Book Review – Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you may recall that 1) I like steampunk a lot, and 2) I kind of fell in love with Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series last year. So you can imagine my absolute GLEE upon finding out her next series would be a YA steampunk series called The Finishing School, set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, only about 25 years earlier.

The first book, Etiquette & Espionage, came out earlier this year, and I snapped it up the second I got a chance. And I enjoyed it just as much as I hoped I would.

Our main character is Sophronia, a 14-year-old who is far too curious (and not nearly ladylike enough) for her own good. When her mother finally despairs of ever getting Sophronia to be presentable, a solution appears in the form of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. In less than an hour, Sophronia is packed off to the school to, at the very least, learn to curtsy properly.

What Sophronia finds, though, is that Mademoiselle Geraldine’s isn’t just any old finishing school. The girls there are being trained in covert operations, as spies and assassins.

But the finishing school isn’t the only surprise for Sophronia. Someone at the school has stolen something very important, and there are a lot of very powerful people who want it back. Sophronia’s first year at finishing school promises to be an interesting one.

We have a whole slew of brand-new characters, a couple of old familiar faces, and a whole slew of new settings, not the least of which is the Finishing School itself.

“My goodness,” said Sophronia. “It looks like a caterpillar that has overeaten.”

And it did. It wasn’t so much a dirigible as three dirigibles mashed together to form one long chain of oblong, inflated balloons. Below them dangled a multilevel series of decks, most open to the air, but some closed off, with windows reflecting back the dying sun. At the back, a colossal set of propellers churned slowly, and above them billowed a massive sail–probably more for guidance than propulsion. A great quantity of steam wafted out from below the lower back decks, floating away to join the mist as if responsible for creating it. Black smoke puffed sedately out of three tall smokestacks.

Sophronia was enchanted.

Allow me to reiterate that:

AIRSHIP. ASSASSIN. SCHOOL.

It is just as cool as it sounds. Sophronia, being a very curious character (and being at a school that encourages such things as long as you can get away with it), spends much of the book exploring Mademoiselle Geraldine’s and all its myriad nooks and crannies. It’s fascinating, and I loved what we got to see.

Sophronia herself is a great deal of fun. She’s such a proactive character, clever and quick on her feet, and usually the one to figure a way both into and out of trouble. I really enjoyed being in her head and watching her figure out the mystery at the school.

(Also, I read Bumbersnoot as a steampunk K9 from Doctor Who. I think that actually makes it a little better.)

Plus, as a fan of the Parasol Protectorate series, it was great to see the younger versions of characters I’d come to love from those books. Each familiar face made me squeal with glee, but they’re introduced in such a way that you don’t have to know anything about the previous series to enjoy them.

Carriger’s writing is, as always, an absolute treat to read, with a perfectly hilarious and Victorian voice that makes her novels so much fun. Between that and the amusing character names, I don’t think I quit grinning throughout the entire book.

If I had a quibble, it would be with the final fight scene. I was a little confused at times about what was going on, and I was surprised Sophronia could slip in and out of it as well as she did. But the rest of the book was good enough that it didn’t really affect my overall enjoyment of it.

If you like steampunk, you really need to read this book. If you’ve never read a steampunk novel, then Etiquette & Espionage is a really good place to start.

Book Review – Clockwork Blue by Gloria Harchar

Back in July I went on a Kindle binge, buying up a lot of really cheap or free ebooks because they all happened to be on sale the same weekend Clockwork Blue was one of the books I grabbed.

Reading Clockwork Blue was ultimately frustrating for a number of reasons: poor editing, a jerk of a hero (for at least the first half of the book), and way too many extraneous genre elements.

It’s a shame, because there were parts I liked and I think it could have been a good story.

Synopsis, courtesy Amazon:

Mission… Impossible: The pixies’ mission—if Allegro and Glissando are to accept it—is to secure the future of a troubled England. To achieve this, the Earl of Falconwood, better known as the Black Falcon, must marry Nicola Moore. Never mind the woman is a hoyden who makes the most atrocious hats decorated with machine parts, which she then dyes with her famous Clockwork Blue.

