Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest

Today I'm looking at the first book in a series of steampunk books by Cherie Priest, Boneshaker, which I've heard is her most famous novel. At least to the point within the steampunk community that Boneshaker is often remembered as her fist novel when Priest had actually written other books prior to this one. (This is at least what Priest said anyway.) Overall I'd say this book is okay, but it leaves me with a lot of questions, at least one of which I think needs a serious answer.

The book is set in an alternate history United States about 1876 or so. Right before the American Civil War began, gold was discovered in Russian Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush began. Seattle, located on the western coast and an ideal launching point for prospectors, boomed with the growth of the gold trade in the Klondike. Until the incident with the Boneshaker.

See, the biggest problem was most of the gold in the Klondike was inaccessible to miners. (Have you read a Jack London story? Don't, the lesson is Alaska is a dangerous place and will kill you.)  So the Russian government held a contest for the design of a machine to make mining the goldfields practicable. The winning submission was presented by Dr. Levi Blue of Seattle who at the behest of the Russians launched a test of his Boneshaker Drill. The result of the test was a significant portion of downtown Seattle was destroyed and a source of deadly Blight Gas, which kills everyone and turns some of those exposed to it into zombies, made the city uninhabitable. The residents of Seattle responded by building a wall two hundred feet high around the old city, containing the Blight and the shambling monsters.

Our main characters are Briar Wilks, widow of the late, unlamented Dr. Blue, and her son Ezekiel. Zeke is convinced that all rumors that his father's use of the Boneshaker was intentional are false, and is determined to prove that what happened to render Seattle uninhabitable was an accident. To do this, Zeke goes under the wall into old Seattle searching for scraps of evidence left behind. Briar knows that inside the wall is a deadly place that her sixteen year old son can't hope to survive, so she goes in to rescue her son herself.

Plot wise, I don't know if I really enjoyed this story. Despite the setting, it felt like a ''two characters trying to find each other'' sort of story, with at least a few incidents where the characters paths potentially could cross but don't until we get to the climax of the story. I mean, it's good that Briar is looking to rescue her darn kid from his stupid and potentially deadly situation, but for whatever reason I couldn't find myself getting emotionally invested in them as characters.

I will leave aside, for the time being, the question as to how the Civil War has been going on for about sixteen years. It's at least implied within the book that there are at least a few reasons why the war could be extended as long, including airships, a southern railroad, and British intervention. At this point I will forego my usual historian rant about the larger economic, social, and political factors which make such an outcome unlikely to say the least.

My biggest question for this book is why the heck people still live in Seattle anymore. The survivors create a settlement outside the wall called Outskirts, and there's still some trading activity, but it was stated that most of the trade has dried up when the most accessible of the gold was depleted in the Klondike rush. Now, cities have grown up around booms and then continued having grown into viable communities, but mining rushes have also produced numerous ghost towns that dot the American West. With the town infrastructure and the trade gone, I'm not sure why people would stay in Seattle. I mean, they have to boil all of their water because Blight Gas still escapes the Wall and even rainwater can't be trusted to be potable, which sounds like it's better to just abandon the place entirely than keep trying. Maybe the amount of trade was bigger than I gleaned from the book, Briar does visit an airship port, but I'm not certain.

The only real resource of note anymore is the Blight itself, which is useful for creating a drug referred to as lemonsap, but that's about it. And most of the Blight collected and processed for lemonsap is done by criminal organizations operating inside the wall. So why anybody would continue to live outside is puzzling to me.

Otherwise the book is okay. I have reason to hope that the later books would build on the foundation and maybe go to more interesting places and more interesting adventures. But because I didn't really emotionally connect with either Briar or Zeke I couldn't get as invested in their personal story as Priest might hope.

- Kalpar

A Long Reign, by Victoria L. Szulc

Today I'm looking at A Long Reign, a book I picked up some time ago in one of the numerous kindle book deals that I see on Amazon. The book starts with an interesting premise, the world is ruled by an immortal Queen Victoria whose armies conquered North America after both sides had been exhausted by the Civil War. Lavinia James, a girl from the farmlands of Missouri, joins the Underground resistance to fight the redcoat armies, topple Victoria, and restore the world to its proper timeline.

As I said, the book started with an interesting premise, but unfortunately there is a lot that's wrong with this book. The result is it feels like a very, very rough first draft that desperately needed an editor to go through and help knock off the rough edges and polish it up. The writing just doesn't flow well and sometimes gets downright confusing so it definitely could have used a second set of eyes to improve it. This book also relies heavily on sex as drama and ordinarily am not a huge fan of that being done in fiction. This book has attempted rape, actual rape, and Lavinia having to seduce other people as an agent of the Underground and hates herself for doing it, so sex causes a lot of the drama in this book and because the writing is so rough it makes it very hard for me to read personally.

There are also a lot of plot points that don't make sense which makes this book feel even more like a rough draft. I assume that Dr. Carthage and Ebersol replaced Victoria with a humanoid robot but what they hoped to accomplish by doing this isn't made clear. They seem to be in control of the Empire but what they're planning on doing with the empire doesn't make a lot of sense. It's implied that they're strip-mining the entire earth for resources and creating an army of robots made from human bones and skin, but to what purpose remains unclear. I mean, once you've killed everyone on earth and have your own army of robots and a pile of all the world's resources, now what? Are you going to colonize Mars? If Szulc explained what the villains were trying to accomplish maybe it'd make more sense, but as the book is it's like they're being evil just to be evil.

And this doesn't get on the political and economic situation. At least in Missouri it seems like a large portion of the population has been enslaved to harvest farm produce that gets shipped off...elsewhere for the good of the Empire while they're controlled by the British garrison of soldiers. Now there's a point where they separate the men and women in the slave camps and say the slaves aren't allowed to reproduce anymore because it means more mouths to feed. So the slaves are separated. And then the garrison announces that the men need female companionship so once a year they'll select from the women who have reached maturity to serve as wives or paramours. Which implies that the soldiers will be reproducing because they'll be having sex with the slave women, which therefore defeats the purpose of keeping the slaves from reproducing in the first place. And even before the slaves start being harvested for skin and bones, the British keep working their slaves to death and bringing in more slaves from elsewhere. It just doesn't make sense to me and tells me that this book definitely needed an editor.

The result is a book that desperately needed an editor to help put it into shape. There are some ideas with potential, but the book feels very much like a rough first draft which could be expanded, edited, and improved. As the book is right now, I unfortunately can't say that it's worth reading.

- Kalpar

The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman

Today I'm looking at the first book in a series I'm actually looking forward to continuing when I get the opportunity, The Invisible Library. I ended up enjoying this book very much, although considering it's about dimension-hopping librarians who save books it's hardly a surprise that I'm a fan. Just checking on Goodreads it looks like there are three other books out in this series right now so hopefully the adventures will be just as enjoyable as this one was.

