
During the course of the book,
Amaranthe builds a team of very different people to assist her, and they become
the heart of the series. In the first book, they manage to save the emperor,
but end up all being wanted by the law. The second book sees them attempting to
clear their name by thwarting a plot to poison the drinking water of the
Turgonia’s capital. They face magic wielding shamans and weird magical beasts
and machines. And form tight bonds.
The Assassin's Curse by Lindsay Buroker
The main relationship is building
between Amaranthe and Sicarius. He’s a very difficult person to get a hang of,
but she’s persistent. Already in the second book she confesses her feelings for
him, which was faster than I anticipated, considering that there are nine books
in the series. But it suits her character. His answer definitely suits his.
Based on two books and a short story,
the plots evolve around economy, which is a refreshing change to all the fantasy series about conquer and war. The main villains don’t come from the outside, but from
within the city. There’s a faction of business leaders who are plotting to
overthrow the emperor. I’m guessing the truth of the organisation won’t be
unravelled until the last book. And I’m guessing it’ll take that long to clear
Amaranthe’s name too. I’m not sure it’ll be possible to clear Sicarius’s. The
plots are a bit all over the place and the pacing is slightly odd; the books
tend to end before I would expect them to. But these are minor details that
haven’t marred my enjoyment of the books. I already have the third one waiting.
Every now and then I come across a book with such an
intriguing premise that I have to purchase it almost without reading. The Paper Magician, the first book in Charlie N. Holmberg’s trilogy of the same name is
such book. I even read the sample, and though it made me raise my eyebrows a
couple of times, I purchased it anyway.
I have no excuses.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
I love fantasies set in a world identical to ours with changes stemming from the fantasy system of the book, be it modern urban
fantasy or historical. There is special charm to historical fantasy of this
kind. My absolute favourite is Gail Carriger whose detailed knowledge of the
customs and manners of Victorian England make the past come alive in her
historical series. And she’s so good at weaving the fantasy elements in, that I
don’t always question their reality.
The Paper Magician has nothing of that. The author hasn’t
made the slightest attempt to learn about the era she’s set her book in—1901,
to be exact. From the first chapter on, the lack of historical details and the abundance
of modern manners made me assume the book was set in maybe 1960s with some
historical quirks that I took to stem from the fantasy elements. Once the real
era was revealed, the historical inaccuracies became a constant irritation that
repeatedly pushed me out of the narrative.
If the chosen fantasy system is sound, and the differences
to the actual historical era can be explained as a result of that fantasy
system, everything is fine, even if the differences are considerable. Spotting
the differences becomes fun, even. But that requires that the author has a
working knowledge of the time before she starts making the changes.
The turn of the century was the end of Victorian era of
strict moral code and exact manners. Class distinctions were clear, and a
person of means was expected to live in a manner of their class, with servants.
Upper class women didn’t work, nor did they socialise with the opposite sex
unsupervised. Social mobility was almost unheard of. But it was also an era of great technical innovations and the
nascent suffragette movement.
The Paper Magician disregarded all that. We have a society
where women—at least women magicians—are equal to men. They wear their hair
down and use makeup and trousers if they want. They can marry and divorce with
a sign of a paper. The hero, apparently a wealthy man, lives alone in a large
house without any servants, so he cooks, cleans and does his washing himself.
He can share the house with a female apprentice without anyone so much as
raising a brow. The heroine is a poor working class girl who nonetheless has
gone to the same school as the hero as if mixed schools existed, or were available
for poor—a school that resembles remarkably an American high school even though
they’re supposedly in London. Their manners with each other are free, with no
respect given or expected. She cooks him pasta and rice, as if those were
available at the time, and washes his clothes in her spare time, as if it weren’t
a whole day operation to do the washing at that time. There is electricity in
some houses, but no gas light, as the alternative to electric light is always
candles. Every house has its personal telegraph machine. Is it a wonder I
thought the book was set in 1960s with some historical quirks?
On top of that came the Americanisms. The heroine describes
her hair to be the colour of yams, uses inches and centimetres interchangeably,
puts mayonnaise to her cucumber sandwiches, and uses the expression ‘rocks like
a rodeo horse’, to mention just a few. Added to that was the author’s weird attitude to religion, which she probably thought was ‘European’. First Ceony wonders why Emery doesn’t say grace before dinner, and later reflects that she doesn’t really belive in God, and calls the Church of England a sect—which it could be in her world, only it isn’t explained why.
Despite the constant irritation the weird world caused, I
read the whole book. It wasn’t very long, and it was sadly uneven, with no
proper plot development. During the first half of the book, Ceony, the heroine,
learns the ropes of being a paper magician. Much of this is narrated as if from
the outside—told, not shown. There was some attempt at plot development when
Emery, the master magician, goes to a mysterious errand, but before anything
can be built on it, there is a plot twist in form of a surprise attack by a
person mentioned once, with a forbidden magic that hadn’t really been
introduced yet. The attack incapacitates Emery and leaves Ceony the sole agent
for the rest of the book.
