Carriger Gets it Right: A Review of Timeless

This is the fifth (and final) book in Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, and since I’ve written about the series here and here, I don’t have a lot to add, except this was one of my favorites.  I enjoyed it for two reasons, the first being that Carriger doesn’t go for some really convoluted plot this time; in fact she uses this book to tie up some plot lines from the previous books.

Second, she really focuses on the characters, and in this book the characters are more likeable and well-rounded.  In previous books, Carriger sometimes focuses so much on the witty banter, the characters are more stereotypical than real.  In this book the characters are as funny as ever but they are also warmer, stronger, and the book is more about their friendships and relationships than it is about who’s wearing the best hat.  And if you’ve read Carriger’s books, you know that hats are very, very important.

The third thing I liked is that most of the book is set in Egypt, and I love when a book gives me a taste of other places and other times.  Having never been to Egypt (and even if I had this is Victorian-era Egypt) I can’t vouch for Carriger’s accuracy, but I definitely enjoyed seeing Egypt through Alexia’s eyes.

For the uninitiated, the series is about the adventures of Alexia Tarabotti, a preternatural in Victorian England.  A preternatural is a soulless being who can, with her touch, render a supernatural being human.  Carriger points out that being a preternatural doesn’t go over so well in polite society, but fortunately Alexia’s friends are anything but polite society.  Armed with her trusty 007-type parasol, Alexia fights the bad guys, saves England, and manages to help the werewolves and vampires co-exist in peace.

The reason to read Carriger, if you haven’t yet, is that her writing is clever and funny, and never takes itself seriously like most steampunk.   As an example, here’s a passage from Chapter 2 where Alexia and Lord Maccon are attending her friend Ivy’s new play:

The Death Rains of Swansea featured a lovelorn werewolf enamored of a vampire queen and a dastardly villain with evil intent trying to tear them apart.  The stage vampires were depicted with particularly striking fake fangs and a messy sort of red paint smeared about their chins.  The werewolves sported proper dress except for large shaggy ears tied about their heads with pink tulle bows — Ivy’s influence, no doubt.

Ivy Tunstell, Alexia’s dear friend, played the vampire queen. She did so with much sweeping about the stage and fainting, her own fangs larger than anyone else’s, which made it so difficult for her to articulate that many of her speeches were reduced to mere spitting hisses.  She wore a hat that was part bonnet, part crown, driving home the queen theme, in colors of yellow, red, and gold.  Her husband, playing the enamored werewolf, pranced about in a comic interpretation of lupine leaps, barked a lot, and got into several splendid stage fights.

The oddest moment, Alexia felt, was a dreamlike sequence just prior to the break, wherein Tunstall wore bumblebee striped drawers with attached vest and performed a small ballet before his vampire queen… Conall, at this juncture, began to shake uncontrollably.

In this book we start to get to know Prudence, Alexia’s daughter.  Alexia’s learning about Prudence’s powers and personality just as we are.  As in the previous book, Alexia is less a doting mother than a practical one, which I also appreciate.  She cares about her daughter, of course, but doesn’t put her above all of her friends, family, and husband (of course it helps that Alexia brings along a team of people to care for her child).  But even if she’s a somewhat indifferent mother, when her friend Ivy’s daughter is in danger, she immediately puts everything on the line to help her friend.

The last thing I’ll say I really enjoyed about this book was, just as the rest of the characters seemed more well-rounded, Carriger doesn’t give us a dastardly villain either.  There are mysteries to be solved, but the villains are people we can sympathize with.  Moral ambiguity is something I always appreciate in a book, even in fluffy steampunk.

Carriger’s books certainly aren’t literature, but this one’s a satisfying conclusion to a fun and highly entertaining series.