The protagonist of our novel is Irene, a woman raised within the Library which exists out of time and between worlds. Irene is just one of many Librarians, whose mission is to travel across the multiverse and retrieve books so the Library can keep them safe and ensure the books are never lost from reality. Sometimes this is as simple as walking into a story and buying a copy of the book, but more often than not it involves stealing irreplaceable manuscripts from highly guarded locations. And the newest mission for Irene promises to not be an easy one.

Irene is tasked with retrieving a copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales from a universe that has been infected by chaos. Reality doesn't work like it should and more closely resembles the worlds of fiction than properly organized universes. And the Library isn't the only faction interested in retrieving this copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales. A powerful Fae known as Lord Silver and a mysterious secret society known as the Iron Brotherhood are all interested in getting the book before Irene can. Even the Library seems to be working at cross purposes when another Librarian shows up to retrieve the book. And if that wasn't bad enough, Irene's been saddled with training a novice named Kai and as her first act has to bring him along on this mission. It certainly won't be a trip to the local bookstore.

Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot I can say other than that I liked this book a lot. Cogman takes the idea of an interdimensional library and manages to put her own unique twist on it. There aren't any new ideas that I haven't seen used before half a dozen times in other fiction, but Cogman manages to combine them in a manner that makes it a creation wholly her own. It felt like a universe I could totally enjoy climbing inside of and taking a look around. Possibly even staying to work for the library if I could get away with it, although I'm not super great at languages. I found this a very easy book to read and for people who like books, libraries, and alternate worlds this is definitely a great choice.

- Kalpar

Within the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan

Today I'm finally getting to the last book of the Lady Trent Memoirs series, Within the Sanctuary of Wings. On the downside I think this book and the series in general could have used a lot more development because there are still a lot of questions I have that probably should have been answered. Lady Trent assumes that the readers, members of her world, know things which are common knowledge in her world. While this makes sense and avoids a bunch of clunky exposition, it does leave the series with some questions unanswered.

This book focuses on a later and significant chapter of Lady Trent's career when she goes to her world's equivalent of the Himalayas to investigate a potential new and unknown species of dragon. The problem is that Lady Trent's home country, Scirland, is at war with this world's equivalent of China so aside from the remoteness of the location and the difficult terrain, there are numerous political challenges that have to be overcome as well. However the potential to discover a missing link between ancient dragons raised by the Draconian civilization and modern dragons proves too much of a temptation for Isabella and once Lady Trent sets her mind to something it's basically impossible to stop her, especially when dragons are involved.

The main point of this book is a huge spoiler for not only the book but the series as well, which reveals major information about the Draconian civilization. I will say I'm not sure I'm fully satisfied with how the book ends and I would have liked even more information about the Draconians. I will say it's fairly realistic that we don't have a complete picture for civilizations that disappeared thousands of years ago, which makes the universe feel real, but I felt since this was a work of fiction Brennan could have cheated a little bit to bring more info into the book than what we ended up getting.

My other biggest criticism is I felt like Brennan spends a lot of time on stuff like the scenery to build up the anticipation for the major plot twists. Now, I will admit that this makes sense and Brennan does a good job describing things like village life, the mountains, the difficulties in crossing glaciers, and all the other challenges that Lady Trent and company encounter. I'm sure there are lots of people who enjoy this sort of thing and it's definitely good writing on Brennan's part, but I honestly kind of wished that more time had been spent talking about plot developments than talking about say, how gorgeous the mountains were. But I think this is really a matter of personal taste and I'm willing to admit that I probably have bad taste.

Overall I think this was a good ending for the series. Considering how much time had been spent building up anticipation for the reveal about the Draconian civilization I wish there had been more of a payoff. However, I think Brennan does a good job in creating a realistic world in her novels and making it believable that dragons could be part of an ecosystem. If you're a fan of science and fantasy, these books do a great job of combining the two.

- Kalpar

The Bookman, by Lavie Tidhar

Today I'm looking at the novel The Bookman, first in a steampunk series by Lavie Tidhar that follows the adventures of a man known only as Orphan. Orphan is an aspiring poet, part time bookseller, and deeply in love with whale biologist Lucy. Things seem to be going all right for Orphan when Lucy is tragically killed in an attack by the Bookman, a mysterious assassin that uses exploding books to attack the establishment of lizard people that rule the world. When Lucy is killed in one of the Bookman's attacks, Orphan finds himself thrown into a world of espionage, plot, and counterplot. Most tempting of all is an opportunity to bring Lucy back, but to do so Orphan will have to align himself with the Bookman.

I think my biggest criticism of this book is that there is simply way too much going on for this book to have a coherent plot. In my opinion Tidhar gets way too ambitious and tries to jam about five thousand different things into this book at once which means we never really have time to develop one idea to its full potential. I definitely think this book could have benefited from a tighter focus and sticking to maybe one or two plot threads instead of having multiple threads scattered all over the place running at once.

To provide an example of what I mean, let me just cover some of the things that are included in The Bookman. Orphan pulled a prank on Oscar Wilde. Lizard people have ruled Great Britain and its empire for nearly four hundred years. Professor Moriarty is the Prime Minister and Rudyard Kipling is a newspaper reporter. Mycroft Holmes is influential enough in government to commandeer mysterious black airships. Mycroft and Dr. Watson have consulted with Dr. Moreau, Dr. Jekyll, and Dr. West to try to bring Sherlock back to life. Karl Marx is a member of the small revolutionary group run by Orphan's boss. Orphan meets the Mechanical Turk, Tom Thumb, and Jojo the Dog-Faced Boy. Later Orphan teams up with Jules Verne and Captain Nemo to travel to a mysterious island. And these are just the references I caught. I have no doubt that Tidhar included multiple other references that I probably missed. As I've said in reviews of other books I have doubts about these sorts of references, especially when you have authors and their fictional characters in the same universe. And considering the sheer number of things that Tidhar has thrown into the book, it left me feeling a little overwhelmed.

The plot seems to revolve around three factions, although there might be more and it's difficult for me to tell because Tidhar throws so many things into the mix. We have the Bookman, the lizard people, and then the automatons who want rights as sentient beings. Orphan gets tossed between the factions as a playing piece and he realizes he doesn't seem to have much choice himself in the situation but to move ahead on the path laid before him. So the result is Orphan gets tossed around throughout the book.

Maybe this book gets better if you read it through a second time, but I was honestly left feeling kind of lost because there was so much going on. As I said, I think if Tidhar had focused on just one or two plot threads instead of trying to include every possible thing into the book this might have turned out a lot better.

- Kalpar

The Guns Above, by Robyn Bennis

Today I'm looking at a steampunk novel titled The Guns Above, by Robyn Bennis. This book is the first in a planned series chronicling the adventures of Captain Josette Dupre, Lord Bernat, and the crew of the Mistral as they fight to save their nation of Garnia from enemies on all front. This book is good, but I don't think it pushes any envelopes or goes into any new ground which means it fails to stand out among all the other stories that are out for the reader of steampunk fiction.

