Tag Archives: steampunk

Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

A world that vaguely resembles Industrial-Revolution Japan reels from the aftermath of a cross-continental war. Humans, demons, half-demons, and cats are all nursing old wounds and scheming against each other. Meanwhile, a young half-demon, Maika Halfwolf, has an eldritch abomination in her arm that’s getting more powerful by the day. She has to cut it out of herself before it causes a fate far worse than another war.

Monstress is produced by a creative duo, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. As you can tell from my description above, the plot is kind of all over the place. The first volume of Monstress especially takes us a long time to figure out what is going on, because there are so many flashbacks to catch us up on all the political machinations. Takeda, the illustrator, is the real star of this show. Her rendition of the Monstress world is lush, and culturally rich, and full of visual background jokes. She make herself a professional challenge in Monstress to draw three-quarters of the characters as women, no explanation. It is so refreshing to see regular old palace guards as women! And they wear proper clothes!

Palace guards losing a battle
Palace guards losing a battle

The gender ratio makes me curious about the social structure of this world. I get a vibe that women marry women for life mates, and consort with men for babies.

Maika Halfwolf ties the story together, as the character trying to prevent the end of the world. But the side characters are even more interesting than her. Kippa is a genuinely good person, despite the scars of war. I especially enjoy Sir Corvin, who dresses like a tormented emo vampire but enjoys excellent mental health. When he witnesses a pair of eldritch abominations fighting each other, he decides he has no skin in that game!

Sir Corvin enjoying a waffle
Sir Corvin enjoying a waffle
Cover of Leviathan

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

A surprisingly okay book, given its awesome premise.

The year is 1914. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie causes the great powers of Europe to lurch towards war. The Central Powers wield clankers, gigantic walking war machines and the Allies use beasites, genetically engineered creatures that have been turned into weapons. AWESOME.

Westerfeld takes those elements and weaves a pretty conventional story with them. Deryn Sharp a plucky girl (conveniently an orphan) disguises herself as a boy to join the British Air Service. Aleksander Hapsburg (conveniently made into an orphan at the start of the book) flees assassins who want to finish the job. Their fates entwine, they put aside their national and technological differences, they become friends. Add a lady scientist and a couple faithful family retainers, and all the story needs to complete the cliché picture is a smart-talking chimney sweep.

But it’s an all right book. The writing is solid. Alek starts out as a brat, but he mellows out over the course of the story. I like how Westerfeld takes the language barrier these two characters would have had and uses it as part of the plot. And the genetically-engineered gasbag creatures that the British use as war machines? They call them Huxleys. That’s brilliant.

But it could’ve been so much more. For one thing, there’s no good reason for the clanker-wielding and beastie-wielding people to hate each other. The two technologies line up on the sides that real life countries did in WWI – even though they would have had to develop the technologies decades before a war that nobody saw coming. I would have loved to see the technologies line up along Catholic/Protestant lines. Or manipulation of the beasties equated with social Darwinism and the rest of the world’s horrified reaction to it.

Characters cussing with “Clart!” and “Barking spiders!” gets old pretty fast. And there’s a war on and nobody besides main characters’ parents ever gets killed.

I still recommend it. Most steampunk works shy away from WWI. This book explores the boundaries of what’s possible with the genre.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

17910048I’m delighted to report that The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison has a premise that’s truly original. While plenty of fantasy books have trod the territory of the half-human, half-elf moaning about his semiimmortal lot, I’ve never before seen a book where the main character has to cope with being half elf, half goblin.

The Goblin Emperor opens when the emperor of the Elflands and his three sons die in a freak airship accident. (Yeah, right, it was an accident.) The emperor’s unwanted half-goblin fourth son, Maia Drazhara, legally is next in line for the throne.

Maia is thrust into an Elvish court he’s utterly unprepared for. He has to consolidate his power, deal with racist courtiers, and spearhead a murder investigation for his father and half-brothers. Oddly enough, the world of the Elvish court is a refreshing break from Westeros. Maia’s not an idiot, and when he meets some genuinely good people at the court, they band together to form a functioning government.

The worldbuilding! Addison drops in so many casual references to the broader world that the place feels vast. What are these lion girls that the pirates like so much? Addison hints at winds of social change when Maia meets a woman on the crew of an airship. Most of the supporting characters could handle novels of their own. I have to give special props to Thara Celehar, the priest of Ulis with a dark and troubled past. His clerichood gives him the power to speak with the dead, which he uses to solve mysteries. A priest detective. That’s cooler than sharks with laser beams.

