Review: A Little Taste of Steampunk for Your Pleasure
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2013
A Riveting Affair is an anthology of three shorter stories by Candace Haven, Patricia Elmer, and Lily Lang. Three steampunk stories! I love the quirkiness of steampunk fiction, the combination of an 19th century romance setting and weird (and super cool!), almost futuristic gadgets. The genre seems to combine all of my favorite types of stories into one thing. Love them!For this review I'll review each story individually, and then I'll conclude with my thoughts about the book as a whole. First up ...Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Lily LangThe beauty of this story is Rose, daughter of an inventor with her own sharp mind, who runs away from her sister's oppressive home to find the beast of this story, Sebastian. Sebastian is the one-time student of her father who is now horribly disfigured and the owner of a clockwork heart after being seriously injured during his time as a soldier in the Civil War. He is not only physically damaged because of the war. He is psychologically damaged as well. His fancy weapons of war were responsible for many deaths, and he is doing his best to atone for those deaths by living as unhappily and horribly as he can. Rose comes to him with her father's blueprints for a teleportation machine (how cool is that!?!), after her father's dying request that Sebastian complete the project. Sebastian is not so happy to comply with this deathbed request. After the most awkward introduction ever, he tries everything to get Rose to leave, but she won't do it. She stays. And both of their lives are changed forever.That's the basic story line. My feelings? I liked this story a lot. Sebastian was a fascinating character with a lot of damage needing repair. Rose was strong and brilliant and knew just what to say to Sebastian to help him rise out of his slump. The writing was very well done, enough so that I am interested in reading more from this author in the future. The only problem (and it really is a small one) is that the story was so good that I really wanted there to be a lot more of it. I felt like I was being rushed through all of the great story of a full length novel in only a fraction of the time. With added length I would have liked to know even more about the depth of Sebastian's character. I thought there was more to learn about Rose and her family as well. Unfortunately none of that could be explored in a short story such as this. As written I found an enjoyable short story that kept me reading to see what would happen next. In the process I got to see how love and respect can be strong enough to bring light into a world of darkness. Very nice!The Clockwork Bride by Patricia ElmerMaybe it is silly to demand realism when reading a steampunk book where servants are automatons and magical flying dirigibles take passengers across the Channel in Victorian England. Nevertheless I had a hard time with the opening actions of this story. Two supposedly educated and intelligent people who have passing knowledge of one another meet at a masquerade ball and end up in a marriage of convenience by the end of the night. Not only are they practically strangers, their fathers are serious enemies. And yet, within a few minutes of literally bumping into each other they are kissing in a private alcove and then heading off to a second masquerade where they end up married. Who does this? Really. Julian just shows up and starts kissing Aida, and before the night is over they both decide that they are super attracted to each other and have a passion to rival all passion. Why does Julian marry Aida? He wants to buck against his father's ideas and control. Why does Aida want to marry Julian? She doesn't want to end up an old maid, and apparently this must be her only chance ever. Really. Those are their reasons. I have to admit ... this irritated me. A lot.As I explained with the first story in this collection, it is hard to have an in-depth look at the characters with such a limited number of pages. Still, this story was way to much on the surface. I blinked, and Julian and Aida are already in love. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Nothing in their actions or conversations would lead me to believe that any real love was forming between the two of them. The main conflict of this story involved Julian's completely whacked out father, and even that felt flimsy as a story. I wasn't introduced enough to that character to understand why in the world he was behaving so horribly. So, unfortunately, this second story in this collection did not resonate with me. I needed more depth and connection with the two main characters. I'm not sure if a longer story would have helped or not. I just didn't care for this one.Demon Express by Candace HavensDemon Express had a very different feel than the other two stories in this collection. It had a steampunk meets western vibe, but even the steampunk aspect of the story was a little unique. Maisy is an intelligent and strong woman living in a fortified rail car as she travels the 19th century US in order to try and stop her crazy psychopath of an ex who is basically experimenting in order to genetically engineer a race of demons/vampires/lycanthropes who can serve as an army for him. This quest has brought her to Texas where she encounters Calloway, a local marshal who has the courage and stamina to keep up with her and her unusual activities. But Maisy doesn't want any help from an outsider. Calloway drives her crazy, and she doesn't want to make herself vulnerable by opening her heart to anyone. Although I have always associated steampunk stories with more robotic sorts of creatures, but this story had creatures that seemed to be more biological in nature. It was still interesting, but it just felt different.I liked this story well enough, but once again, the story was too short to accomplish all that it attempted to do. There was a romantic element between Calloway and Maisy, but it went way too quickly. There was not enough interaction between the two of them to warrant the jump to caring for each other that occurred in the pages of this story. I could understand if they were intrigued by each other. I could understand if they found each other to be super hot prospects. But nothing in their conversations helped me to see how they could be falling for one another. When I can't fall in love with the characters, it makes it hard for me to get behind the characters as they are falling in love with each other. And then the ending of this one was sooooo abrupt. There was a terrible dilemma, and it was solved in about half a paragraph. I had to go back and re-read to see if I had missed something. This was definitely a story that could have improved if it was a full length novel. I did like the characters and the world they inhabited, but the pacing of the story was too quick and the overall story was too shallow for me to feel more than mild appreciation for it.Overall I would say that this is a nice collection of steampunk stories, but I wouldn't start with this group of stories if you are a newbie to this genre. There are other great stories out there that are better examples of all the neat, quirky elements of this unique type of story. Still, if you are a fan of shorter stories, you might find this one to your liking. I am not an anthology fan generally, so this wasn't quite up my alley. Still, I do think that all three authors showed some promise, and I might be interested in seeing what they write in the future, especially if it is a full-length novel. Three stars!