The book is set in the fictional country of Garnia, a nation that seems to be perpetually at war with its neighbors over territory or other petty reasons. Garnia may have been a military superpower in the past, but the situation has definitely deteriorated to the point Garnia is utilizing women soldiers in ''auxiliary'' capacities, theoretically non combat roles but in reality whatever role they need to fill. This is especially true in the Air Signal Corps, where getting volunteers courageous or insane enough to fly and fight on the incredibly dangerous airships is particularly difficult.

Josette Dupre is one such auxiliary and through the circumstances of everyone above her dying, she ends up in command of her airship and helping to save the Garnian army outside the city of Arle. As a dubious reward for her actions, Dupre is appointed captain of the new, revolutionarily designed airship Mistral. Forced upon her as well is the foppish Lord Bernat, nephew of the commanding Garnian general, and definitely a spy to find Dupre's every weakness and expose it so Bernat's uncle can get rid of Dupre once and for all and ensure the army remains a man's institution.

As I said, this doesn't feel like it's really pushing any envelopes. As I've pointed out before and will probably point out again, it seems almost obligatory for a steampunk work of fiction to have a feisty, female airship captain, scientist, or engineer who defies societal convention by being a woman in a ''traditionally'' male field. And may, horror of horrors, shock and tribulation, wear pants! I'm all for women being captains, scientists, engineers, spies, doctors, stockbrokers, greengrocers, bakers, telegraph operators, locomotive engineers, or any other profession they darn well please. But in 2018 having a woman as captain and it being a shock is quite frankly kind of passe. We've had female captains since the 1990's. Is it accurate for a Victorian society to be surprised at women doing things like being airship captains? Yes. Is it necessary for a fictional steampunk society to have the same surprise at women being captains? No, I don't think so.

So with most of the conflict being ''Dupre's a woman, and women shouldn't be airship captains'' I feel like this book didn't cover ground that hasn't already been covered by who knows how many books before it. Honestly I think an improvement would have been just have Dupre be unpopular with the Garnian high command because she's a commoner and more competent than the nobles are, which is why they send one of their own to spy on her and try to bring her down. Otherwise I thought this book was okay. I could have used a map of the countries to get a better understanding of where everything was geographically, but otherwise it was okay.

If you're looking for a steampunk military adventure, this is a pretty good choice, but don't expect it to bring anything particularly new or innovative to the table. At least, that's my opinion.

- Kalpar

The Scar, by China Mieville

Today I'm looking at another book by China Mieville, The Scar, which is set in the same universe as Perdido Street Station but focuses on events outside the city of New Crobuzon. Specifically the book follows linguist Bellis Coldwine, a former lover of Grimnebulin from the last book who is now wanted by New Crobuzon's Militia for questioning. Bellis decides it would be an extremely wise decision for her to flee to a distant colony halfway around the globe for a few years until the Militia's interest wears off. However the ship she's travelling on, containing a significant number of criminal transportees, gets attacked by pirates and brought back to the floating pirate city of Armada as press-ganged who are never allowed to leave. It looks like Bellis will spend the rest of her life in exile on Armada, but very soon she discovers that the leaders known only as the Lovers have extensive plans for Armada, which she can only begin to guess at.

As I mentioned in my review of Perdido Street Station, there was a lot of Mieville's writing style that just didn't work for me in that book, and unfortunately this seems to remain true. I suspect this is partly because of the narrator, Gildart Jackson; I found his reading of the book to have a downright soporific effect on me making the book that much more difficult to get through. However, Mieville's incredibly Dickens-like writing probably doesn't help much on that score either. I felt like the plot meandered through the book, mostly because our perspective characters had no idea what was truly going on, and at one point we have two connected plots running at once. The result for me was this book felt really bloated and it could have used some editing to make the pace a little more enjoyable.

Obviously there are people who think otherwise, and to Mieville's credit he works on creating an extremely complex world. The problem is I don't know if his bouts of exposition always help develop the plot of the book. I definitely got the feeling that we had long, almost tedious explanations of things that were mostly to show off how neat his world was without advancing the story at all. So personally I think that's a bit of a flaw in his writing, but there are people who greatly enjoy this sort of thing so they probably liked it a lot better than me.

Honestly that's really my big criticism of the book, it's long, it meanders, and as a result it feels boring to me. I think I truly enjoy something with a more direct pace and manages to get to the plot. The world truly is interesting and has a lot of potential, but Mieville's style just fails to grab my interest. If you like the slower, pokier type of book then you might enjoy this, but it certainly takes its time getting to where it's going.

- Kalpar

The Diamond Conspiracy, by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

Today I'm looking at the fourth book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, The Diamond Conspiracy. I think the biggest issue I had was I let there be a considerable gap between the time I listened to the last book, Dawn's Early Light, and this one because I had forgotten a few details and found myself struggling to catch up with plot points. I'm mentioning this now because it's not really a critique of the book more than a failing on my part. However, this series in general has left me feeling ambivalent at times or just not really sure what to think about the series.

The Diamond Conspiracy begins with Wellington Books and Eliza Braun heading back home to England after foiling an evil plan of Thomas Edison in America. On the way back, though, Books and Braun discover that the Ministry has been disavowed by Queen Victoria and her government and a rival organization, the Department of Imperial Inconveniences, has been sent to eliminate all Ministry agents. Worst of all it appears the Maestro, the alter-ego of the Duke of Sussex, is entering the endgame of his master plan which will come to fruition at Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Books, Braun, and the other survivors of the Ministry will have to team up, on the run and with limited resources, to rescue the queen and the Empire.

Overall I though the plot had some promising points. The agents being disavowed and fighting their own government is an interesting plotline. If nothing else it gets our agents out of London and relying on their own resources rather than the Ministry's. I do felt like this book was maybe, maybe just a little too long. I think Ballentine and Morris did enough groundwork that you could fully guess where the last quarter or so of the book was going to go, and their detours and explorations just dragged out the conclusion further than necessary. I kept finding myself thinking, ''Dang, is there still more of this book?'' So I think there was a little bloat, yes, but it doesn't really get noticeable until the end.

I think the biggest issue I had was the introduction of preexisting characters, both historical and fictional, into the story at this point in the series. Having Queen Victoria be in the series makes perfect sense. She is the queen, and the Ministry is a government agency that reports to her, so she's going to show up. And I didn't mind Thomas Edison showing up as a villain in the last book. He definitely seems like the sort of person who would collaborate with a shadowy organization like the House of Usher to build superweapons. Also Edison's a jerk. So it makes sense.

No, the issue I have is the introduction of other people who I didn't think made the plot better. For example, H.H. Holmes, the notorious serial killer, gets a cameo as an operative of the House of Usher. Basically he shows up, is creepy, and then leaves. Maybe he'll show up in later books and have more of a role, but it just felt gratuitous to me. The authors also introduce H.G. Wells which makes the universe feel a lot smaller than it was and it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense to me why he'd keep going by a different alias every decade. And then there's the introduction of John Carter (of Mars) who really exists just to supply a War of the Worlds style Martian Walker for the final epic showdown between the Ministry and the Maestro and his forces. And while a battle between a Martian tripod and steampunk battle mechs would in theory be really awesome, by the time the book got to the battle I was so bored I just wanted it to be over, which was a real shame.

