Nancy D. (miz-firefly) -
When I learned that Jim Butcher was writing a new Steampunk series my brain completely skipped over the Steampunk part - heard "New Jim Butcher Series" and immediately started Salsa dancing. New Jim Butcher series, new Jim Butcher series, new....wait a minute.... there was something else in there.... something with an s.
And then the other shoe dropped. Screech, thud. Full stop.
Steampunk.
Shudder, shudder, ick.
There are some glaring exceptions; Gail Carriger, Lynn Viehl and Kate Locke each wrote Steampunk series that I enjoyed. But for the most part Steampunk and I do not get along. The mechanicals - both the frivolous and maniacal, the airships - complicated and mystifying that require loads of explanation and yet somehow never make any damn sense to me, the protocols, the incessant courtesy and above all the overwhelming proprieties that must always be observed usually take what might otherwise be an interesting story and drive me absolutely bats.
Every so often I'll give in when a friend says "But you must try this one. It's a wonderful story. You'll laugh, you'll cry. Just try it." And I usually do cry, because just like 9 out of 10 Steampunk stories it drove me crazy and now I have to kill that friend. I'll miss them terribly.
I adore Harry Blackstone Copperfield (smart-mouth) Dresden; even when he's being a big hairy Neanderthal with both feet and one of his hands in his mouth. I've been dying for Butcher to come up with a new character to carry the torch so to speak because no franchise can last forever and eventually the last Dresden files will be published and then where will I be? Harry Dresden-less that's where. No that can't happen. But can you picture a character like Harry in an alternate timeline England? I can't either.
Except now there's a new Jim Butcher series out there. Even if it is full of mechanicals and propriety it will at least be very well written propriety. And this is Jim Butcher we are talking about. He could probably make a sheet of instructions for setting up a tent sound interesting. Besides Peace Talks still doesn't have a release date. Maybe it won't kill me to check out The Aeronaut's Windlass. At least it's not YA. That's another genre I've agreed to disagree with.
So I got a copy of the Aeronaut's Windlass last week and now I have a whole new dilemma. If I read the book now and like the story it will be another two years or so (if I'm lucky) until the next one comes out. I could wait until 2 or 3 more books have been published before trying out the series. But Butcher never hits a deadline and I don't want him to start now. Deadline be damned. The book is done when it's done and not one second before. So realistically it will be a minimum of 3 years probably more like 4 or 5 years before the next two are released and what if The Cinder Spires is TOO Steampunk for me? I don't have the shelf space to hold onto books that aren't going to be read in a reasonable amount of time.
So I'll check out a few chapters just to see how it feels. Then I'll know for sure. (ya, that's the ticket)
In the first chapter (prologue actually) a young, wet behind the ears young thing Gwen (Gwendolyn) Lancaster peer of the realm and overachiever extraordinaire explains to her mother that she can't possibly go to academy as she is expected to because it will be much too boring and she has much more exciting plans. She is going to join the Spirearch's Guard and spend a year in service. It's her duty and as a peer, it's her responsibility. Besides she'll positively die if she has to sit through one more bo-ring class. Well crap, while entertaining (a large portion of the salon is rubbleized during her exit) this sounds suspiciously YA. And it is written in objective viewpoint. Something else from my list of things to avoid. I'm more a first person gal. It's more immediate and you get a better understanding of the character.
Then the story moves onto the Airship. Complicated and mysterious and not making a damn bit of sense to me as expected, but things get exciting right away so it doesn't matter that the finer points of operating an airship allude me. Captain Grim is interesting and I really want to like him and just when I'm thinking he and his airship are going to be fun to get to know the ship is crippled and.....
The perspective shifts again (this is why I prefer first person. You don't get whiplash flashing from one character to the next in first person) and we meet another wet behind the ears young Miss. Bridget has spent her entire life happily working in her family's business and desperately does not want to leave home. Well damn. Not only is the bloody book Steampunk, it's a bloody Objective Viewpoint YA Steampunk trifecta. Just shoot me now.
But she has a talking cat. Well to be fair the cat can't speak the human language. Bridget can understand and speak to him. Anyway it was the cat who convinced me to put my objective viewpoint, Steampunk, YA prejudices aside and give the story an honest evaluation. I thought Butcher was a dog guy, but he nailed the cat persona to the ground. His name is Rowl, the insufferable little guy is a hoot and there's a whole lot more of him out there. A whole society of cats that are much more than meets the eye.