And certainly forget the earl is atoning for his brother’s death by purposely hovering on the fringes of the ton. Add to the mix Glissando’s tendency to slip to the side of the Mrasek, the ones who work to free the evil Lord Sethos.

But Maestro depends on the pixies—for better or for worse. To release the magic trapped in the Clockwork Blue dye—a magic that will safeguard England’s future—Malcolm and Nicola must not only wed, but they must also fall in love.

For the first half of this story, I got so irritated with Malcolm, our “hero,” that I wanted Nicola to punt him to the curb. With the whole forced marriage thing, we’re so much in Nicola’s point of view that it is difficult to ascertain Malcolm’s (or Falcon’s) motives.

Everything he does is, ostensibly, to get ahold of the dye. Which is fine, but Nicola alternates between seeing it in that light and seeing him as a project that needs to be fixed. And the back-and-forth gets really, really frustrating, particularly since he has given her NO reason to think he wants anything other than the dye.

It also doesn’t help that Nicola is constantly manipulated and pushed around for the first half of the book. She doesn’t win any victories with Malcolm. He occasionally accedes to her, but not because she’s outsmarted him or pushed him into a corner. I get the feeling that it’s all, very consciously, his decision. I hated that Malcolm saw Nicola as “malleable.” He doesn’t think he’s won a skirmish with her; he thinks he’s manipulated her into doing things his way. And that doesn’t endear me to either of the characters.

Fortunately, that aspect changed about halfway through the story, when we started getting more from Malcolm’s point of view and seeing why he thought and acted the way he did. It made him more sympathetic, but by that point I was so angry at him that it took most of the rest of the book for me to come around.

It bothers me especially because there are a few parts—a line here, a conversation there—where the characters intrigued me or made me laugh out loud, where I could see the glimmer of a relationship building. But it wasn’t enough to outweigh the problems.

Also, I have no idea why this is steampunk. Yes, Nicola puts clockwork gears on her hats and has a “barrelabout” (a…I don’t even know), but that’s it. Steampunk plays absolutely no part in the actual plot, which would’ve worked just as well as a regular historical romance.

This note on the Amazon page has been added since I read the book:

Note: This is a Christian New Adult Fantasy Romance. There are equal parts of Fantasy and Romance with hints of the Steampunk wave which is starting to become popular in the Alternate World. In Book 2, The Copper Tuners, the reader will see the Steampunk wave affecting society more.

I kind of wish this had been there when I’d picked the story up, because I would’ve expected less from the steampunk part of the story. That being said, I still wish those elements had been integrated more into the story instead of being so much window dressing.

In fact, it was the genre parts—particularly the stuff with the fairies—that made me keep rolling my eyes.

Now, I’m normally all for throwing in magic and fantasy wherever you can, but it just didn’t work quite as well here. I liked Allegro and Glissando well enough, but I was much more intrigued by the story between Nicola and Malcolm. There were a few parts where the fairies came in handy, but I don’t think it would’ve hurt the book at all if they hadn’t been there.

Besides, it seems Glissando got a makeover at some point, because the novel alternates between describing him as fat or thin or as having orange hair or green hair. I’d totally buy this if it had mentioned fairies could change their appearance at some point, but it never did, and Allegro’s description was consistent throughout the story. So I’d have a picture of Glissando in my head, and then I’d have to revise it every time I came across a conflicting description.

Then there are the Mrasek, or rather, aren’t the Mrasek. They show up in one scene early on and then vanish from the story, so completely that when one of them showed up at the climax (only mentioned by name; he doesn’t say a word) I had to search his name to figure out who he was. Why mention these super-evil villains if you aren’t going to DO anything with them?

And really, none of this extra stuff was needed. I actually liked the normal plot: Malcolm wants the dye, which just happens to be Nicola’s dowry. She doesn’t want to get forced into marriage because she saw how horrible it was for her grandmother; she wants to marry for love like her parents did. He, however, is up for doing just about anything to get said dye. There is plenty there for conflict and tension in the relationship.