So I'm left not sure what to think about this book. On the one hand, there are interesting concepts and cool secret agent adventures. On the other hand, the book does feel like it could be trimmed down and I'm not sure how much I like the references to other works by the inclusion of other characters. (And it's definitely possible there are other references in the other books that I just missed.) The result is I feel like this book is okay, but definitely not among the best things I've ever read.

- Kalpar

Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

Today I'm looking at Perdido Street Station, the first in a series of steampunk-ish novels by China Mieville. I'm kind of mixed on this book for a couple of reasons. When I read the blurb for whatever reason it reminded me a little of Fallen London, another really gritty steampunk city, albeit seen in video games rather than novels, and from time to time I kept imagining the city of New Crobuzon underground, although that's clearly not the case. There are good parts to this book, but there were also parts that I found frustrating as well.

Perdido Street Station is set in the universe of New Crobuzon, a massive city located, at least partially, under the bones of a massive creature, although this book doesn't go into great detail about the creature or what people know about it so maybe that will be covered in a later book. New Crobuzon is a police state dominated by the Militia, an organization with informers and agents throughout the city and who often strike out of nowhere to haul lawbreakers to be Re-Made in the Punishment Factories. Usually the judges prescribe some cruelly ironic punishment such as a thief that refuses to speak has their mouth sewn shut. Which definitely adds to the grim and creepy nature of the setting.

The biggest issue I had with this book was it felt like it took the longest darn time getting to the actual plot, mostly because there were several plot threads that only gradually get woven together. In the beginning of the book we get introduced to Lin, a member of a species that look like humans except they have giant scarab beetles for heads and can produce sculpture through a cement-like spit they exude. Lin is one such artist and gets hired by a local crime boss to create a sculpture of himself. Meanwhile her lover, normal human Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, has been hired by a bird person named Yagharek to fashion a new set of wings, since Yagharek's own wings were cut off by his tribe. And then there's their friend Derkhan Blueday, a writer for a radical and highly illegal newspaper. Plus the cleaning construct in Isaac's lab is acting strangely and the government of New Crobuzon is increasingly worried about some compromising information.

So that was my biggest problem was there were all these different threads and they eventually came together to make a single plotline and made sense in the grander scheme of things but they felt very disparate and it took quite a bit of time before we started seeing how all the different plotlines were joining up. If this book was condensed a bit more I'm certain it would be a much shorter novel and it would probably have a much better pace as well.

The thing I noticed, especially when I kept being amazed that this book was still going is that Mieville gets very Dickensian with his writing. Which is to say, extremely to the point of excessively detailed because Dickens was paid by the word so he would make the sentence as long as he could and go off on tangents and parentheticals just to get more money, Dickensian. On the one hand, this is good because Mieville manages to make his universe feel deep and complex through world-building and making it feel like New Crobuzon is a city with an actual history rather than something he just made up. On the downside, it bloats the book out considerably and there are some passages that are utterly egregious and add nothing to the story.

For example, there is an adventurer who is hired by the main characters to help them solve a problem during the book. After a while the adventurer decides she's had enough and she's cutting and running. Sorry, but she's a professional, she's not in it to get killed. All well and good. What follows is a passage describing the adventurer's departure from the city, reflections on the events, a brief discussion of her species's preferred method of architecture, (They're sort of frog people? Definitely amphibian.) and then her decision on what she's going to do now in the future. And honestly, I couldn't have cared less about what this character was going to do. She was barely, just barely in the novel and mostly some extra muscle the main characters had hired on with little to no characterization. I would have been perfectly happy with her waving goodbye and leaving, which is what she did initially, rather than going into an entire tangent about the character. Maybe Mieville means for this character to be important in later books, which is why he focused on her, but it seems entirely unnecessary in this book.

And even with the world-building I feel like the author resorted to a deus ex machina towards the end of the novel. The actual thing is mentioned before in the book, but only very briefly and dismissed as a myth so it still comes as a bit of a surprise when it shows up.

So that's really the biggest problem I have with this book, it feels super bloated with extra information. That feels cool for a bit, but after a while the exposition gets really boring and starts distracting from a plotline that is, in theory, time-critical. I think if Mieville was trying to add a sense of urgency to the plot, adding a bunch of exposition and making the book take a languid pace was not the best way to go about this. There's definitely a lot of good world-building but I think there's a lot that could have been left out and the book wouldn't have suffered. If you do read this be prepared for a lot of exposition.

- Kalpar

Dawn's Early Light, by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

Today I'm looking at the third in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurences series, Dawn's Early Light. I know that in my review of the last book, The Janus Affair, I said that the plot kind of felt like a jumbled mess more than anything else to me. However, since I can get some of these books for free from the library, I figured I could just truck on with the third book and see if it got any better. I'm happy to say that yes, the third book actually does get much more coherent and I feel that the plot flowed a lot better in this book than it had in previous ones. We also get some explanations about the villains behind the various plots the Ministry has foiled, although there's more that remains to be revealed in later books. Also, Wellington and Eliza are now a couple, although I suspect something will inevitably come up in the next book to strain their relationship.

Wellington Books and Eliza Braun are sent by the Ministry's director on a mission to America, to help the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical investigate a series of mysterious disappearances off the coast of North Carolina. This region has the reputation of being the Graveyard of the Atlantic (Which is true in real life), but the disappearances of air and water vessels, especially around lighthouses, has gone well beyond the normal average. Teaming up with the Americans ''Wild Bill'' Wheatley and Felicity Lovelace, Books and Braun discover that the mysterious House of Usher, as well as Thomas Edison, have formed an unlikely alliance and appear to be behind the disappearances.

I think what I appreciated the most was that I finally got an explanation of what the House of Usher was. They were briefly involved in the first book where they had kidnapped Wellington, requiring his rescue by Eliza, but had disappeared from focus. I had jokingly asked if they were just really big Edgar Allen Poe fans and apparently yes, yes they are since their emblem is a raven and their overall goal seems to be...anarchy? The characters expressed some doubt about why the House of Usher is interested in sowing as much chaos and disorder as they are, whether they intend to establish a new order afterwards or just let everything burn down, but they definitely seem to be Poe fans.

We also find out more about the Maestro and while his goals still seem fairly opaque, at least to me, beyond some sort of power grab within the British Empire, we have significantly more information than we had before. And it's clear that the Maestro does not share goals with the House of Usher but is willing to use them to further his own agenda.

The other main plot is the romance between Wellington and Eliza, which is stymied by their inability to talk to each other and the attempts of Felicity Lovelace to woo Wellington, much to Eliza's frustration. I feel like this is a pretty classic case of: relationship drama exists because they're unable or unwilling to talk to each other like adults about it until circumstances force them to. And honestly, that's just not a plot I enjoy. I know there are plenty of people out there who enjoy those sorts of stories because obviously they're wildly successful, but it's just not my thing. I've come to like both Wellington and Eliza as characters, but I did wish they'd just talk instead of dragging it out. Now that that particular drama has been resolved, I do suspect that something may happen in the next book to derail their budding romance.

