The fourth installment in Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series, Ganymede is now finally getting into actual sequel territory. Like Clementine and The fourth installment in Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series, Ganymede is now finally getting into actual sequel territory. Like Clementine and Dreadnought, it's a standalone story--but this time, one of the spotlight characters in fact someone who previously showed up in Boneshaker, and we've got clear followup to the events in that book. So if you want to jump in on this series--and if you like steampunk, zombies, and/or the Civil War era, you should--this is not the place to start.
New Orleans madam Josephine Early is spearheading a secret Confederate attempt to hand over the submersible Ganymede to the Union, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the ongoing war. But no one's left alive who knows how to safely operate the machine, and so Josephine's forced to call for help to an old flame. She's fiercely hoping that the airship pilot Andan Cly will be able to use his skills to pilot a machine that goes underwater instead of through the air, and she's desperate enough that she isn't exactly ready to tell him that the machine's drowned all its previous crews.
And without a doubt, the relationship and backstory between Josephine and Andan is one of the high points of the book. I've found Priest to always be excellent at what romantic notes she introduces into a story, and this one's no exception; the prior state of this relationship is played off with the exact right understated note against the bigger picture of the current intrigues. Toss in some glimpses at New Orleans' zombie problem AND the issue of how the problem's spreading across the country, references back to characters in all three of the previous books, and a supporting cast of colorful characters (one of whom has a secret revealed that amusingly blows Andan's mind) and there's a whole lot to like here.
Bonus points as well for the amusing use of actual Civil War history. It was particularly amusing to me to see a news link going around about the restoration of the Hunley--the actual vehicle named for the man who's referenced in this novel as the creator of the Ganymede.
Say you're a big fan of steampunk. Say also that you think the world needs more queer short fiction--and in particular, F/F. If both of these apply toSay you're a big fan of steampunk. Say also that you think the world needs more queer short fiction--and in particular, F/F. If both of these apply to you, you absolutely need to check out Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, a forthcoming anthology from Torquere Books. Editor JoSelle Vanderhooft kindly sent me an ARC of this antho, and I can happily say it was one of the more unusual anthologies I've read, not only because of the lesbian aspect but also because of the sheer diversity of stories and the emphasis on non-European and non-American cultures when possible.
Hands down, my favorite story in the whole thing was N.K. Jemisin's "The Effluent Engine". Fantasy fans may recognize that name from The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which got a whole lot of favorable buzz; now that I've finally read something by this author, I can see why. I very much enjoyed her story, thanks to my ideal level of romance (i.e., it's an aspect of the story but not the dominant point of the plot), the intrigue (a female spy in New Orleans is looking for hotly sought secrets of clean methane production, because whoever gets hold of that gets airship superiority), and the emphasis on Haiti. The heroine of this story is Haitian, and it's just after the revolution in that country--so not only do you get a lesbian romance, it's multi-racial and multi-cultural as well.
"Brilliant", by Georgina Bruce, mostly worked for me as a character study--although again, we have an emphasis on non-European culture, as there are references to the "Egyptian Empire", and the title character of the story is the daughter of the Nigerian ambassador to Cairo. Nice.
D.L. MacInnes' "Owl Song" was a bittersweet one, which I didn't entirely enjoy. And yet, the ending of it was haunting and powerful.
"Where the Ocean Meets the Sky" by Sara M. Harvey somewhat contrasted for me with Jemisin's story, since there's more emphasis here on the sexual attraction between the two main characters and not quite as much on the actual plot. But that said, I quite enjoyed that the plot featured a colorful character from San Francisco history, Emperor Joshua Norton I.
Beth Wodzinski's "Suffer Water" gets points for a nice little blend of Old West, nanotech done steampunk style, a relationship gone wrong, and a bit of mad scientist to boot.
In "Steel Rider", Rachel Manija Brown brings us a tale with a bit of anime-style mecha to spice up her steampunk. There's a hint of Jewish culture here as well as Aztec and Mexican, not to mention all sorts of interesting questions about the world only barely seen in this story.
Shira Lipkin's vignette "Truth and Life" is a glimpse of the sadness of a brilliant engineer.
Matthew Kressel, in "The Hands that Feed", brings us a solid little tale of a shopkeeper with hidden talents, and the seemingly innocent young woman she comes to love. Our two heroines are Jewish and Hindu, as well as separated by thirty years of age, which makes for quite the unusual pairing indeed.