Review: The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder

Spring-Heeled Jack is pretty much what you’d expect it to be – it’s good, fun steampunk set in an alternate version of Victorian England.  The “twist” is that it actually explains how the alternate reality came to be.  It also involves a whole cast of real-life characters, including the explorer Richard Francis Burton, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, scientist Charles Darwin and revolutionary nurse Florence Nightingale.  In fact, many of the lesser characters are real people too, including Burton’s fiancé Isabel Arundell, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and the Marquess of Waterford.  Even Spring-Heeled Jack is based on true stories; the girls he attacks are real, it’s only the explanation for the attacks that are fiction.

According to Wikipedia,

Spring-heeled Jack was described by people who claimed to have seen him as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy, clawed hands, and eyes that “resembled red balls of fire”. One report claimed that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight-fitting white garment like an oilskin. Many stories also mention a “Devil-like” aspect. Others said he was tall and thin, with the appearance of a gentleman. Several reports mention that he could breathe out blue and white flames and that he wore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two people claimed that he was able to speak comprehensible English.

While Spring-heeled Jack is considered to be an urban legend, there are many reports of sightings throughout England and Scotland. Spring-heeled Jack was first sighted in 1838, when he attacked a girl named Mary Stevens.  Sightings were reported as recently as 1986. The strange thing about these reports is that Jack never actually harms anyone.  He is known to have shot blue fire at people, ripped women’s clothes off, and slapped people on a few occasions, but generally in these reports when the victim screams, Jack runs off.

Hodder builds his story around this strange and fascinating legend, keeping nearly all the historical details, but at the same time creating a new world where Queen Victoria is assassinated, and things like velocipedes, rotochairs, verbally abusive messenger parrots, and pneumatic rail.  In many ways, this world echoes the one created by Scott Westerfeld in his Leviathan series, in which the Darwinists fight the Clankers for control of Europe.  Hodder goes a step further.  There are Eugenicists, Technologists, Libertines, and Rakes, each trying to carry out their various philosophies.

The story centers on Burton, who is about to debate his close but estranged friend John Hanning Speke, when he finds out that Speke has shot himself.  When Speke is abducted from the hospital, Burton goes searching for him.  This leads him to an encounter with Spring-heeled Jack, which leads to being hired by the Prime Minister of England to track down Jack, find out why children are being abducted and to stop a band of savage werewolves.  Burton had been planning to marry and take a consulate position somewhere quiet, but he takes the job as special agent to the King instead.

Not surprisingly, this book is guilty of some excess – it doesn’t always make sense and you won’t be able to keep track of all the strange characters.  But if you like this sort of thing you won’t mind.  This book beat most steampunk novels for creativity.  Does it borrow?  Sure.  I’m nearly positive I’ve heard of obscene messenger parrots (or something similar) in another book.  But the writing is clever and funny, and Hodder does a brilliant job of weaving together the history and the myth of Spring-heeled Jack, and throws in time travel to boot.

While Hodder’s book was definitely fluffy, I like a book where I actually learn about something that really happened.  This book not only gave me a great story, but a whole new perspective on Victorian history and the different factions of the time.  Its sequel, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, will definitely go on my TBR list.

Review: Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

This book is a loose “sequel” to Priest’s Boneshaker, meaning it can be read on its own and the characters only intersect at one point in the story.  This book is quite different to Boneshaker in tone, pacing and story.  I enjoyed both books greatly.  Priest is a strong writer, with vivid description, creativity and thoughtful prose. Boneshaker didn’t always hang together for me plot-wise — Priest never adequately explains why people are willing to live under Seattle wearing gas masks and surrounded by zombies, for example — but it was still a fun book to read.

It’s easy to see the steampunk genre as a little trite and overdone.  I’ll admit the books all look pretty much the same, although I really like the cover art on this one.  If you watch The Guild, I loved their send-up of steampunk and its fans… but then again they make fun of everything.  Although truly, a genre based around dirigibles and tiny hats does seem a little silly.

That said, this book isn’t steampunk as you’re used to it.  It’s really a fantastic Civil War/Western America journey story.  The book tells the story of Mercy Lynch, a Red Cross nurse in Richmond, Virginia during the later years of the Civil War.  Mercy receives a telegram from her father, who abandoned her during childhood.  Her father is dying and wants to see her one last time; unfortunately, he’s all the way in Tacoma, Washington, a journey of many weeks and of considerable danger and expense.   A soldier convinces Mercy she might regret it if she doesn’t go, so she packs up her things and her medical supplies, and embarks on the journey.