I hesitate to call this book steampunk because Addison uses such a light touch. Yes, there’s airships and an automaton unicorn, but Addison remembers there’s social issues to the Industrial Revolution as well, such as the exploitation of factory workers. The technology serves the people of the story, not the other way around, and there’s mercifully not a single pair of brass goggles to be found.

I have a few quibbles with the book. When I read about Emperor Edrehasivar VII, son of Varenechibel IV, who lives at the Alcethmeret and takes audiences at the Michen’theleian, I mentally cut out all the syllables in the middle as if it was Worchestershire. And … damn. I was going to have another quibble, but I don’t have one. This was a very good book.

Third Daughter by Susan Kaye Quinn

19472467This review contains spoilers about who winds up with whom.

I’ve wanted this book to exist for a long time. For about as long as I’ve known steampunk existed (since about 2002), I’ve wanted to see a steampunk set in an India-like society. In real life, India got a huge infusion of British culture during Europe’s industrial revolution, setting up clashes between modernity and tradition, colonizer and colonized, and all sorts of fodder for great stories. So when Guin over at Twinja told me this book is finally real, I was pretty pleased.

Our heroine, Aniri, is the third daughter of the queen of Dharia. She’s a minor enough noble that she expects to marry who she wants once she gets her majority, but then her mother asks her to accept a marriage proposal from Malik, prince of the neighboring kingdom of Jungali. For espionage reasons. The premise? Fantastic! The execution? Well, it was all right.

What I didn’t like about the book is that it’s so soppy. Poor Princess Aniri has to choose between two men, both of whom are gorgeous, and one of whom’s a prince and the other is at least well off. And I have yet to meet the heterosexual man who talks like either Devesh or Prince Malik. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anybody I know who talks like them. All these undying declarations of love are a romance novel thing, which isn’t my thing.

I thought it was too convenient that Devesh turns out to have another woman on the side. The story would have had subtler and more complex character development if Devesh had turned out to be a traitor and loved Aniri deeply. As it is, Aniri never has to make any difficult choices after all.

General Garesh walked straight out of a James Bond movie. Not my kind of villain.

What I really liked was the spy part of the book. Quinn sets up a three-way power struggle between the nations of Dharia, Samir, and Jungali that was believable and well thought out. I appreciate that Dharia’s vast empire has visible means of support. The Dharian people have a fertile wheat belt that supports their wealth, which we get to see.

Aetheroreceiver protocol is cool. The kingdom of Jungali is cool. It’s this sort of high-tech Nepal full of cliff cities where people get around by high wire lifts.

I liked Janak a lot. If the main characters were half as interesting as him, this book would have been fabulous. As it is, the book has great derring-do, pretty good politics, and characters who could use more depth.

Steam Powered Giraffe

Since I spent last week complaining about how steampunk art can go so wrong, it seems only fair this week I should point out a group that gets it totally right.

Steam Powered Giraffe calls itself a band, but it’s really a mix of music, comedy, and storytelling. Not to mention that each of their three front performers goes through the entire set while miming “the robot.” That’s right, mimes who sing. The band plays as three robots who were built in 1896 to be musicians. Each robot gets an extensive backstory that the band adds to all the time. There’s even a webcomic.

This band has a remarkable range. Not only has it built up a fantastic story about three robots who cope with the horrors of the twentieth century through music, but they can play rock, rap, and pop. They’re not trying very hard to be steampunk. They’re trying to be entertaining, and if the show happens to have an 1890’s vibe, then fine.

This is something that us folks in the steampunk community ought to remember. It’s not supposed to be about corsets and gears, it’s supposed to be about breaking out of the mold of medieval Europe to tell the best damn fantasy story you can.

Check out the awesomeness:

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Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Discworld_PostalA great book, as is usual from Terry Pratchett, but I had some nagging issues with the plot.

Moist von Lipwing (yes, that’s his real name) is a con man who’s finally gotten caught. Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork gives him a choice: execution, or a job as postmaster-general of a haunted post office. Lipwig takes the job.

From then on, the story has two major plots. The first is a Lovecraftian sort of thing. The post office is shut down, filled with piles of undelivered mail and pigeon guano. The only living beings inside are a creepy old man, his assistant, and a cat. Lipwig must get to the bottom of why all the previous postmasters-general died in this building, and what is the horrible thing that lurks under the floorboards and drives people mad.

And also, the letters are beginning to talk to him.

The other subplot features Reacher Gilt, who owns a vaguely steampunky monopoly on the semaphore lines. He’d like to see Lipwig put out of the way.

