Of Swords and Parasols

Taya is an Icarus, a courier who travels via a harness with metal wings. She aspires to move up in the ranks and become a politician, but currently performs services for the city of Ondinium. When she saves the lives of an Exalted (aristocrat), Viera, and her son, she becomes involved in the lives of Viera’s cousins, Alister and Cristof. Alister and Cristof both want to change the city and its caste system, but in different (eventually spoilery) ways. Alister, charming and popular, is a politician in the city, and is working on a program to insert into the Great Machine that runs their lives that he hopes will better them. Cristof, meanwhile, has denied his caste status and repairs clocks in the lowest levels of the city, but has many secrets.

The book is billed as fantasy, but its fantasy only in the sense that it’s a reimagined world. There’s no magic to speak of, unless you include the existence of a substance that lets people defy gravity and fly on metal wings. The society is partly based on Roman society (Ondinium is a thinly veiled reference to Londinium, the Roman name for London) but includes elements from other cultures as well. The names follow no real pattern, but fit together well. The technology makes the book largely fit into the steampunk genre, but there are also elements of modern technology mixed in.

And, really, it almost reads like a response to the (legitimate) criticisms of the steampunk genre.

( cut for length )
Mystery, lots of adventure, lots of action. Interesting, developed characters, both major characters and minor characters, and an engaging but non-intrusive romance. And a three-tiered city where people fly on metal wings.

(I’m risking losing motivation to write up this book when I finish it, here, but…)

When I order paperbacks from Amazon, I tend to try to get books the same price in the 4-for-3 sale because I save a teeny bit more in the long run, even though it also means I sometimes end up holding off on books I want more. A couple weeks ago I was ordering 2 $8.99 books and one $7.99 book, so I was poking around the “save for later” section of my Amazon cart (it’s easier to watch for prices to be lowered that way) and noticed a steampunk anthology called Extraordinary Engines. I think I hadn’t bought it yet because I hadn’t really heard anything about it, but I decided to go ahead and try it out blind.

When it got here, I noticed that 10 of the 12 authors were male. Ok, it’s a new-ish genre (though the introduction attributes the creation of the genre to two trilogies by Michael Moorcock in the 70s) so I can buy that there may be more men interested in writing it than women, even though part of the appeal of the genre is supposedly that it has elements that appeal strongly to both men and women. But I was also looking at the descriptions and catch phrases, and most sounded like they’d be male dominated, and the only thing that hinted at female presence was “automated harlots,” but some of the story titles indicate that there be girls.

So far I’ve read 3 stories, which puts me at page 132 of 441. I’ve noticed several things. One, the stories are a little longer (without checking the table of contents, they seem to range from about 30-50 pages each) which is a good length for me with short stories. Much shorter, and they usually aren’t long enough to really register with me, which is why I tend to stick to anthologies with limited themes, or where all stories are by the same author. The second is that it seems to be exploring steampunk as an idea more widely applied to the world than just airships and city advanced technology. The genre is also described as applying to both the Victorian and Edwardian eras, which tickles my fancy a bit. The three stories have had wildly different voices, settings and themes, and well developed worlds.

The other thing I’ve noticed, though, is that of the three stories I’ve read, only one had anything resembling a female. In fact, of the other two, the only thing female or that could be interpreted as female was one word of slang used to indicate sexual preference. And I’m not even positive about that. The one story that had female characters, naturally, was by one of the two female authors. (Haven’t gotten to the other one yet.) Now mind you, it was a steampunk murder mystery in a world where too much electricity in the air causes some people to have psychic powers, so I would have liked it under any circumstances, but you can guess which my favorite was.

Now, I know what the excuses are. Females in Victoriana are dresses and romance and social movements. Men in Victoriana are adventure and exploring. Except, remember above where I mentioned that part of the appeal was that the genre combined the supposed appeals for men and women? That’s kind of what I was talking about. In addition, there’s the fact that the genre itself is based on an anachronism. The idea is that you have an alternate history Earth, or a world based on the period, where science and technology have advanced far past where they had at the time, resulting in an altered world and society. So, you can justifiably ignore gender roles of the period, or you can do with society and gender roles what you do with science and technology and alter them accordingly.

Mind you, I have nine stories to go, so they could be the only stories where women apparently don’t exist in those worlds. I like to be an optimist.


[Poll #1323220]

(This ended up longer than intended...)