Overall, I'd say this book was an improvement, if a little dry at times. We're getting a better idea of what the bad guys are trying to accomplish, but there's still room to explore and uncover. It is a little heavy on the relationship drama side, but some people like that so who am I to judge?

- Kalpar

The Hunchback Assignments, by Arthur Slade

Today I'm looking at another steampunk novel I just sort of picked up on a whim from the library, The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade. The premise of this book is, ''What if Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a secret agent for steampunk Victorian Britain? Also what if he was a shape-shifter?'' And that's...pretty much it. Otherwise it rolls along in the same ruts as a handful of other secret agent steampunk stories I've read.

I'm not saying that the book is bad. It's far more coherent than some of the other books within this sub-genre I've read, but aside from having a shape-shifting Quasimodo as the main character it doesn't deviate much from its type. It may just be a coincidence, or the fact that the premise ''steampunk secret agents'' is right up my alley so I end up reading or listening to a lot of these stories. But I'm beginning to notice that aside from a few details, there doesn't seem to be terribly much deviation. The protagonists are almost inevitably agents for some organization, perhaps only loosely affiliated with Queen Victoria, charged with protecting the British Empire. Our protagonists then run into a variety of enemies who are dead set on toppling the British Empire for a variety of reasons, whether it be legitimate critiques of Britain's imperialism, or just petty hatred for all things British.

This story is basically the same thing, although we get to see Modo's training by the mysterious Mr. Socrates. And I have to admit, I end up not liking Mr. Socrates because he very unambiguously sees Modo as an investment of time and resources rather than as a person. I was left with the distinct impression that if Modo ceased to be useful to Mr. Socrates, he would abandon Modo without a second's hesitation. So I'm not sure if Modo's really working for the good guys or not which does put a damper on the entire book.

I will also say I'm getting kind of tired of people being shocked by women wearing trousers in steampunk stories. It seems to be another almost obligatory addition to these stories along with plots to topple the British Empire and spunky female characters. Who inevitably wear trousers and shock men because of their ''improper'' behavior. Like, seriously guys. It's steampunk. It's going to be fiction with twenty-first century gender norms. Women wearing pants isn't all that surprising. In fact, women wore pants for athletic activities in the real-life late nineteenth century. Okay, technically they're bloomers, but they're effectively pants. And in 2017 women wear pants all the time. Having your female character wear pants in a steampunk novel isn't shocking or titillating or exciting.

Otherwise, the book's competent. Having a shape-shifting secret agent Quasimodo as the main character is different, but I can't say it varies that much from a lot of other steampunk secret agent books I've read.

- Kalpar

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Today I'm looking at the novel Leviathan, the first in a trilogy by Scott Westerfeld that straddles the border between the related genres of steampunk and dieselpunk, which makes sense since it is set during an alternate history First World War. In Westerfeld's universe, technology has taken two alternate routes from our historical ''baseline''. Britain, France, and Russia have become ''Darwinist'' powers, utilizing genetic and biological engineering to create animals to take the place of machines. From draft animals dozens of times stronger than a horse to messenger lizards capable of relaying vocal messages perfectly to huge airships that are part whale, part jellyfish, and part hydrogen-exuding bacteria, the Darwinists have countless varieties of animals available to replace machinery.

Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as the Ottoman Empire, have gone a more traditional route with various steam and internal-combustion powered vehicles and machines to match the Darwinist forces. The biggest change from regular technology though is the immense walkers that that the ''Clankers'' have constructed. These range in size from small, unarmed personal walkers, to massive land dreadnoughts capable of leveling entire cities. With the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Great Powers are drawn into a conflict that promises to engulf all of Europe.

The book folows two main characters, Deryn Sharp and Prince Aleksander of Austria. Deryn is a Scottish girl who wishes to join the British Air Service and disguises herself as a boy to enroll as a midshipman. And I have to be honest, even though this book came out back in 2009, Deryn feels incredibly cliched as a character to me. Based on the amount of steampunk that I've read there's apparently some law that you have to include a spunky female scientist/engineer/airship pilot/etc. within your steampunk story and she shocks everybody with how spunky and unlike a proper lady she is. What with the doing science. Or piloting airships. Or blowing things up. I do like Eliza blowing things up. ANYWAY, Deryn disguising herself as a boy is really the only thing that distinguishes her from half a dozen other characters I could name who fit the same mold. So while I like spunky female characters, the apparent requirement that every steampunk story have them is starting to feel hackneyed.

Prince Aleksander by comparison is slightly more interesting as a character. Like Archduke Franz Ferdinand's actual, historical children, Aleksander is barred from inheriting the throne of Austria Hungary. In this reality, however, Franz Ferdinand managed to get a papal bull issued legitimizing Aleksander and placing him in line for the succession. When Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie are assassinated (in this case by German agents to provide a causus belli for Austria to invade Serbia) Aleksander poses a threat to the rest of the Hapsburgs. Soon Aleksander, with the help of two of his teachers and a walker, is on the run from the forces of not only Germany, but Austria as well.

Deryn aside, I had some other issues with this book which made me feel like it couldn't have been as good as it could have been. First and foremost, I feel like this book is just setting the stage for the later books and conflicts rather than being just a story in its own right. If this was a long-running series such as Honor Harrington or The Dresden Files, I wouldn't have as much of an issue because it means we're getting an introduction before getting into a complex storyline. In this case, the series is only three books long so I feel like the first book should have established the arc of the story and laid some sort of expectation for what's at stake. When I finished this book I was left rather unsure what exactly was at stake beyond Alek's life and inheritance, and Deryn secretly being a girl. There's something going on with the mission to the Ottoman Empire, but we've been given only the broadest outlines.

Overall I feel like this book just doesn't live up to its potential. There are important questions that remain unanswered and I'm not sure where the series plans to go or even have an inkling of what might happen. Deryn as a character isn't terribly original, and since she's half the focus it weakens half the story. Maybe the other two books are better, but this first one feels inadequate.

- Kalpar

In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan

Today I'm looking at the fourth book in the Lady Trent memoirs and, as of writing, the most current, In the Labyrinth of Drakes. In this book Isabella Camhurst heads with her longtime colleague Tom to manage a Scirling-run dragon breeding program in Akhia.With the secret of preserved dragon bone out, countries are now in a race to acquire sufficient supplies of a material that promises to revolutionize warfare. However, many are also aware that they could acquire a significant short-term gain by slaughtering dragons wholesale, but leave them worse off in the long run with a shortage of dragons. To this end the Scirling Army is trying to breed and domesticate desert drakes so they might have a regular supply of dragonbone. Since Isabella and Tom are Scirling's authorities on dragons, they're the most logical choice to direct this breeding program but it promises to be many years of difficult and possibly fruitless research.

The dragons are of course only part of the story, the titular Labyrinth of Drakes also plays a significant role and is one of the more famous events of Lady Trent's career, as we find out. Akhia is the location of some of the best-preserved ruins of the globe-spanning Draconian civilization. Isabella meets up again with the archaeologist Suhail, a native Akhian, and together they make an absolutely unprecedented discovery.