Plus, there was the interesting stuff going on with the stockingers and the hosiers and the Luddite Rebellion. All of that would have been MORE than enough to craft an engrossing historical romance, but then there were fairies and “steampunk” for no good reason I could ascertain.

I don’t mind the addition of those things at all. But it has to be necessary to the story. There has to be a world built up where that’s a part of it. It has to be an ingredient in the cake, not just a decoration thrown on top at the last minute.

Now, this is the first book of a series, and maybe the fantastical aspects of this world play a larger, more integral role in future stories. (The added note on Amazon makes me think this is so.) But I really wish that had been brought in more in this book. As it is, it feels like too much was crammed into what could’ve been a really sweet historical romance.

Book Review – Changeless by Gail Carriger

I adored Soulless, but have just now gotten around to picking up book 2 in the Parasol Protectorate series, Changeless. Why now?

Partly because of the whole finishing-a-draft thing, and partly because I wanted to get at least ONE of the books in non-Kindle form. Why, you ask?

Well, Ms. Carriger will be in Tulsa in October for the Nimrod Literary Conference, which means I get a chance to quietly fangirl in person.

Or, you know, just ask her nicely to sign my book. And then talk about tea. And parasols.

ANYWAY.

In Changeless, Alexia Tarabotti is now Lady Alexia Maccon, wife to Lord Conall Maccon and the Alpha female of the Woolsey werewolf pack. However, life is not all moonshine and roses for our intrepid heroine.

Something is triggering a plague of mass humanization, making vampires and werewolves temporarily mortal, which causes the supernatural population of London no end of consternation. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Conall vanishes northward to Scotland on noticeably vague “family business.”

Saddled with her best friend, Ivy, and her annoying sister, Felicity, and armed with tea and her trusty parasol, Alexia takes off to investigate the plague of humanization and track down her wayward husband.

As before, the tone of this book is phenomenal. There’s not a wasted word on the page, and Carriger has a way of twisting phrases just so to tickle your funny bone. (Or at least tickle mine.) More than once, my roommates asked, “What’s so funny?” because I started laughing out loud. Often, in public. Much as I enjoy the stories themselves, Carriger’s writing style is a big part of what makes them so delightful.

Lady Maccon sipped a freshly brewed cup in profound relief. All in all, it had been quite the trying evening thus far. With Ivy and hats in her future, it was only likely to get worse. Tea was a medicinal necessity at this juncture.

Tea is a medicinal necessity at any juncture, frankly.

Alexia continues to be a very fun character: strong, witty, capable, and a believer in a good cup of tea and a proper meal. She’s always ready with her trusty parasol and an arsenal of put-downs. She and Lord Maccon are just as fun in this book as they were previously, perhaps even more so now that they’re married.

Ivy is sometimes eyerolling, sometimes hilarious, but the whole “forbidden love” between her and Tunstell is sidesplitting. Also, Ivy gets (quite accidentally) drunk. On a flying dirigible. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

I did miss Lord Akeldama (he’s here, though not as much as he was in book one). He’s still outrageous, still calling Alexia things like “buttercup,” and still speaking primarily in italics. The precious few scenes with him – especially him, Biffy, and Professor Lyall (Lord Maccon’s Beta) – are just great.

But, we have some new characters in this one, most particularly Madame Lefoux, a talented milliner/inventor who also (gasp!) dresses like a man. She’s a particularly fun addition to the cast, and makes a good foil for Alexia when Conall is not around.

Changeless also fleshes out the world a bit more. We learn more about the history of the werewolves, a little more about the vampires, and (most importantly) the history of Lord Maccon himself. I like the deeper dip into world’s mythology and how the society is set up.

