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Cass's Reviews > Infernal Devices
Infernal Devices (Infernal Devices, #1)
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Things I learned from K. W. Jeter in this book:
1) ALL women are only thinking about one thing. If they are Sexy, then they are sex-crazed animals who will rip off a man's clothes as soon as look at him (this is Logic) no matter how loudly he protests the indignity and begs her to control herself, madam! Alas!
2) If a woman is Not Sexy (i.e., middle aged and/or overweight) then they are on a mission fueled by jealousy and frustration to stop ANYONE EVER even THINKING about sex, ever again.
Either that, or kidnapping young virgins--a la Missus Meers--and selling them to satisfy the depraved desires of a corrupt elite class. Or (view spoiler)
3) The plight of said kidnapped damsels doesn't actually need to be seen or discussed anywhere in the story. It doesn't matter how often they are referred to, how central they are to the plot; it is more than enough to have a single scene in which their enraged fathers and brothers try to beat the stuffing out of one of the corrupt elite, to truly convey the horror of the situation.
(After all, the men-folks are the ones who actually matter. You don't even need to rescue the girls; gaining a personally satisfying moral victory over their pimps is just as good.)
4) Any brown person one meets--no matter how polished and refined their dress and manners; no matter how 'friendly', 'helpful', and subservient they are--will turn out to be (view spoiler)
5) It's totally OK to consistently call other races ugly, if you do it in big words like "piscine physiognomy".
I'm sure there must be good 'Steampunk' somewhere... but from now on I'll look for recommendations from [real] people whose judgement I trust. That is the last time I take reading suggestions from a "Best___ Ever!" list on the internet.
1) ALL women are only thinking about one thing. If they are Sexy, then they are sex-crazed animals who will rip off a man's clothes as soon as look at him (this is Logic) no matter how loudly he protests the indignity and begs her to control herself, madam! Alas!
2) If a woman is Not Sexy (i.e., middle aged and/or overweight) then they are on a mission fueled by jealousy and frustration to stop ANYONE EVER even THINKING about sex, ever again.
Either that, or kidnapping young virgins--a la Missus Meers--and selling them to satisfy the depraved desires of a corrupt elite class. Or (view spoiler)
3) The plight of said kidnapped damsels doesn't actually need to be seen or discussed anywhere in the story. It doesn't matter how often they are referred to, how central they are to the plot; it is more than enough to have a single scene in which their enraged fathers and brothers try to beat the stuffing out of one of the corrupt elite, to truly convey the horror of the situation.
(After all, the men-folks are the ones who actually matter. You don't even need to rescue the girls; gaining a personally satisfying moral victory over their pimps is just as good.)
4) Any brown person one meets--no matter how polished and refined their dress and manners; no matter how 'friendly', 'helpful', and subservient they are--will turn out to be (view spoiler)
5) It's totally OK to consistently call other races ugly, if you do it in big words like "piscine physiognomy".
I'm sure there must be good 'Steampunk' somewhere... but from now on I'll look for recommendations from [real] people whose judgement I trust. That is the last time I take reading suggestions from a "Best___ Ever!" list on the internet.
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Infernal Devices.
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Reading Progress
May 18, 2014
–
Started Reading
May 18, 2014
– Shelved
May 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
speculative-and-fantastic
June 1, 2014
–
Finished Reading
February 11, 2015
– Shelved as:
reviewed
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Warwick
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Jun 05, 2014 11:43PM
Yikes.
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Haha. And I had such high hopes for this one! It seemed to be going well at first. But then... well, it may seem like I'm exaggerating. I'm honestly not. And I probably missed some points that were equally awful, but it's not really worth it to me to seek them out.
I was thinking about giving this novel a try despite the low rating, but then I read your review and I gave up instantly lol
Glad I could be of service.
Isabella: sameCassandra: Thanks for the heads-up!
your review sounds great, I think I'm going to enjoy this book a lot.
I should have read your review before buying this book. Ugh.
Although my daughter was interested for a while in steampunk, this is not a genre I would ever read, regardless of how strongly it might be recommended. I only read this review after reading your "People of Darkness" review, which made me curious about what else you had read/reviewed. But that said, this is a very clever and witty review, and I enjoyed reading it. Given what you thought of the novel, I am sure your review is much better than the book.
Glad I trusted my gut on this one. Got it as a donation to my little library, read the 'Introduction' and put it down in favour of reading something else (he annoyed me already). Just now did I pick it up again and after reading the first page, where we are basically already urged to put the book down, I felt iffy and went to check the reviews. This will go straight back into the box for someone else to try. I'll be shifting to something else right away
THANK YOU!!! This is all I needed to give this book a try, sounds amazing! Thank you Karen
How is that the only thing you took from it so much that you gave it 1 star? I think you maybe have some internal spite that needs resolving.
Thanks for this review! :)Look at these guys outing themselves x'D
I know this review has been around for some time so maybe you've already had good recommendations but, if not, I leave you a list of good ones: The Clockwork Boys by T. Kingsfisher (a duology) and A Master of Djinn by P. Djèli Clark (a series with a prequel novella). This are the only ones I've read so far (I haven't been into the steampunk genre for long) but they're really good and not misogynistic. If you ever read this and take these recommendations, I hope you enjoy it!
You talked me into it, added to my TBR.