What concerns me the most in this book is how...incomplete things feel. According to my sources on the internet, this series is scheduled to end with the fifth book, bringing the adventures of Lady Trent to an end. But I feel like there are a great many questions that have yet to be resolved, especially with the Draconian civilization. I will admit it would be very realistic for Brennan to leave some things still unknown. That is, after all, how science works in real life and all the mysteries of the universe never get solved in any one person's lifetime. But there are a lot of things about the Draconians that make me extremely curious. On top of that we did finally get the Rosetta Stone which Isabella discovered in Tropic of Serpents into the hands of Suhail the archaeologist and polyglot who may actually be able to crack the hither-to unknown Draconian script.

So, honestly, my concerns are about how rushed the next, final book may end up being if the Draconian plot is going to be revealed. As I'm by training a historian, and the author herself is an anthropologist, I would have liked and expected far more about this mysterious background civilization which has been a constant theme, as well as dragons, throughout the series. I'm just worried that Brennan hasn't given herself enough space to resolve everything satisfactorily. Even without the Draconian storyline I think there might not be enough space to finish Isabella's story without making it feel rather rushed.

Otherwise, there's not much to write home about. I feel almost like this series is starting to suffer fatigue because it's, ''Isabella goes to foreign location to study dragons. Encounters challenges. Overcomes challenges. Becomes even more famous.'' Not to say that I don't enjoy watching that. Isabella is definitely an interesting character and I quite like following her around. But aside from changes in scenery and tweaks to specifically what challenges Isabella has to overcome, there doesn't seem to be much difference.

Hopefully Brennan can tie everything together satisfactorily in the final book, which is supposed to come out in back in the spring of this year. But until then I'll remain a little reserved about how this series will end.

- Kalpar

The Voyage of the Basilisk, by Marie Brennan

Today I'm looking at the third book in the Lady Trent Memoirs, The Voyage of the Basilisk, in which Isabella Camhurst undertakes an expedition around the world to study a variety of dragon species, including sea serpents, feathered serpents, and fire lizards. Isabella's goal is to learn more about dragon species in general and try to create a definitive taxonomy of dragon species, which the series has been heavily implying she does by the end of the (as of yet unwritten) fifth and final book. In this case Isabella's mission is very much like Charles Darwin's own expedition around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle which provided him with a variety of data to help him write On the Origin of Species.

Because this book does cover a two-year expedition around the globe it feels a lot more rushed than the earlier books, which is sort of odd considering A Natural History of Dragons covers all of Isabella's early life up to about the age of twenty. But in both of the previous books Isabella was studying dragons in more concentrated locales, and considerably fewer species of dragons as well. It definitely felt like Isabella and her compatriots were getting a ton of data on the subjects they were researching. Because she's studying far more species of dragon over greater areas we don't get quite as much detail about the different species of dragons as we might think. And when the main political non-dragon research plot of the book gets resolved, the rest of the expedition which presumably contained lots of tedious dragon research and little else because it's only briefly mentioned.

I am also a little concerned that the book is raising questions which I'm not entirely sure I can answer with the skillset that I have, and considering there's only two books left in the series I'm wondering of Brennan is leaving herself sufficient time to adequately answer the questions as well. The big ones that get brought up in this book, which have been kind of hiding in previous books, are the Draconian civilization and questions about how dragons evolved. Isabella's biggest and most pressing question is the taxonomy of dragons, which is currently limited to one resource and she is uncertain if it is accurate. And like most good science, the more research Isabella does, she ends up with more questions than answers. However, as a reader I am extremely curious about what the answers are.

The Draconian civilization is also taking on greater and greater proportions. As I said in my review of Tropic of Serpents, Isabella finds what I was subsequently proven correct in assuming was the Rosetta Stone for the Draconian civilization. So hopefully we'll find out what some of these mysterious inscriptions are throughout the world. But we're also presented with the fact the Draconians had settlements truly across the globe as Isabella travels not only to her world's equivalent of China, but also to their equivalent of the Pacific islands, which also have Draconian ruins. The audio book that I listened to contained a brief interview with Brennan at the end where she hinted that the Draconians are going to be super-important, but I'm worried that she's simply not giving herself enough space to give her plots the space they deserve.

Other than my concerns, I did enjoy this book and thought it was interesting. Brennan's universe manages to be very realistic and I appreciate that Isabella approaches dragon taxonomy with all due scientific rigor. I am curious how everything turns out in the last two books so that means she's doing something right.

- Kalpar

The Brothers Cabal, by Jonathan L. Howard

Today I'm looking at the fourth book in the Johannes Cabal series, The Brothers Cabal. As I've mentioned in my previous reviews, I haven't been quite sure what to make of these books because on the one hand they're very witty and entertaining, on the other hand Johannes is kind of a jerk. I think that's really a good sign that Howard is an excellent writer because I legitimately enjoy his books and keep coming back for more. Which tells me he's doing something right.

This book, as you may have guessed from the title, deals with Johannes and his older brother Horst, last seen in the first novel. Much to his frustration, Horst is still a vampire, but an incredibly kind and decent person in spite of his condition. And personally I think that's what makes this book in particular so interesting because Horst is a much, much better person than Johannes. Not that being better than Johannes is a terribly high bar to cross, but considering Horst needs to feed on human blood it's a real accomplishment considering how moral a person he is.

Horst really is the main character for the first part of the book because it's mostly Horst recounting to Johannes his adventures after his resurrection but before his being reunited with Johannes. So while Johannes was off investigating the Dreamlands, Horst had been resurrected and recruited by a group known as the Ministerium that seeks to unite armies of werewolves, vampires, zombies, and eldritch horrors to establish an independent state in Eastern Europe where vampires, werewolves, and necromancers can live free of persecution. Unfortunately for the Ministerium, Horst just isn't the sort of vampire interested in raising an army of vampires to help conquer his own petty kingdom.

So in a way it's a refreshing change to get to learn more about Horst, who we didn't know terribly much about in the first book, who seems to be somebody I'd actually enjoy meeting. Hands down, Horst Cabal is my favorite vampire. And Horst is dealing as well with the desire to become the monster he is inside and give in to the urges to kill and drink his fill. It's interesting to see him struggle with that, something that Johannes probably wouldn't have lost terribly much sleep over himself.

Overall, I'm finding myself really enjoying these books. There's a good blend of serious action and clever humor that makes these books both memorable and enjoyable. I think I can say, four books into the series, that I can strongly recommend them.

- Kalpar

The Tropic of Serpents, by Marie Brennan

Today I'm looking at the second in the Memoirs of Lady Trent series, Tropic of Serpents, where Lady Trent (Still just Isabella Camherst) finally gets to go on her next expedition to study dragons in their natural habitats in a Scirling colony in Egria. Lady Trent gets to examine not only the dragon species inhabiting the savanna, but eventually gets to explore the dangerous jungle known as the Green Hell and study Mulish swamp wyrms. Despite her desire to stick just to science, Isabella soon finds herself embroiled in politics and the fate of Scirling influence in Egria ends up, much to her dismay, in her hands.