Warning: you probably shouldn’t read this book unless you’ve already got book 3, Blameless, somewhere in easy grabbing distance. The cliffhanger at the end was one that had me going, “Wait, what? What? WHAT?” (Yes, I was doing my very best Tenth Doctor impersonation there.) (And yes, I’ve now got Blameless on my Kindle.)

And really, that ending scene was the only time I felt jarred. I laughed aloud at one line, only to realize two sentences later we had entered “serious business” territory. That was where part of the “wait, what?” reaction came from.

Obviously, Changeless was not only good enough for me to finish in 24 hours, but also good enough for me to buy book three the same week. I really hope the next three books are as good as the first two, because I am enjoying this series immensely.

Book Review: Soulless by Gail Carriger

I’ve been on a hell of a steampunk kick lately (what, you didn’t notice? Perhaps I haven’t talked about Abney Park enough…), so when I saw somebody on Twitter ask for steampunk recommendations, I paid close attention to what people responded.

One of the suggestions was Soulless, which is the first novel in the Parasol Protectorate series.

(Side note: Is “protectorate” not an awesome word?)

So, I did what I normally do now when I hear about a new book: downloaded the sample on my Kindle and gave it a chapter to catch my interest.

Here’s the title of the first chapter: “In Which Parasols Prove Useful.”

Tell me that doesn’t make you want to read more.

The omniscient narration bothered me initially. However, once I got past that, I couldn’t put this book down – in the “stay up till 2 a.m. in order to finish” kind of way. It was so much fun.

Alexia Tarrabotti is soulless, a fact that she keeps well-hidden from everybody. If a supernatural creature, such as a vampire or a werewolf, touches her, they will lose their powers and revert to full human as long as they maintain contact.

One of the few people who know her secret is Lord Maccon, a Scottish werewolf and the head of the London branch of BUR, the government office responsible for keeping tabs on all the supernatural beings running around.

When a vampire (very rudely) attacks Alexia and she kills him, she and Lord Maccon find out that other uncultured vampires have been appearing in London, and more importantly, rogue vampires have been disappearing. Now, they just have to figure out who, exactly, is behind it before they come after Alexia herself.

Like I said before, the tone of this story was just note-perfect. Here’s an excerpt, just after she meets an “unexpected” vampire for the first time:

Yet he moved toward her, darkly shimmering out of the library shadows with feeding fangs ready. However, the moment he touched Miss Tarabotti, he was suddenly no longer darkly doing anything at all. He was simply standing there, the faint sounds of a string quartet in the background as he foolishly fished about with his tongue for fangs unaccountably mislaid.

It just gets better as the book goes on. I could not stop giggling at the narration or the dialogue, and there were several parts that I kept going back and rereading just to laugh at them again.

Plus, the characters were equally great. Alexia is tremendously entertaining as a spinster who doesn’t fit in with her family, who always has a quick quip ready to confuse and bewilder her mother and sisters.

I was initially curious about reading a romance wherein the heroine is supposed to be “soulless,” but it works perfectly. Alexia and Lord Lord Maccon have a crackling chemistry with each other, which results in some very hot scenes and some very witty dialogue (quite possibly my favorite part of historical romances: the perfectly Victorian dialogue).

And then you have Lord Akeldama, a flamboyantly gay rogue vampire who is Alexia’s best friend. Though his dialogue is a bit difficult to read with all the italics, he is an immensely fun character, and the relationship between him and Alexia is, at its heart, very sweet. (He makes a very touching request from her near the end of the book, which I won’t spoil here.)

Overall, it was a really fun steampunk mystery/romance. If you like any of those mentioned genres, be sure to pick this up when you get a chance. (Or, if you’ve been looking for a steampunk book to try out, grab this one.)

I’m looking forward to getting the next one in the series when I finish wading my way through the rest of the books on my shelf.

On that note, let’s see how I’m doing, shall we?

Pile #3 is growing...