My fellow Drollerie author Meredith Holmes brings us "Love in the Time of Airships", a tale of romance across social classes--and a woman who discovers not only that she has romantic inclinations she never dreamed of, but that her so-called husband is far more dangerous than she ever imagined.
Teresa Wymore, another fellow Drollerie author, has some intriguing glimpses of genetic manipulation shaping the society that exists "Under the Dome".
"Clockwork and Music", by Tara Sommers, is a poignant tale of a young woman who must wrestle madness, possibly nefarious intentions of the doctor who looks after her in a sanitarium, and the clockwork servants that carry out his will. All she has to sustain her is the love of a fellow inmate, who may or may not be mad herself.
Mikki Kendall's "Copper for a Trickster" is brutal, and believably so, if you take a steampunk culture and think about how it would have impacted the development of African slavery. Protagonist Dalila and her beloved Ashaki are willing to do anything to free themselves and the children enslaved with them--but Dalila learns the price of the bargain they make with the Hare.
"Sleepless, Burning Life", by Mike Allen, is perhaps the oddest piece in the collection. The prose is almost more metaphor than narrative, and even after having read through it, I'm still not entirely sure what it's about. There are goddesses and priestesses and gears involved, and that's pretty much what I came away with; more than that will have to wait until I get a formal copy of the anthology. (This was the first of two stories where I found the watermarking on the ARC to interfere enough with my ability to read the story that I will need to re-read it later.) Still, there's imagery to be admired here, as well as the sheer lyricism of the writing.
And lastly, we have Shweta Narayan's "The Padishah Begum's Reflections", another piece complex enough that I had a hard time reading it given the watermarking on the ARC and reading it on my iPhone. There's a lot of jumping around between time frames in this story, which made it hard to follow on a small screen--but I glimpsed enough complexity of plot in this final piece that it's another reason I absolutely want to acquire a full formal copy of the book.
In conclusion: highly recommended for steampunk fans as well as readers in search of lesbian fiction as well as fiction that embraces non-Western cultures. Not every piece was to my particular tastes, but they were all solid, and I look forward to buying my formal copy. Four stars....more
Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series is rather refreshing in that the various books, thus far, don't follow the exact same set of characters. TheyCherie Priest's Clockwork Century series is rather refreshing in that the various books, thus far, don't follow the exact same set of characters. They're all set in the same universe, but the characters featured in each book are only tangentially related to each other. And things are slightly complicated by how the books in the series are not all exclusively with the same publisher. The main books in the series are via Tor, but Subterranean Press has the actual Book 2: Clementine.
Now, this one didn't grab me nearly as hard as Boneshaker, but that isn't really this book's fault; I loved Boneshaker so much that any other book in the series was naturally going to have to work extremely hard to measure up. And this is not to say that Clementine isn't good, because it is. There's some steampunky airship-and-battle-automaton goodness here, as well as the appeal of both of our lead characters, Maria Isabella Boyd and Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey, being people of color. But man, I missed the zombie action, as well as the bigger scope of Boneshaker (and, since I've since read it as well, Dreadnought).
Still, if you're a fan of the series, this one is worth finding. The hardcover edition is hard to find at this point, and expensive as well--but the book's also available electronically for very reasonable prices. So if you're electronically inclined in your reading, be sure to grab this one. Three stars....more
I've just written in my review of Clementine that given how much I loved Boneshaker, the first book in that series, it'd be extremely difficult for anI've just written in my review of Clementine that given how much I loved Boneshaker, the first book in that series, it'd be extremely difficult for any followup book in the series to measure up. Happily, Dreadnought, Book 3 of Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series, has done just that.
As with Clementine, this is a sequel to Boneshaker mostly in the sense that it's set in the same universe. But unlike with Clementine, Dreadnought has a character in it directly related to one of the Boneshaker cast--in this case, the nurse Mercy Lynch, who is the daughter of Jeremiah Swakhammer. Mercy learns of the death of her husband in battle and of her estranged father's being gravely injured and ill in a one-two punch at the beginning of the book. And, with great reluctance, she sets off across the country to fulfill her father's wish to see her.
And make no mistake, this is a rollicking adventure of the first order, especially once Mercy makes it to the titular train, the Dreadnought, which will be her mode of transport for most of her journey. It's on the Dreadnought that she's embroiled in intrigue between the Union, the Confederacy, and the independent republic of Texas--this last embodied by the Texian Ranger Horatio Korman, with whom she joins forces when it becomes increasingly clear that the mysterious cargo in the train's final car may be putting all their lives at stake.