Her journey will involve airships, trains, carts and battlefields and is fraught with disaster at every turn.  It’s written as a classic journey tale – along the way, Mercy meets exciting people, solves mysteries, and ultimately learns to stand on her own two feet and becomes a stronger human being.

Cherie Priest makes this very simple plot structure work.  The book feels original and exciting at every turn.  While there are parts that drag a little, like when Mercy has to find hotels, buy tickets, wait at railway stations, etc. those are few.  And I like a book with a slightly slower pace than most paranormal books – I want character development, not just non-stop action.  So I like the slightly slower view through Mercy’s eyes of her surroundings and situations.  This is definitely a more linear, slower-paced book than Boneshaker, and that’s okay.  There’s still plenty of action and adventure throughout.

I also liked that this book was less about the supernatural and more about the historical setting and Mercy’s journey.  Dreadnought is the name of a train that has been defensively armed as a Civil War weapon. You do get zombies in this book, but most of the book is about Civil War strategy. Mercy travels from place to place, from Virginia to Tennessee to Missouri to Utah to Washington. Priest puts a lot of detail into describing each of these places in the late 19^th century – which is not to say I expect much historical accuracy from this book.  It’s just fun to read what these cities might have been like at the time.

I think Mercy’s character could have been fleshed out a lot more, especially given how much time she has to reflect during her journey.  We learn very little about her marriage and how she became a nurse, for example.  She’s a strong character and an admirable one.  We just don’t learn as much as we could have about her fears, desires, and weaknesses.

It’s not literature.  But all things considered, a good, enjoyable read.

Pregnant heroines and Gail Carriger’s Heartless

      At the same time as many of my friends are having babies, a lot of my favorite series’ heroines are getting pregnant as well.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: I don’t want my heroines to have children.  I can’t say this about my friends, but I can say it about fiction.  I worry about what that will do to the adventurous, over-the-top lifestyles of the women I like to read about.  Babies are nice, if you like that sort of thing.  But obviously, once there’s a baby, everything changes.  If her life revolves around the baby, the story is no less interesting (to me).  And if her life doesn’t revolve around baby, well she’s not a very good (or realistic) parent, is she?

     I have to say I was happy with Gail Carriger’s take on pregnancy in Heartless, and her creation of Alexia Tarabotti, a heroine who, even while about to give birth, is absolutely fearless.  I’m curious how readers who have children viewed this book.  Alexia hauls herself all over England, putting herself in dangerous situations, at one point even with a sprained ankle.  She fights the bad guys, protects the pack, helps the vampires and solves all mysteries.  Everyone in this book tells her to slow down and she never does.

      I’m not saying that’s a good thing for someone who’s really 9 months pregnant.  But I appreciated it here.  Instead of a lot of cooing and picking out baby furniture, we get a heroine who basically views the appendage growing out of her belly as a gigantic burden.  Carriger reminds us frequently that Alexia is not sentimental because she’s a preternatural and has no soul (which I guess is the reason for the name of the book, Heartless.) Still, Alexia loves her husband, cares for her friends, and worries about the pack’s latest werewolf, who isn’t adjusting well to pack life.  So you can’t tell me she doesn’t have emotions.  She just isn’t all fluttery about having a baby.

      That was a relief for me – I feel like I live in such a baby-crazy world.  And I haven’t heard a negative thing about this book from any other readers.  I was surprised when (this is early in the book so not a spoiler) Alexia and Maccon consider giving their baby to a friend to adopt – a vampire friend, no less – in order to protect Alexia’s life. The surprise was how little angst goes into their decision.

       Now, it’s not like Carriger tries to be realistic.  Reality plays very little role in this series, and that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it.  But I will say the description of Alexia trying to haul her very pregnant self into the basket of a dirigible seemed pretty darn realistic to me.  I flew in a hot air balloon once and could hardly get in and out of that thing.