The story moves into the young ones settling into their positions as Cadets (at least that's what I think they are) training to become Guardsmen. It's more about showing us how the society functions and how the hierarchy is set up, complete with plenty of prejudice and bullying. Gag me, please. It took a while to get the characterization and world building in place and the story didn't spend enough time with Captain Grim. But every time I thought about quitting Rowl convinced me to stay.
Very odd things are happening in Albion. Captain Grim gets to do some fighting and is badly wounded. We meet some very interesting new characters and then the story swings back to the young ones who are basically dealing with the fallout of being the new kids on the block. Gwen the hot-head is a wrecking ball with little to no impulse control and zero verbal brakes. Bridget is very out of her element, but has a solid understanding of the human psyche. And if certain people (Gwen) would quit helping her she'd probably be OK. God I hate YA.
Luckily for me war breaks out. Thank God! We are almost 150 pages in, I've barely gotten to know Grim - and Rowl or not; if I have to spend much more time worldbuilding and characterizing I'll probably give up. But things got exciting again and pretty much went full throttle till the end
Around page 250 I accepted the fact that I wasn't just deciding whether or not to read the thing. And before I knew it 500 or so pages had flown by and I was done. Bummer. Where's the next one?
The Aeronaut's Windlass is not the story I wanted to read. I wanted to meet a dashing new hero and have an airborne adventure. Not read an ensemble story with several key characters all with layers of complexity. Butcher's love of LARP is very evident in the staging of this book. It's a mystery, a quest, an adventure and a fair amount of fighting is done.
I had a lot of fun reading this book, but I had to bite back frustration a few times because I'm used to The Dresden Files type of structure. Chase down the bad-guys; beat the snot out of them multiple times while mouthing off and blowing stuff to flinders. This story takes a more circuitous path and has a lot more perspectives that I want to deal with.
My biggest frustration is that Grimm, the character who should be the most developed feels flat and not nearly as "whole" as he should. I like him, at least I want to. He's a great Captain; his crew loves him and he has a wry sense of humor that really resonates with me. But as a person? Idaknow? He is the archetype of what I expect from a Steampunk character, but there is no fire. I want more than glib courtesy, dogged loyalty and circumspection from Captain Grimm. He's what I'm reading the story for. There's a big juicy character under there. I need to see some of his heart. Sooner rather than later pretty please.
And then the other shoe dropped. Screech, thud. Full stop.
Steampunk.
Shudder, shudder, ick.
There are some glaring exceptions; Gail Carriger, Lynn Viehl and Kate Locke each wrote Steampunk series that I enjoyed. But for the most part Steampunk and I do not get along. The mechanicals - both the frivolous and maniacal, the airships - complicated and mystifying that require loads of explanation and yet somehow never make any damn sense to me, the protocols, the incessant courtesy and above all the overwhelming proprieties that must always be observed usually take what might otherwise be an interesting story and drive me absolutely bats.
Every so often I'll give in when a friend says "But you must try this one. It's a wonderful story. You'll laugh, you'll cry. Just try it." And I usually do cry, because just like 9 out of 10 Steampunk stories it drove me crazy and now I have to kill that friend. I'll miss them terribly.
I adore Harry Blackstone Copperfield (smart-mouth) Dresden; even when he's being a big hairy Neanderthal with both feet and one of his hands in his mouth. I've been dying for Butcher to come up with a new character to carry the torch so to speak because no franchise can last forever and eventually the last Dresden files will be published and then where will I be? Harry Dresden-less that's where. No that can't happen. But can you picture a character like Harry in an alternate timeline England? I can't either.
Except now there's a new Jim Butcher series out there. Even if it is full of mechanicals and propriety it will at least be very well written propriety. And this is Jim Butcher we are talking about. He could probably make a sheet of instructions for setting up a tent sound interesting. Besides Peace Talks still doesn't have a release date. Maybe it won't kill me to check out The Aeronaut's Windlass. At least it's not YA. That's another genre I've agreed to disagree with.