Overall I thought this book was really good. One of the things Brennan does that  I like is the use of real-world cultures to populate her universe. Granted, it's fairly transparent if you know what to look for, but it's definitely an easy way for her to make a universe that feels real and grounded, despite the fact that it has dragons in it. And her study of dragons feels like a realistic, natural science approach to studying dragons and classifying them as species. Furthermore, Isabella is by no means a perfect person. By her own admission she's not a very good parent and she feels emotions like anger, frustration, and jealousy so it makes her feel more three-dimensional as a character than if she was just the consummate biologist.

There are some hints that make me a little concerned about Isabella being just a little too perfect. She keeps saying she has this bad habit of saying the wrong thing to the wrong people which makes her a terrible diplomat, but it always seems to work out for her in the end. Also I think she managed to find the universe's version of the Rosetta stone entirely by accident which feels a little bit too convenient for her. Granted our Rosetta Stone was also found by accident, but it seems just a tad fortunate that Isabella manages to stumble across it. I'm assuming it's the Rosetta stone because it's got at least two languages on it and one of them is unknown and apparently it's now in a museum and is quite famous. Hopefully later books will show us.

But overall, I think this book is pretty good and I look forward to listening to the other books in the series. It feels like a very genuine Victorian-era expedition to study the biology of dragons and I quite enjoy it.

- Kalpar

A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan

Today I'm looking at A Natural History of Dragons, which is the first book in a series that makes up the memoirs of Lady Trent, a famous dragon researcher within the book's universe. The books are set in what appears to be the equivalent of our nineteenth century. Early on steam engines and steam-powered transportation is rare but not unheard of, but it id implied by Lady Trent that such developments such as railroads and steamships become commonplace within the book's universe. It is also an era when great researches into biology and natural history are being undertaken. The most tantalizing, and perhaps most difficult, is the study of dragons.

Dragons are already fierce predators and live in some of the most inhospitable climates in the world. In addition to being large, winged predators, they have fearsome breath weapons which makes just approaching the beasts dangerous. The research of dragons is also hampered by the extreme rate at which dragon bones decay, usually within a matter of days of the death of the dragon, making the collection of specimens for protracted study almost impossible.

Although to be honest the dragons felt mostly like a side-show because most of the focus is on the main character, Isabella, Lady Trent. As I mentioned, this book is the first in a series written from Lady Trent's perspective as memoirs of her career. This book deals with roughly the first twenty years of her life which takes us to the end of her first field expedition, undertaken with her husband and two other researchers. We meet Isabella as a very curious girl who first begins on scientific inquiry by wondering why birds have wishbones, specifically the evolutionary purpose of a wishbone. This leads to her dissecting a dead dove she found in the garden and a lifelong investigation into science. Of course, this sort of scientific inquiry is not seen by her mother as an appropriate interest for young ladies, but her father is far more lenient on the matter and is willing to indulge Isabella to a degree. Eventually she meets Jacob, a gentleman also deeply interested in natural history, and they get married.

Eventually Isabella and Jacob join an expedition to research rock wyrms, a species of dragon. The result is interesting, although I was left with the feeling of it being far more mundane than I hoped. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, you'd expect dragons and creatures like them such as drakes a wyverns to be exceptional creatures, mostly because we don't have any of them in the real world. On the other hand, the mundanity that Isabella approaches the topic at times seems downright appropriate. Because these books are vaguely steampunkish it makes sense for dragons to be just another species for scientists to observe, dissect, and categorize as they expand the limits of man's biological knowledge. So it's kind of weird to see dragons depicted as just another species to be studied, rather than magical creatures. But I think it's a good kind of different.

Overall I think this book is definitely a starter book for the series because it introduces Isabella and gets her started on her path of scientific research. I'm hoping that later books will expand on her career more and we'll get to see more dragons, especially Isabella interacting with them, than we have in this one.

- Kalpar

Johannes Cabal: The Detective, by Jonathan L. Howard

Today I'm looking at the second of the Johannes Cabal books, this one titled The Detective. In the plot of this story Johannes sneaks into an Eastern European Ruritania-esque country to steal the Pincipia Necromantica. I have to say Ruritania-esque because Ruritania itself gets a shout-out among a bunch of other little states that have long histories of fighting each other. After a short run-in with the law and an unfortunate incident involving a deceased emperor, Cabal finds it would be conducive to his continued health to leave the country with all alacrity. Stealing the identity of a civil servant, Cabal manages to get onto the maiden voyage of the airship Princess Hortense and looks forward to a nice, quiet, and rapid escape.

Unfortunately for Cabal there are two problems which instantly derail his plans. First he runs into Leonie Barrow, who he previously met when he was in possession of a soul-stealing carnival and knows full well who he is and more importantly, what he is. If Leonie wishes, she could decry Cabal to every authority figure and have him dragged away in chains. The second problem is a mysterious murder in which a passenger suspiciously jumps through the window of his stateroom. At least, that's what we're led to believe but there's something about the situation that doesn't make sense. And if there's one thing Cabal can't leave alone it's a puzzle. And when someone tries to kill Cabal after he starts investigating it becomes a personal mission.

As I sort of said in my review of the last book, I'm kind of mixed on my opinion on this book. And I think it comes down to the story versus the main character himself. The writing is actually pretty good. There are some parts where it gets a little slow but there are so many parts of this book that are filled with bitterly dry wit and I love it. A good example is a joke made about the English who treat the entire world as if it belongs to them and everyone else is just living their at their convenience. There are plenty of really good jokes like that and I found myself laughing a couple of times as I listened to this book, so for that at least the book is well worth the effort.

The problem I have seems to be Johannes himself because I'm not really sure what to think about him. I mostly know what his motivations are and why he's become a necromancer but he's still kind of a jerk. He has no problem killing people who get in his way or annoy him too much and since he's basically looking at a death sentence for being a necromancer anyway obeying lesser laws has largely become a matter of choice for him. I will say there has been some development of Johannes as a character now that he has his soul back. He's even having pangs of conscience during the book, which is a definite improvement on his character. But he's still...not exactly the most pleasant person. If he isn't an anti-hero he's definitely an anti-villain and that can be a hard character to like.

There's also the ''when the heck are we'' problem which I also had in the last book although in this case with aetheric-energy powered airships it definitely feels more like a steampunk novel. I'm beginning to think when this book happens is far less important to story anyway.

Overall, my opinion's ultimately mixed. On the one hand I really enjoy Howard's writing and he has some real talent for making witty observations. On the other hand, Cabal's not the most pleasant character to follow and it's really hard to like him. But it's definitely interesting and memorable, so I think that's really good for a book.