Kindle books:
As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Fiction:
Endymion by Dan Simmons
The Ancient by R.A. Salvatore
Long Lost by David Morrell
A Coral Kiss by Jayne Ann Krentz (Screw it. Life’s too short to read romance novels you don’t like.)
If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (I don’t want to hear a damn word.)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (recently added, thanks to my sister-in-law)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Nonfiction
The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire by Susan Ronald
Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham (Reading now!)
Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey
Story by Robert McKee

Reading List Mini-Reviews, 1.30.2012

My movie-watching has been limited to a trip to the theater to catch Beauty and the Beast in its limited engagement (just FYI: it is just as good now as it was when I was six), and several DVDs for which I have reviews forthcoming.

However, I have made considerable progress reading the books currently on my shelf, and after a solid month of various romances (historical, contemporary, steampunk, and YA paranormal), I’m planning to dive into sci-fi with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein and Endymion by Dan Simmons.

Let’s see how quickly that breaks my brain, shall we?

EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey
My first non-fiction book of the year! Since I’ve taken on more work responsibility in recent months, this book made its way up my to-read list pretty quickly. It’s an easy read, and a thought-provoking one. This is the book I used as a guide when I created my mission statement and my goals for this year.

I know that some people don’t necessarily care for Dave Ramsey because he’s very open about his Christian faith in his writing, but really, the business and financial principles he puts forth are solid and sensible. Whether you’re reading it for personal or business reasons, it’s a good book to pick up, especially if you’re in any sort of leadership position.

Heart of Steel by Meljean Brook
Yes, this one was already in the “read” pile when I finally posted my list, but since I read it in 2012, I’m counting it here. Also because I wanted to talk a little more about it.

I absolutely adored the first book in this series, The Iron Duke, and I bought Heart of Steel without downloading an excerpt first (first time I’ve ever done that) because I was positive I’d enjoy it. And I was right.

Heart of Steel features one of my favorite characters from the first book, Yasmeen Corsair, the airship captain. She’s a strong, badass woman, every inch the captain, holding her own in a field that is mostly reserved for men. And they respect her as one of them.

Her love interest, Archimedes Fox, is a great match for her and a great adventurer in his own right. They make a phenomenal team, both in the bed and out of it.

Plus, I love the world and the history that Brook has created here. The inventions, the zombies, the airships…I just love it. I liked The Iron Duke a little better than this one, but it’s still a damn good read. If you like romance and you are interested in steampunk, get thee to Amazon and acquire this series.

Unveiled by Courtney Milan
I picked up Courtney Milan’s ebook novella, Unlocked, in June, as a way to keep myself occupied on a plane ride. It was a great little historical romance, and I looked forward to reading more.

Unveiled is the first book in this series about the three Turner brothers: Ash, Smite, and Mark. (They were all named after Bible verses, and one of the cool things about each book is learning what their real names are. They’re each very appropriate for the characters.)

In this one, Ash, the eldest, has just revealed that the Duke of Parford was never actually married to his wife of 30 years, which makes all of his children — including his heir, Richard — bastards. Which means, according to the laws of inheritance, all of Parford’s land falls to the next closest male relative, which just happens to be Ash. (They’re fifth cousins twice removed or something like that.)

Margaret, Parford’s daughter, has decided to stay at the manor in disguise while her brothers go to London to plead their case, to spy and give them ammunition against Ash. What she doesn’t count on is finding out that her enemy actually makes a good duke, or that she’s falling for him.

This was a quick read, a good historical romance, and very enjoyable. I really liked Ash and Margaret, and the obstacles separating them were very real. Though I knew they would get a happily ever after, the question of “how” was always on my mind.

For most of the book, Ash doesn’t know who Margaret really is, and doesn’t realize that he’s actively trying to destroy her at the same time he is telling her he loves her. It’s a very interesting dichotomy, and it’s part of why I enjoyed the book so much.

In fact, I liked it so much that, in the two weeks since I read this initially, I’ve already bought and read the next two books in the series, Unclaimed and Unraveled (reviews forthcoming).

In short, if you like historical romances, pick this one up.

How about you? Read any good books lately? Or even better: read any bad ones?