The second half is one long scene where Ceony saves the day.
However, it’s also a sort of dream sequence, as it’s a journey to Emery’s past,
and to his hopes and fears. As is quite typical in these sorts of books, Ceony concquers
the foe by being more powerful and capable in magic than her training or skills
allows. And then the book ends.
I didn’t like Ceony much in the beginning. She was rude and
assumed it was her right to snoop. She improved towards the end though. Emery
was a distant figure throughout the first half of the book, and then became a
proper character during the second half, which was ironic, considering that he
wasn’t even present in person.
All in all, the book had great flaws, and had an undeveloped,
uneven plot. But as I managed to read it to the end and be moderately
entertained, I gave it three stars. However, I have no intention to continue
with the series. That I’d decided already before reading the sample chapter of
the next book, where Ceony’s sister goes on a date. My blood pressure couldn’t
handle that.
Last week, I reviewed the first Signal Airship book, The Guns Above, which I absolutely loved. The second book, By Fire Above, begins
right where the first book ends, from the very same scene even. The last battle
has left Mistral badly damaged and in need of urgent repairs. But the war has
been brutal and spare parts aren’t easily available. There’s no fast return for
Mistral and her crew to the war, much to Captain Josette Dupre’s chagrin.
Mistral is sent to the capital of the kingdom for the
winter, both for repairs and to rouse the interest of the people for the
continuous and distant war. For the first half of the book, the story slows
down considerably from the constant action of the first book. The most exciting
event is a bad storm, which damages Mistral again and badly injures Bernat. Josette
and Bernat end up spending the winter at the King’s court, the latter trying to
guide the first through the minefield that is the court politics. His task
would be easier, though, if his older brother Roland wasn’t trying to court
Josette at the same time. She’s not uninterested, but as she is practically
unable to express finer emotions, the courtship is pretty one-sided.
In the end, Josette gets what she wants: an order to go and
liberate her home town Durum from the Vin occupation. However, as she manages
to aggravate the aristocrats in the process, the price is going out with a
barely repaired ship and no proper flying gas. Bernat gets what he wants too,
sort of: Roland is left behind, and he has a chance to free Josette’s mother
Elise, with whom he has fallen in love, much to Josette’s annoyance.
The second half of the book is constant action, but there
are no air battles like in the first book. Instead, Josette and Bernat sneak
into Durum to rouse the townspeople to rebel against the occupying force. It’s
not easy, as they are no proper soldiers and barely any weapons. Josette,
resourceful as ever, devices a plan that works perfectly up until everything
goes wrong, starting with Mistral being a no-show as an air support. She and
Bernat almost get killed several times during the brutal battle, which, like in
the first book, spares no one and is described fairly vividly.
On Mistral, we follow Ensign Kemper from the first book. She’s
having trouble with the new first officer left in charge of Mistral in Josette’s
absence, because he’s both incompetent and incapable of working with a woman.
He takes Mistral on an airship hunt against Josette’s orders, inciting a mutiny
on board, which puts Kemper in a difficult position that has no easy solutions.
She turned out to be an interesting character and I hope we’ll see more of her
in coming books.
All in all, the second book was very different from the
first. Whereas the first was all about air battles and technical manoeuvres,
the second was more about the characters, their emotions and backstories.
Josette especially was put through the wringer with her mother. However, she
remained a fairly unemotional character, so it was left to Bernat to express
all the emotions we don’t get from Josette. Of the two, the still-foppish
aristocrat is by far the more emotional. It’s therefore a bit of a puzzle why
he sees himself as a black-hearted monster—and why Josette agrees with him.
The friendship between the two doesn’t really evolve during
the book. They’ve reached a point where they understand each other perfectly,
faults and all. They continue to work well together, though the book saw Bernat
manage some action on his own too, without Josette constantly saving him. They express
their understanding of each other’s characters at the end of the book with
their customary snark that gave the reader to understand that they know they’ve
become each other’s most important persons. I really hope there’s going to be
more books, because it would be shame not to follow the pair to new adventures.
The second book was slightly less exciting than the first,
hence only four stars—though it could be because it didn’t blow my mind like the
first. But while the first half was a bit slow, the second half more than made
up for it. The writing style was excellent, sparse and to the point, and kept
the story going even when nothing much seemed to happen. I’m truly looking
forward to reading more Signal Airship books.
Every now and then, a random book recommendation I come
across on Twitter turns out to be a gem. Last week, I was made aware of The Guns Above, Signal Airship 1, by Robyn Bennis. I liked the sparse description,
read the sample chapters, and when they ended, absolutely had to know more. So
I purchased the book and continued reading. And pretty much read it as fast as
I could.