       As this isn’t really a review, I’m not trying to give you a plot summary.  Alexia’s pregnancy is a side story, as the story really revolves around investigating a threatened assassination attempt on Queen Victoria.  I will say that I really enjoyed the book, much more than the last one.  There was a little less of Carriger’s usual fluffiness about hats and fashion, and more character development, especially of Professor Lyall.  Less international travel and intrigue, more background on Maccon and Alexia’s father.  With this fourth entry in the series, Carriger gives us a good mystery, lots of action, and new insight into the wolf pack.  She just does it all while Alexia’s carrying around a few extra pounds.

Review: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Do you ever think you know where your review is going, and then it turns out to be completely different?  This was one of those for me.

I’m late to the Cassandra Clare party — most readers of steampunk and urban fantasy have been reading her for a while.  When she popped up as second in popularity only to Patrick Rothfuss on my Goodreads list of fantasy TBR’s, I decided it was time to give her a read.

Clockwork Angel is about a group called the Shadowhunters, angels in human form who fight demons in Victorian England.  It’s also about sixteen-year-old Tessa, who loses her parents in New York and comes to join her older brother Nathaniel in London, only to be abducted by the Dark Sisters.  It turns out Tessa has a magical power that no one else has — she can take on the appearance of another human being, living or dead, and even understand their thoughts or experience their memories.  The Dark Sisters force Tessa to learn how to use this power, under the threat of harming her brother.  They are preparing her to wed the very sinister-sounding Magister.

What is Tessa and how did she come by these powers?  The book doesn’t explain much but I’m sure that’s being saved for later sequels.  Tessa is rescued from captivity by the Shadowhunters, or more specifically by dark, brooding and oh-so-complicated Will.  Her mission to find her brother intertwines with the Shadowhunters’ mission to figure out who is killing people in the streets of London and using their bodies to create strange clockwork people.   This  “family” of Shadowhunters — Charlotte and Henry, Will and Jem — take her in, protect her, and promise to help her rescue her brother.  The question is whether they, like the Magister, really just want to use her powers for their own ends.

If I sound like I’m mocking the book a little, I am.  It’s a good read.  It’s inventive, action-packed steampunk with angels, demons, vampires, warlocks, and clockwork men that look just like humans.  I thoroughly enjoyed it — in fact I think I gave this book five stars when I finished it.  But once I put it down it all seemed a little silly.

The characters come off as more stereotype than fleshed out human (or non-human) beings. Tessa is a little on the melodramatic side, Will is way too tormented, and Jem too angelic.  Charlotte is the “tough mom” and Henry as “bumbling scientist” didn’t do much for me, nor did the whole idea of these folks living and working together as a family.  And the Dark Sisters — why does one evil sister always have to be tall and thin, and the other short and stout?

I did enjoy the setting in Victorian London.  Clare clearly spent some time thinking about the characters’ surroundings and the science, medicine, and conventions of the time.  But again, some of that could have been much better written.  Tessa’s sqeamishness about  - gasp – women wearing pants seemed silly given the perils the characters are facing.

You may be thinking, but isn’t this a book written for teens? Tessa is a teen and Amazon says this book is for 9th grade and up.  I say it doesn’t matter.  If I put this book next to YA reads like Sabriel by Garth Nix or Ship Breakers by Paulo Bacigalupi, they win hands down.  Will teens like this book?  Probably.  Will I recommend it to my nieces?  Probably not.  This book is vastly better than Twilight but not as good as other YA fantasy I’ve read and enjoyed.

Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

It’s freezing outside and winter-cold-season inside.  The only good thing I can say about that is I’ve had LOTS of time to read lately.  This year’s ugly winter cold has meant slowing waaayyy down.  And the thirty degree weather and my recently-repaired fireplace means I’m staying in every chance I get.  So aside from the sniffling and coughing, I have to say I’m quite content at the moment.  And you can expect a lot of reviews coming in the near future.