PS-"Ticky box" is only there so I don't have to click over to the poll to see results and can just see them in the post itself. (And yes, I know they aren't ticky boxes. I just wasn't feeling creative. That, or I accidentally clicked the wrong option and was too lazy to change it when I noticed. I'll let you decide which.)

In an alternate Victorian London, a mechanical god named Mama Engine and her consort, Grandfather Clock descended on Whitechapel and closed the area off from the rest of the city-not to mention the world-with an impenetrable wall.  No one gets out and no one gets in.  Mechanical Boiler Men patrol the city and destroy those who oppose the new gods, and a disease called "clacks"  turns people into clockwork men from the inside out.  Some time back, the people gathered around Oliver Sumner, a former thief, and rebelled, but almost all died.  Now, they're waiting for him to raise his standard again, and Oliver and the few followers he's allowed to stay with him have found a weapons that may let them destroy the gods.

This is very much a Your Mileage May Vary book.  It has an awesome steampunk setting, an imaginative plot and setup, interesting characters, great fights, and great atmosphere.  It's also very light on the characterization, and doesn't have a lot of plot.  Take your normal fantasy novel, look at the part where you meet the hero, see the circumstances that lead to his taking action, his journey to becoming a hero, his gathering his friends, etc...and then remove everything before the part where they finally find a way to defeat the villain and go off to do so in the last 50 or so pages, except expand that to 374 pages, with references and the occasional exposition to fill you in on the rest.  The entire thing takes place over only two days, and from multiple POVs, and there are a number of deus ex machinas. 

If you go in expecting something deep and plot heavy, you'll probably be disappointed.  Actually, remove the "probably."  If you go in expecting steampunk, action, and interesting setting and don't mind if your memorable characters are on the underdeveloped side, you'll probably have a blast.  Me?  I went in expecting brain candy and a few thrills, so I was giddy all over the place, pretty much.

Our hero, Oliver, is a thief turned failed rebel hero.  Our heroine is a former prostitute who said "screw you" to her madam and hoofed it while the hoofing was good.  She also hears voices in her head.  (More on that in a moment.)  Mama Engine is in love with Oliver, and John Scared, one of our villains, is in love with Mama Engine.  Can you say "seriously messed up conflict"?  At one point, Our Hero gives Our Heroine a book, and tells her she knows he'll come back because he hasn't read the book yet, but he hears it's good.  She responds properly to this bit of male stupidity.  When Our Hero comes back, he takes this book off to a corner, only to be lectured by Our Heroine for his antisocial behavior, especially since there are plenty of comfy reading chairs.  When Our Hero wants Our Heroine to grab the old men and run, this is the resulting conversation:

"Oh, so I'm to run off and leave the killing and the dying to the men, is that it?"
"For the love of God, woman, not now!  I need shooters, Missy.  No amount of smiles or sashaying will help us right now."
"You ungrateful swine!"
"This is not up for debate.  Move your feet or we'll have words."
"I quite think we're having words now."

As we soon learn, assumptions should not be made regarding whether or not a woman can shoot.  (And Missy is everyone's nickname for Michelle and what she prefers to go by, just for clarification.)  Oliver spends a lot of time drowning in guilt over getting his rebellion killed.  Michelle spends a lot of time not putting up with it much, despite having a lot more problems herself.

But basically, if you have a high octane action/fantasy/sf/steampunk-with-a-side-of-romance kink, this book probably caters to it.

Interestingly, Michelle is probably the most developed character of the lot, certainly the one that gets the most attention, but as that's spoilery and a potential hot button for some on the f-list (it usually is for me, too, but isn't here) I'll put it behind a cut.


This is also the book with the Extremely Awesome Cover that I liked enough to make an icon of it before I even read the thing.  (and i'm glad I liked it, because now I can keep the icon)



And since I did like it, the icon now comes in three flavors, in case anyone besides me is actually interested:

  

*If I "lalala" a bit, I can tell myself that the third one is an AU Jonothon Starsmore/Chamber/Decibel.)

 Watching Last Exile made me realize that, though I dislike most mecha, I like most steampunk that I've encountered(I think Steamboy is the only exception, off the top of my head...there are likely others if I think about it, though...I just try not to dwell on things I don't care for) but don't seem to run across it a lot, even though I know there's a lot out there..

Anyone want to rec me steampunk or gaslight romances, be they anime, manga or books?  (And tell me if it's available in the US) 

ETA:  wikipedia's page on steampunk 

ETA 2: crumpeteerhas posted very, very brief descriptions of the various "punk" genres here.