The Guns Above is steampunk fantasy set in imaginary Garnia,
a country in a constant state of war with its neighbours. The reasons are never
made clear; it’s just something that has always been done. It’s a pre or
pseudo-industrialised world where steam powers factories and airships, but
everything else mostly resembles 19th century Europe, down to its hierarchies.
Military is the only place where women get to show their
worth, and that only because the country is running out of men to enlist. It’s
still not easy for them, and they’ve been given
proper commanding positions only a few years previously. Except on airships.
The book begins with the aftermath of a battle. Josette
Dupre wakes up among dead bodies with no proper recollection of how the battle
has gone, but she’s soon told she was the hero of it, who single-handedly
turned the tides for Garnia. As a reward—though reluctantly and only because of
the pressure from the newspapers—she’s given an airship of her own to command,
an experimental new model, Mistral. She knows it’s just to get rid of her, but
she takes it anyway. She’s accompanied on the maiden voyage by Lord Bernat, the
nephew of the most important general, who’s been sent there to spy on her and
to make her look bad, to discredit her in the press.
Despite the premise, the book is a fairly straightforward
military fantasy. The maiden voyage turns into a series of battles, as Mistral
and its crew encounter the enemy where they shouldn’t be. The battles are
vividly and brutally described, and lengthy, but never boring, even if I couldn’t
always keep up with the terminology. And everything ends in one final battle
where Mistral gets to show what it’s really made of.
Underneath all the warfare, there is a story of two people,
Josette and Bernat. It’s not terribly heavy on emotions. We never learn much
about their pasts or motivations, like why she’s in the army or why she hates
her mother, or what Bernat’s been doing with his life before being tricked into
the army, apart from gambling. But the snippets we get are enough to give us a notion of who they
are.
Their relationship carries the book. It’s not a love story, and
it’s not even a proper friendship. But the encounters between the two, often
subtle, and the bantering, made me really like the two and hope they would
become friends after all. Bernat tries his best to fulfil his mission, but having
been thrown into all those battles, he grows as a person and begins to admire
Josette instead. For her part, Josette doesn’t really change as a character.
Her journey is more external, growing into her role as the first woman captain
of an airship. She’s tough and unyielding to begin with and those
characteristics are only strengthened during the book. But in the end, they
sort of come to realise that they work well together. And I found it so
compelling, I immediately purchased the next book too.
The Invisible Library series truly matures
in this fifth book, The Mortal Word. The story-line that began in the previous
book about the peace conference between the fae and the dragons continues, with
extremely high stakes. A murder has taken place, which threatens the
negotiations, and Irene, with her friend Detective Vale, is called in to
investigate. The plot is complicated, with multiple suspects who all seem
plausible from the beginning. Even the Library is implicated, which causes
Irene a great deal of worry. She has to use all her skills and ingenuity to
bring clarity to the situation. Luckily, she has by now enough experience of
both dragons and the fae to pull it off.
Irene has learned a lot during the
course of the series and grown in strength. I’m not sure, however, that she has
grown as a person all that much. The focus of the books has always been on the
action, leaving character development to a backburner. For example the
revelations concerning Irene’s parents were staggering to her, yet the one time
they are present in the same world, she doesn’t even meet them. I found that a
really odd turn of events.
Lack of character growth is
especially true when it comes to side characters, Kai the most important among
them. He is only described from Irene’s point of view, and the few chapters
there have been in his point of view have concentrated on action. He still very
much comes across the way Irene first pictured him, as an immature young man,
and the attempts to give him some depth in the past couple of books haven’t
really worked. I had hoped that now that he is no longer Irene’s apprentice, he
would mature a little, but he was absent for much of the book, and so that didn’t
happen. The few times Irene concerns herself with him and his feelings, she
feels pity or fear for him, which I find to be the emotions of an older sister
or a mother, or the teacher she was.
This reflects on the romantic
relationship, too, that has been building between Irene and Kai. The reader is
supposed to understand that the two are falling in love—or at least developing some sort of feelings—but the one time that there was room for it in the book,
the door closed before anything happened. And I don’t mean I required a
description of the bedroom action. I wanted the romance that preceded it.
Unfortunately the reader isn’t given access to it, which makes the entire
romance feel unreal. I hope this improves in books to come.
Other minor characters, even the
recurring ones, remain fairly two-dimensional too. The villains of the piece
were given much more depth, which obviously improves them greatly. The fae
especially are interesting with their affinity to stories and tendency to
formulate themselves according to them. With impressive villains, the final
battle is impressive too, and the solutions aren’t easy, especially since Irene
has a tendency to handle everything herself. Maybe one day she’ll learn to
delegate.
This book ends with a new chapter
beginning in Irene’s life that promises to be interesting. I’m eagerly looking
forward to the next book in the series to find out how that turns out.