First up is Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.  This was a really cool book and particularly good sick-bed reading.  It’s set in Seattle during the time of the Civil War, although because this is pre-statehood Washington, the Civil War is occurring far in the distance.  Life in Seattle is driven instead by the gold rush and is pretty rough around the edges.

The book begins with Leviticus Blue, an inventor who develops the world’s most advanced drilling machine to extract gold from the thick ice of Alaska.  Unfortunately, in its trial run the device, called Boneshaker, goes awry and tears up most of Seattle.  Thousands die and buildings and homes are destroyed.  What happens next is even worse – somehow the damage to the earth causes poisonous gases (the Blight) to rise up and kill the population, turning them into “rotters” or zombies.  The gas is so pervasive that the only thing the government can do is wall up the city of Seattle and leave the rotters to themselves.  The people are evacuated and settle into the Outskirts of Seattle.

Blue disappears and is despised by the town, although it isn’t entirely clear whether the Boneshaker’s failure was intentional (the street of banks was particularly torn up and all the cash disappeared).  His wife, Briar Wilkes Blue, and their son, Zeke, have to live with the torment of being related to the most hated man in town.

To make Briar and Zeke’s life a little more complicated, Briar’s father Maynard was responsible for engineering a prison breakout that freed all the prisoners before the wall around Seattle could close them in.  He died in the breakout, and is viewed by the criminal population as a folk hero, but by the rest of the population as a criminal. So Briar and Zeke have lived for sixteen years in the shadows cast by these two men.

Zeke, a typical teenager, is tired of taking abuse and anxious to exonerate his father, so he heads to the walled city to find evidence that his father was innocent.   Briar is afraid he’ll be trapped inside and goes in after him, which is easier said than done. There are drug traders who have learned to turn the poison gas into “yellow sap”, a narcotic.  These drug traders know the most about how to get in and out of the city, so Briar has to work with them to get in.

They find a whole world inside the walls, including mad scientists, air pirates, saloon owners, and regular humans just trying to survive.  Zeke and Briar have to navigate this world, distinguish friend from enemy, find each other, and get out before the gas or the zombies kill them.  In the process they learn a lot more about themselves and their family history.

There are some plot holes here — the biggest one is why people stay in a city full of poison gas and deadly zombies, when there are tunnels and air pirates that can take them out?  One character explains that the gas will eventually escape into the outside world and at least they’ve learned to live with it.  I think the other answer is that, as with any underworld, there are always people who prefer that kind of life to that of lawful society and in fact by the end of this book I found myself wondering if Briar might choose that life as well.

It was a little hard to follow as the characters run from building to building and street to street  (a map would have been helpful).  This book is probably more fun for readers who know a lot of the landmarks of Seattle.  Priest explains she takes some liberties with when some buildings were actually built so she could use them in this book.  My other complaint is that as the characters go “behind the walls” they lose all sense of time, and so does the reader.  This would be fine except that Zeke enters Seattle a full ten hours or so ahead of Briar, so time is actually important to the story.  I really wanted to know where he was in time relative to where she was.

Zeke is not as well developed as he could be, but in the end this is Briar’s story and it’s a good one.  Briar is a tough, take-no-prisoners kind of woman, but one who also realizes that she’s spent much of her life cowering and hasn’t given her son everything he needs.

This is not a book that will have you pondering the meaning of life, but it is a steampunk-meets-zombie adventure that is unlike most books I’ve read.  Priest has created a great set of characters, an extremely detailed and inventive world, and an exciting story.  It was a hell of a lot of fun to read.  If someone doesn’t make this into a movie I’ll be very surprised.

This book is part of a trilogy, along with Clementine and Dreadnought, but the stories are only loosely connected, which is a shame.  I really wanted to find out what happens next.

Review: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

In my last post, I recommended a book called Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld is one of my favorite YA writers.  He’s written the Uglies and Midnighters series, and this latest series is set in 1914 in a steampunk version of World War I.  Behemoth is book 2 of this series.

