Review: A Paddlewheel Night At The Opera
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2013
Here's another low cost ($2.99) Kindle auto-recommendation that Iquite enjoyed."Beneath The Surface" is "an Emperor's Edge novella" so I useshort-story quotes for the title, but really it's quite long enoughto be a full fledged novel, or was in the era where you had 190page SF books instead of doorstops.This is the first story I've read in Buroker's "Emperor's Edge"setting, but the basic story isn't hard to figure out.  The boyemperor has been deposed and is now in hiding with a ragtag grouptrying to restore him to the throne.In the last episode our heroes apparently managed to blow up anunderwater hideout of the bad guys and are now in hiding on asteamboat heading back for the capital city with a not quiteformulated plan to restore the Emperor and institute some sort ofnew liberal constitution.The whole thing is complicated by the fact that members of the groupwhose hideout they destroyed are *also* on the boat heading for thecapital as are members of the Imperial police who know our heroesby sight.  And in the meantime, a cache of forbidden magical weaponshas been discovered in the steamship's hold, and must be destroyedbefore the rebels (who are pretty magic ignorant as are mostImperials) use them in the capital possibly killing all theinhabitants.So, OK, the stakes are pretty high, but this is a fun light heartedadventure, verging on Marxian farce at times.  The riverboat setting,and the general reluctance of the lead heroine to kill anyone leadto lots of folks being pushed over the side and swimming to shore.There's also plenty of romance developing among the loyalist groupand alarums and excursions and hiding in smokestacks.The four main characters here are the loyalist leader AmarantheLokdon whose irrpressible optimism never flags as she spins 1000-to-1plans out of the thinnest threads, sneaks pastries and woos theEmpire's deadliest asassin, Guard Sergeant Evrial Yara who is in acrisis of confidence since recent events have proved the boy emperoris not the "rightful" ruler, given that his mother cheated on theold emperor, her growing crush, the poppinjay Maldynado who isperhaps not the airhead aristocrat that he seems to be and finallySicarius the asassin (and incidentally the true father of the boyemperor) whose dry as toast personality may be softening underAmaranthe's attentions.  Despite the semi-farcial plot and execution,the chracters are appealingly drawn, and real enough that I wasrooting for them.  (Compare and contrast withhttp://www.amazon.com/review/R15M0KCV3X65GV Katie MacAlister's awful_Steamed_.  This is the sort of book that *that* should have been,modulo the fact that "Beneath The Surface" is not a romance).Things chug right along, and come to a reasonable stopping pointafter a satisfying number of leaps overboard, explosions, unlikelytrysts and feats of derring do.Definitely a fun little book, and I will be looking for the nextfull-length one.