Review: A fun read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 15, 2014
There are some clichés that show up too often in steampunk, clichés that Ms. Pape largely avoids, while still telling a good story. There are no evil robots or steam-powered ray guns here, nor submarines in the manner of Captain Nemo. As in many such books and series, one of the characters does work for a secret organization that takes care of 'special problems' for Queen Victoria, but in this case the organization is somewhat older than the steam era, dating back over a millennium to King Arthur's Round Table.  The female protagonist is not some sort of 007, nor the male lead a librarian (as is the case in at least two or three series), but rather he's an operative and she is the governess he hires to care for his wards.  Her character has depth and a real back story, which is refreshing, although he is in too many ways the baronet of a thousand romance novels.  He has an interesting and strong-willed aunt, of whom we see too little, and a group of young, gifted wards that he has taken in from the mean streets after they assisted him on a case.  In many ways, they provide a lot of the life of the story, and should have a story of their own.It's not a perfect book, of course.  Ms. Pape gave the family a devout Roman Catholic housekeeper, despite the Catholic Church being proscribed during the Victorian era.  There was no freedom of religion as we know it in England in the late 19the Century-- the Church of England was the established church, and the only allowances made for other faith groups in England was the Methodist Chapel.  A governess such as our protagonist would have been expected to be teaching the children their Anglican Catechism and Bible classes as well as mathematics, Greek and Latin, etc., and taking them to church every Sunday.  It wasn't a 'religion-optional' era by any means. [One of my bones to pick with the genre is its lack of recognition of the role of religion, particularly of the Church of England, during the period.  Unless an author is removing that major aspect of the culture as part of the plot-- just as petroleum was removed by steam from the equation in steampunk, removing the 19th Century's religiosity needs to be replaced by something. Otherwise, it's not a story about Victorians with Victorian attitudes (plus steam), but one about modern people wearing Victorian costumes.]Steampunk introduces steam into the Victorian era in a couple of different ways. The first was gives us steampunk's usual definition-- that it is an imagining of the era as though, instead of petroleum, all the inventiveness of the period had gone into perfecting the use of steam power.  There are many variations on that theme within steampunk, of course (although most include airships!). [An added variable is in the inclusion of working magic or of paranormal creatures (usually vampires, zombies or werewolves) in the Victorian era.  Adding them, of course, widens the author's, and therefore the readers', options, but takes the story further from the original aim, of trying to imagine a society with advanced steam power but little or use of petroleum for energy.  The addition of werewolves or vampires or zombies (oh my!)can be lots of fun, but it's too easy to end up with a paranormal romance with some steam tacked on, or a steampunk story with a werewolf who's really unnecessary to the plot.]The second common introduction of 'steam' to steampunk is in the (almost mandatory) sex scenes, which are a late 20th/early 21st Century erotic insert into a 19th Century story.  In reality, of course, members of 'society' during the Victorian era were remarkably sexually repressed by our standards.  No well brought up woman would have willing had sexual relations, let alone imaginative and wild sexual relations as in this book, before marriage (or more than barely tolerated it after, eyes tightly closed and thinking of England, before sending her husband back to his room down the hall.). Those men who cavorted did so with prostitutes, but did their "marital duty" with their spouses.  There's a reason we call those Victorians Victorian.That's certainly not the case in steampunk, however. And this book does 'steam', perhaps even more than is necessary for the story.  But the story is fun, with plots and subplots, dashing heroes and beautiful heroines, mysterious spells, evil vampyres, long-lost heirs, and, of course, the airships.What's not to like?