In Leviathan, the first book in the series, British airshipman Dylan Sharp meets Austrian commoner Alek when the airship crashes in the Swiss Alps.  In fact, Dylan is actually Deryn, a teenage girl posing as a boy so she can serve in the British Air Service.  Alek is actually a Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Austrian Empire, who had to flee his home after both of his parents were killed.

Austria and Britain are not only on opposing sides in the war.  In this world, the British are “Darwinists” which means their scientific innovations are all designed around genetic engineering.  They use living things as weapons, tools, and transport.  Even the airship is a living beast, with every genetic trait designed for that purpose.  The Austrians are “Clankers” which means all of their technology is mechanical.  The two sides fundamentally disagree on the role of science and technology and each are uncomfortable with the others’ innovations.  I found myself siding with the Darwinist philosophy, as using living things seemed somehow more “natural,” but Westerfeld raises some complicated questions in the book about both approaches.  For example, the Darwinists treat their “creatures” humanely but refuse to name any of them, lest they stop seeing them as tools and more as pets.  And while the mechanical transport seems cold and unresponsive, at least no living creatures are hurt in the process.

In the first book in the series, the Leviathan picks up Alek and his team of loyal companions (who are a combination of guardians and mechanical experts).  The two sides distrust each other but have to work together to survive, although Alek and his friends are considered war prisoners of the British.  At the beginning of Behemoth, the airship enters Istanbul (called Constantinople by the uninformed British).  Istanbul is neutral in the war and their location and resources make them a key ally for both sides.  While Germany is trying to enlist the Sultan’s support, there is political unrest among the people of Istanbul.  Britain needs to build an alliance with Istanbul while attacking the Germans, and Alek needs to escape from the British so he can support his country and family in the war.

One thing I really like about Westerfeld is I think boys and girls (or men/women of course) would like his books equally.  These days the market for YA books is all about girls but Westerfeld always tells a story with really unique characters and settings and interesting storylines around both genders.

Another thing I loved in this book was the history.  Yes, it takes place in an alternate world.  But Westerfeld introduces real historical characters and describes true tactical strategies and ship battles.  He takes the time to explain in an afterword exactly what was historically accurate so I could look up those ships and battles and learn more.

I found Behemoth MUCH stronger than the first book. The first book needed a lot of time to introduce the setting and characters, and the story felt a little secondary.  Behemoth’s story has non-stop action plus great character development for Alek and Deryn, who struggle to maintain their friendship when being friends might be considered treasonous.  Also, Deryn has developed feelings for Alek, who has no idea she’s a girl.  The book has amazing, exotic descriptions of Istanbul, fantastic creatures, and interesting new characters.  The book also has beautiful cover art and illustrations by Keith Thompson.  While I found Leviathan a little “basic”, Behemoth was breathtaking.  This may be a series aimed at seventh graders, but I enjoyed every minute.

Old memories, new challenges, and a mini-review

This weekend I traveled to sunny California for my husband’s 20^th high school reunion.  I haven’t gone to my own reunions, so this was a strange experience.  Even without knowing anyone, I couldn’t help but flash back to my own not-so-pleasant high school experiences – it’s hard not to when surrounded by 80s photos, 80s music, yearbooks, etc.   And then there was the group of cliquey, gossiping, overly-made up girls in the bathroom who seemed hell-bent on making the non-marrieds feel horrible about themselves – shouldn’t we be nicer people after 20 years?  It seriously made me want to go out to the parking lot and smoke.  But I wasn’t there for me, this was my hubby’s night to enjoy.  So I’m glad it’s done with, just feeling a little old and a little sad for my less-than-happy high school years.