- Kalpar

Mrs. Bradshaw's Handbook, by Sir Terry Pratchett

Today I'm looking at a slim little volume that I picked up when I was on vacation back in August, Mrs. Bradshaw's Handbook, which is a complimentary book to the Discworld series. As people who read Raising Steam may remember, Mrs. Bradshaw was a character who Moist von Lipwig met very briefly and recommended to Harry King to write about the railway as a form of advertising. Mrs. Bradshaw's Handbook is that book, albeit written by Sir Terry Pratchett and aided with The Discworld Emporium as a sort of artifact from the Disc. Sort of like how you can buy copies of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer if you're a 40k fan. (Also, holy cow, $150? I definitely didn't pay that much for my copy!) Anyway it's a neat little book if a little...repetitive.

I can't really talk about the plot of this book because there is no plot. It's actually written as a guidebook for a traveller on the Ankh-Morpork & Sto Plains Hygienic Railway and divided into six chapters. The first chapter deals with ticketing, boarding trains, and details about the main terminal in Ankh-Morpork. The remaining five chapters deal with various portions of the AM&SPHR's line and the various stops, as well as the different attractions and amenities one can expect to find at various locations. Each chapter also includes a more detailed description of the hotels at various stops along the line.

Physically it's a very nice book. So far it's only been printed in hardcover and includes the appearance of a distressed book on the cover, which is a neat little feature I like. There are also lots of neat illustrations and bits of ephemera from the Disc that are included in the book. Now you're probably wondering, ''Kalpar, why are you talking about what the book looks like? You never talk about that.'' And you'd be right to ask that but...there's not a lot more to the book beyond that. It looks nice and it's a neat thing to have but it feels very lacking in substance. There are some good jokes but otherwise it's just a list of small towns that don't have a lot about them other than the unique way the locals use cabbages.

And that's where the book gets really repetitive in my opinion, especially when it comes to cabbages. Like, it's a little funny at the beginning when they start mentioning cabbages. It's like, ''Haha, man, those people really like their cabbages!'' And then it turns into a joke that's beaten to death and it becomes a relief when we finally get to parts of the Disc that don't grow cabbages. This town makes boots out of cabbages. This town makes paper out of cabbages. This town has a cabbage theme park. This town doesn't exist anymore because somebody made explosive sauerkraut. I just got tired of hearing about cabbages over and over.

So who would I recommend this book for? Probably avid Discworld fans like me who want to collect anything and everything connected to Discworld. If you're already deeply in love with the Disc this will be a nice addition to your collection of all things Pratchett. If you're just a casual fan or a newcomer, this book isn't really worth your time because you'll just be confused more than anything else.

- Kalpar

The Janus Affair, by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

Today I'm looking at the second of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences books, The Janus Affair. As you may remember in my review of Phoenix Rising I said that the book felt like a bit of a mess with a lot of plot threads that weren't explained or didn't seem to go anywhere. Unfortunately this book is also mostly a muddled mess and almost goes into the territory of crime fiction that inspired Father Roland Knox to write rules for Fair Play Mysteries. In 1928. Overall the result was fairly disappointing and I'm left thinking that the rest of the books in this series aren't worth my time.

So what exactly is the plot? The main story centers around the disappearances of prominent leaders of the suffrage movement in England. Women are disappearing in bright and mysterious flashes of light and never seen again, which is causing panic and fear among the ranks of the suffragists. Eliza Braun, being a supporter and friend of the suffragists herself, has made it her personal mission to investigate their disappearance and has brought along Archivist Wellington Books for the investigation. There are also some other plots going on but they're not terribly well developed and left so frustratingly vague that it feels like the authors just aren't really sure of what direction they want to take the series.

Let's start with the Maestro who is a very vague and mysterious figure. What we do know is that he's been behind the events of Phoenix Rising and is involved in setting the events of Janus Affair in motion. Furthermore he has an animosity for the Ministry and seeks to shut it down or otherwise control it and gain access to artifacts stored in its vaults. Beyond that we really don't know what's up with him. Who he is, what he's trying to accomplish, they're all left frustratingly vague. I get that he's kind of a shadowy, mysterious Big Bad, but I have no idea how dangerous this guy is because I don't know what he's trying to accomplish.

Among the other things left frustratingly vague are the backstories of our main characters. We get more details about Braun and Books. Books at least is fairly straightforward and we learn that his father put him through a strict training regimen to turn Books into a sort of super-soldier in some misguided attempt to create a horde of them for Britain. Braun's backstory is explained, but actually only ends up raising further questions. We're told that Braun was exiled from New Zealand by the prime minister and the event involved Kiwi suffragists, but what exactly was this horrible thing that caused Eliza to be exiled from her home country remains unknown. It's referenced but never explicitly mentioned and I almost wonder if the writers forgot to put an explanation in.

Most annoyingly for me, a majority of the book is spent on a red herring explanation for why the suffragists are disappearing. Now, red herrings are obviously a major part of mystery literature but the book spends so much time and effort on this red herring that the plot involving the actual culprits suffers as a result. I felt like the authors should have focused and developed their actual antagonists more than this red herring.

So finally, let's get to the antagonists. I'm actually being kind of spoilery here so if you'd like to avoid that skip ahead. Okay, everybody who doesn't want to see this gone? Good. So, the villains of this book are a set of identical twins from India who follow this crazy mash-up of Hinduism and Christianity and believe that women's suffrage is an offense to Kali and Christ so they've been kidnapping prominent suffragists with an electronic teleporter device. And then they want to start a holy war. I think. The reason I say I think is because Books and Braun sort of assume that the two of them want to start a holy war but the villains don't really explain why they're doing what they're doing beyond, ''God wills it.'' Now why is this villain problematic? Well it directly violates rules 5 and 10 of Father Knox's guidelines which is either a reference so obscure to be brilliant or just dumb, and unfortunately I think it falls into the latter category.

For those of you unfamiliar with the rules, #5 states that ''No Chinaman must figure in the story'' which was a critique at the time of mystery novels always having some scary and mysterious oriental villain as the bad guy. By making the villains be a pair of extremely religious Indian women, I feel like it very much falls into having the bad guy be a scary foreigner who does things because they're foreign rather than because of any real motivation. Rule #10 states ''Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.'' Now in the strictest definition of fairness, the writers did foreshadow the utility of twins earlier in the book, but it disappeared again so quickly and came back with absolutely no explanation or warning or even a suggestion that you should expect it that it feels like a clear violation of the rule.

It may be unfair for me to judge this book by a somewhat arbitrary set of rules for ''Fair Play'' murder mysteries, but I feel like there's an important point to be made. In this case, we spend so much time with no real information or guidance on who exactly the culprits are and, as I said, spend so much time on a red herring, that it feels like downright shoddy writing when the real villains are revealed. If this book was more of a satire of Victorian literature, specifically crime literature, then I might be willing to consider it an elaborate reference but I find that probability rather doubtful in all honesty.

Overall this book was a disappointment. The plot is tangled, confused, misdirected, and then so out of nowhere that it becomes just one big confusing mess. We still have no idea what the plans of the Maestro, the big bad for the series, is plotting beyond some general evilness which is frustrating. Things that should be shown or explained simply aren't, which makes the book feel much more incomplete.

- Kalpar