I love Moist. He’s a complex character and boy, he grows throughout this book. It’s a foregone conclusion that he hits the fast track from con man to reformed con man, but you totally believe it.

What bothered me about this story is that the Lovecraftian plot gets resolved about halfway through the book. Moist von Lipwig figures out what the abomination is and dispatches one of the major villains. After that, the book is all about the societal issues of technology and monopoly. It’s still good, but it’s a major shift in tone.

And the resolution of the other plot, the Reacher Gilt one, didn’t make much sense to me. But I read the last 1/3 of the book in one sitting, so maybe I missed something.

Recommended. Going Postal is a good standalone and it’s a good way to introduce yourself to the Discworld. And it does a better steampunk than most of the books that advertise themselves as such.

Bad September: Retro-Futurist Rock

2432604817-1I wanted to tell you about one of the hidden gems of the Twin Cities.

Bad September is a band that formed in 2009 and has been doing gigs at events around the Cities ever since. If you live around here, you might have seen them jamming out in their frock coats, waistcoats and aviator goggles. They describe their style as “retro futurist.” Translation: these guys write music about alternate history.

Bad September’s first full-length album came out about six months ago, and recently I got the chance to buy it and listen to it. This is very intelligent music. I know more about 19th and early 20th century European history from having listened to it. Ever heard of Robert’s Rules of Order, the codification of parliamentary law that was first published in 1876 and has since been adopted by most modern organizations? Listen to the album and learn.

And the music’s good, too. The songs have the occasional strained lyric (i.e., Calmly make emergency plans/disaster’s not quite rare), but that’s the only problem with the music I can find. The instrumentals are good, the singing is good (especially “Minister Rand Tells Us that Art is in Service to the State”). The melodies are hummable days afterwards. You don’t get the benefit of the costumes that you do in their live concerts, but on the other hand, the pre-recorded songs try some neat things with the sound.

The jewel of the album has got to be “Tesla vs. Edison.” Thomas Edison once had a bitter rival Nikolai Tesla. Edison went on to fame and fortune, credited with the invention of the light bulb, while Tesla died a pauper. Bad September imagines how things might have gone differently:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0rWurAy1Ls&w=420&h=315]

Their website is here: Bad September

Some Thoughts on Steampunk

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

The other day I was cruising about The Mad Reviewer, Carrie Slager’s very prolific book review blog.  If you haven’t seen this blog before, check it out.  If a YA book exists, chances are that Carrie has read it and has something to say about it.  I asked her what she thought about the recent trend of steampunk books, and she replied with this guest post:

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So Margaret asked me: “Hey what is your opinion on the sudden hotness of the steampunk genre?  Do you thin kit’s going to last?  I remember having a conversation with some friends last year, and they said that the problem with steampunk is that nobody’s written anything serious in the genre, only frivolous books.  Could you write a blog post about that?”

Why yes I can, Margaret.  Yes I can.

Do you guys remember when pundits were predicting the death of the Western?  How about science fiction?  Fantasy?  Historical fiction?  Romance?  The book itself?  My point is that although so-called experts have predicted the disappearance of practically every genre, they’re still here.  Steampunk is definitely a fascinating sub-genre and I suspect that it’s here to stay, no matter what literary experts say.

However, that’s not to say the trend won’t cool off.  Genres go through trends, just like music, movies, clothes, you name it.  Steampunk is on a current high, but it will drop as people tire of it and move on.  Remember the huge paranormal romance craze after Twilight’s success?  That’s mostly died down now and general fantasy and steampunk have replaced it temporarily.

Contrary to what some of Margaret’s friends and many pundits seem to think, steampunk is  a serious genre.  As for the claim that no one has written anything serious, define ‘serious.’  If you definite serious as ‘a sweeping epic that questions our fragile mortality and the futileness of it all in a Margaret Atwood-esque style’, then you won’t find anything mainstream, let alone steampunk.  However, if you use a less narrow definition like ‘it’s meant to entertain and may or may not impart some important life lessons’, then yes, there is a high volume of serious steampunk.

Take Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy, for example.  It’s set in an alternate version of 1914 Europe and I really don’t think there’s anything not serious about how the First World War started.  Alek and Deryn, the novel’s two main protagonists, are serious characters because they get into very real danger and suffer very real consequences.  There may not be many grand themes you can over-analyze in typical novel study-like fashion, but that doesn’t mean they’re not serious books.

So yes, steampunk will cool off but it’s here to stay and yes, it is a serious genre.  Literary snobs and my fellow self-appointed critics, you may begin writing your hate mail now.