All of this is an excuse for the fact that I’m way behind on reviews – recently I finished three books:

• Blameless by Gail Carriger (Book 3 in the Parasol Protectorate series)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Victorian literature)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (no idea how to classify this one, but it’s currently in theaters so I wanted to read it first)

I’ve unfortunately let Blameless go a bit too long to write a full review.  So I’ll just say a few words here:

Blameless is the third book in the Parasol Protectorate series, after Soulless and Changeless.  I won’t include any spoilers if you’re planning on reading it.  I love this series –Carriger has created a truly unique universe for her books and her writing style is like no one else’s.  She is funny, witty, sarcastic, and keeps the books light and action-packed.  In the first two books the relationship between Alexia and Lord Maccon is well developed and a great mix of sexy, funny and sentimental.  I really enjoyed Soulless but felt the writing could have been much tighter. I loved Changeless, because I felt the story and writing were much improved, and I didn’t at all mind the dramatic ending.  I also love Scotland so that helped.

So I was really looking forward to Blameless, but I have to say it disappointed me.  It’s hard to say why, although some of it was that Alexia and Lord Macon are separated for most of the book.  But more than that, I think the story just didn’t hang together for me.  I really wanted to learn more about Alexia’s history but the book didn’t give me as much as I expected, and the lengthy “scientific” discussions lost me. Madame LeFoux was less interesting and a lot of the fun characters from the other books, like silly Ivy, were absent.  The most interesting storyline relates to the making of a new werewolf, but I won’t say more than that.  I’m still a fan of the series but this is probably more of a transition book.

In other news, last week’s “networking” conversation on the Hop inspired me to sign up for two reading challenges.  The first is a Steampunk challenge, organized by Rikki Donovan at The Bookkeeper.  I really liked Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi, and Gail Carriger’s series, so I look forward to reading more.  You can find out more here. I’m open to suggestions for good steampunk reads! Right now I’ve got The Boneshaker, Windup Girl, Behemoth and Clockwork Angel on my list.

The other challenge is reading female authors of science fiction.  This website has more information and a list of the books, one for each month in 2011.  The first book will be Dust by Elizabeth Bear.  I don’t know many female SF authors so this will push my boundaries a little bit.  I’m REALLY excited that my husband has decided to co-read with me (now I’ve written it here so he’s committed).  Maybe I can even get him to write a guest review.  There’s a “sister” Women of Fantasy book club if that’s more your thing.  I figured I already know a lot of fantasy writers and want to try more science fiction.

So, hope you’ll join me in one of these challenges, and I’m looking forward to lots of good reading ahead.

Review: Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker is the first young adult novel written by Paulo Bacigalupi, a new but critically acclaimed science fiction writer who recently won a Nebula award for The Windup Girl. This is no light read in terms of poverty, abuse, violence, and environmental conditions – but at the same time a fun, action-filled read set in a vivid dystopianworld.

Ship Breaker is about a boy named Nailer, who lives in grinding poverty and works in near-slavery conditions as a ship breaker, meaning he is part of a team that salvages light materials like wire from the hulks of rotted-out ships. Young children are used for this work primarily because they can get into small places, and even though the work is deadly these children fight each other for every job.

Nailer has an abusive, drug-addicted father and his mother is dead. The bonds of the crew he works with are far greater than those of family, but even crew will betray each other to survive. His only friends are an older girl named Pima, who is also the boss of his team, and Pima’s mother.

Nailer dreams of someday sailing on one of the new clipper ships, rather than the old coal-burning iron freighters and oil tankers he climbs through every day. He thinks his luck has changed when, after a hurricane, a clipper ship filled with wealth (china, silver, jewelry) washes up on shore and he and Pima are the ones to find it. The dead bodies filling the ship don’t bother him too much – he’s used to death and violence – but then he finds the almost dead body of a girl who is clearly the daughter of the ship owner. Should he save her and give up the wealth that would change his life? Pima is ready to leave her for dead but Nailer can’t.

From there the story takes a number of turns, as Nailer’s father turns on him and begins hunting him for the wealth he knows this girl (Nita) will bring if sold to her enemies. Nailer has to try to get her home in safety, and while he sincerely wants to help he also hopes she will change his life if he does.