If you've read Boneshaker, it won't be any stretch at all to imagine what's in that car.
The trip builds excellently, up until the reveal of what exactly happened to a missing regiment, and how that regiment eventually reaches the train. Great, great fun all around. Five stars....more
With the notable huge, huge exception of Cherie Priest, steampunk is not my thing. This is not to say I dislike it--it's just that as sub-genres of SFWith the notable huge, huge exception of Cherie Priest, steampunk is not my thing. This is not to say I dislike it--it's just that as sub-genres of SF/F go, I don't favor this one in particular over any other, and won't go out of my way to read something just because it's got the steampunk label slapped on it. If on the other hand the story sounds like it'll engage me anyway, then if it happens to be set in a steampunk-flavored world, awesome!
Which is about what happened when I decided to read M.K. Hobson's The Native Star. Magic is much more the emphasis here than steampunk gadgetry per se, but Hobson has both of them in this book and combines them to charming effect. Charming, too, were both of the main characters. Our heroine Emily Edwards starts off strong but clearly flawed, making a seriously ill-advised attempt to use her magic to land herself a husband in the name of taking care of her aging father, and getting herself thrown out of town in the process. Squared off against her is our hero Dreadnought Stanton, whose name is as overblown as his initial personality. Yet, as he and Emily must flee across the country with evil warlocks in pursuit, the two of them have crackling good chemistry, and I was happy to cheer them all the way.
I didn't quite buy the villains a hundred percent; there were parts of the story where they were coming across as Evil Because They're Supposed To Be Evil For the Sake of the Plot. But that said, the ending had some genuine weight and cost to our protagonists, which I appreciated as well. I'll be continuing on with Book Two. Four stars....more
I haven't read every single thing Cherie Priest has published quite yet, but I love me some Eden Moore novels, and I have a healthy respect for FathomI haven't read every single thing Cherie Priest has published quite yet, but I love me some Eden Moore novels, and I have a healthy respect for Fathom. But those other books? They're just going to have to stand aside and make way for Boneshaker, because I mean, DAMN.
It's got everything: alternate history! Steampunky mad science! 1880's Seattle! Airships! Air pirates! A plucky young lad and his fierce and fearsome mother! And, which is what really pushed it over the top for me, zombies! What's not to love?
Boneshaker is set in an alternate timeline where the Civil War has dragged out for an extra fifteen years and where the Klondike Gold Rush came early, spurring an earlier settlement of the Pacific Northwest--and a Russian-sponsored contest to build a mining machine capable of digging into the frozen ice of the north for gold. Dr. Leviticus Blue and his Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine would have had the contest in the bag. But his machine went horribly awry, destroying much of downtown Seattle. And to add horrific insult to already dire injury, the Boneshaker dug deep into the earth and unleashed the Blight gas that turned its victims into shambling undead.
Now it's sixteen years later. Those who escaped the devastation of Seattle have erected a two-hundred-foot wall around its remains to keep in not only the undead victims of the Blight, but the continuing rising of the gas itself. Blue's widow Briar Wilkes and her son Ezekiel are among those settled in the Outskirts around the wall, until Zeke gets it into his head to penetrate the city in search of evidence to clear his father's infamous name. He is trapped within by an earthquake, and Briar must go in to save him.
I had a few quibbles with certain bits of pacing, but honestly? They're small enough quibbles that I just didn't care. Briar was too much fun as a heroine, cut from the same tough-mother cloth as Sarah Connor, only with a quieter, less desperate strength to her, and she was a lovely complement to the innocence and intrinsic bravery and goodness of her son. Many of the characters they meet within the Wall are equally memorable: Lucy the one-armed barmaid, whose single arm is mechanical; Jeremiah Swakhammer, clad in the best badassed armor a steampunk hero could ask for and armed with the best badassed zombie-stunning gun; and, of course, the mysterious Dr. Minnericht, who is said to be responsible for much of what holds what's left of Seattle together and who is deeply feared nonetheless.
Moreoever, as a Seattle resident, I had great fun reading Priest's descriptions of this alternate downtown Seattle. I walk these streets on a daily basis, and what really sold me on the realism was the mentions of the sidewalk letter markers to tell you what street you're on. With that kind of detail, I kept catching myself looking out for "rotters" on my way home from work. More importantly, I burned through this book as fast as I possibly could and am quite anxious for a sequel! Five stars....more
Loading...