Nailer is a sympathetic character who doesn’t always use his head, but at least his heart is in the right place. He trusts this rich girl when no one else does. It could have been stronger on character development, especially the development of the relationship between Nailer and Nita, which remains largely superficial. They depend on each other for survival but it’s not clear how much they get to know each other. But this is a young adult book and young teens are not likely to get into that much depth. The book is action-focused and the pacing of the action is well-done. I hate when the action scenes in a book are too fast, too non-stop, or completely unbelievable – this book had none of that.

The world that Bacigalupi establishes is a frightening one. It’s mostly modern day – the work of ship breaking, child labor, differences in extreme wealth and extreme poverty, abuse and drug addiction – these are not futuristic elements but very real ones. Ship breaking exists today, primarily in India and Bangladesh, with the serious health hazards and environmental impacts that Bacigalupi describes.

We know the book is set in the near future primarily because New Orleans is no longer a livable city – the city was wiped out by frequent hurricanes, caused in large part by oil drilling which eroded the wetlands and left the city unprotected. Bacigalupi makes the same point about the melting of polar icecaps in Antarctica. These items are less than subtle and not really necessary to the story.

More interesting, society has learned to genetically engineer a race of “half-men” who seem to be part man, part dog but with super strength and trained to fight to the death. These “men” are treated as slaves and also engineered to be so loyal to their masters they will die voluntarily if those masters go away.

Nailer is assisted by one of these half-men, who has broken out of the slavery he was engineered for and now lives independently. No one who meets him can understand how this is possible, and yet he exists. Bacigalupi raises concerns not only about genetic engineering but slavery in general – how we justify slavery by seeing enslaved people as less than human, who are not capable of living independently, and who lack the emotional capacity to suffer as we do. There is a scene where Nailer questions one of the half-men about whether he can break his bonds with his master, and it’s incredibly painful to watch the half-man struggle with this question when he is “programmed” not to question.

Bacigalupi excels in his vivid descriptions of the world, the ships, and the characters, who are described to the level of skin color even where race isn’t an explicit issue in the book. These details make for a much more compelling read – I don’t know much about the inside of ships but from the description I felt like I was experiencing the events as Nailer did.

I don’t know if this is the beginning of a series but it certainly could be. These issues could be explored in much more depth, and I would like to see what happens to Nailer next.

Review: Changeless by Gail Carriger

I greatly enjoyed the first book in this series, Soulless, primarily because of its unique voice and story. The world of fantasy these days seems to take itself much too seriously and this series was refreshing in its different view of the supernatural , its setting in the Victorian era, and its humorous voice. It makes fun of the social conventions of the time, becoming a sort of parody of Jane Austen while at the same time blending vampires and werewolves with the science and politics of the times. One detraction of the writing of Soulless was the author’s repetition of key points and phrases in a way that became extremely tiresome… I understood that heroine Miss Tarabotti was Italian, dark-skinned, full-figured, had a large nose, and was therefore less attractive than her peers, and as a reader I appreciated having a heroine who was not perfectly beautiful. But I also didn’t need to read the same phrases and points over and over again.

So my thoughts were mixed upon completing Soulless – and as I started Changeless I almost put it down because I felt that the writing was too over the top to the point of being annoying. I’m glad I persisted past the first chapter, because the story and characters quickly become engaging, and again, much more original than many of the books I see today in this genre. Miss Tarabotti must investigate what force is causing the supernatural beings – werewolves, vampires, and ghosts – to lose their powers and become mortal. Her investigation takes her to Scotland on a zeppelin and results in her learning a great deal more about her husband’s history. Happily, from the second chapter to the finish this story was a pleasure – with perhaps only a slight complaint for the cheesy Cinderella-like (or Bennett-like?) family that Miss Tarabotti comes from.

I really enjoy the relationship between Tarabotti and husband, and the sexuality of Miss Tarabotti’s character. Victorian era or no, Tarabotti expresses no guilt about her sexual appetite, but also the author doesn’t provide too much romance-novel detail in the way sex is portrayed It’s rather a nice change to hear more about the male attributes of characters than the female ones.

I noticed many complaints from Amazon readers about the cliffhanger ending – but I didn’t mind and look forward to reading the next book in the series.