So I got a copy of the Aeronaut's Windlass last week and now I have a whole new dilemma. If I read the book now and like the story it will be another two years or so (if I'm lucky) until the next one comes out. I could wait until 2 or 3 more books have been published before trying out the series. But Butcher never hits a deadline and I don't want him to start now. Deadline be damned. The book is done when it's done and not one second before. So realistically it will be a minimum of 3 years probably more like 4 or 5 years before the next two are released and what if The Cinder Spires is TOO Steampunk for me? I don't have the shelf space to hold onto books that aren't going to be read in a reasonable amount of time.
So I'll check out a few chapters just to see how it feels. Then I'll know for sure. (ya, that's the ticket)
In the first chapter (prologue actually) a young, wet behind the ears young thing Gwen (Gwendolyn) Lancaster peer of the realm and overachiever extraordinaire explains to her mother that she can't possibly go to academy as she is expected to because it will be much too boring and she has much more exciting plans. She is going to join the Spirearch's Guard and spend a year in service. It's her duty and as a peer, it's her responsibility. Besides she'll positively die if she has to sit through one more bo-ring class. Well crap, while entertaining (a large portion of the salon is rubbleized during her exit) this sounds suspiciously YA. And it is written in objective viewpoint. Something else from my list of things to avoid. I'm more a first person gal. It's more immediate and you get a better understanding of the character.
Then the story moves onto the Airship. Complicated and mysterious and not making a damn bit of sense to me as expected, but things get exciting right away so it doesn't matter that the finer points of operating an airship allude me. Captain Grim is interesting and I really want to like him and just when I'm thinking he and his airship are going to be fun to get to know the ship is crippled and.....
The perspective shifts again (this is why I prefer first person. You don't get whiplash flashing from one character to the next in first person) and we meet another wet behind the ears young Miss. Bridget has spent her entire life happily working in her family's business and desperately does not want to leave home. Well damn. Not only is the bloody book Steampunk, it's a bloody Objective Viewpoint YA Steampunk trifecta. Just shoot me now.
But she has a talking cat. Well to be fair the cat can't speak the human language. Bridget can understand and speak to him. Anyway it was the cat who convinced me to put my objective viewpoint, Steampunk, YA prejudices aside and give the story an honest evaluation. I thought Butcher was a dog guy, but he nailed the cat persona to the ground. His name is Rowl, the insufferable little guy is a hoot and there's a whole lot more of him out there. A whole society of cats that are much more than meets the eye.
The story moves into the young ones settling into their positions as Cadets (at least that's what I think they are) training to become Guardsmen. It's more about showing us how the society functions and how the hierarchy is set up, complete with plenty of prejudice and bullying. Gag me, please. It took a while to get the characterization and world building in place and the story didn't spend enough time with Captain Grim. But every time I thought about quitting Rowl convinced me to stay.
Very odd things are happening in Albion. Captain Grim gets to do some fighting and is badly wounded. We meet some very interesting new characters and then the story swings back to the young ones who are basically dealing with the fallout of being the new kids on the block. Gwen the hot-head is a wrecking ball with little to no impulse control and zero verbal brakes. Bridget is very out of her element, but has a solid understanding of the human psyche. And if certain people (Gwen) would quit helping her she'd probably be OK. God I hate YA.
Luckily for me war breaks out. Thank God! We are almost 150 pages in, I've barely gotten to know Grim - and Rowl or not; if I have to spend much more time worldbuilding and characterizing I'll probably give up. But things got exciting again and pretty much went full throttle till the end
Around page 250 I accepted the fact that I wasn't just deciding whether or not to read the thing. And before I knew it 500 or so pages had flown by and I was done. Bummer. Where's the next one?
The Aeronaut's Windlass is not the story I wanted to read. I wanted to meet a dashing new hero and have an airborne adventure. Not read an ensemble story with several key characters all with layers of complexity. Butcher's love of LARP is very evident in the staging of this book. It's a mystery, a quest, an adventure and a fair amount of fighting is done.
I had a lot of fun reading this book, but I had to bite back frustration a few times because I'm used to The Dresden Files type of structure. Chase down the bad-guys; beat the snot out of them multiple times while mouthing off and blowing stuff to flinders. This story takes a more circuitous path and has a lot more perspectives that I want to deal with.
My biggest frustration is that Grimm, the character who should be the most developed feels flat and not nearly as "whole" as he should. I like him, at least I want to. He's a great Captain; his crew loves him and he has a wry sense of humor that really resonates with me. But as a person? Idaknow? He is the archetype of what I expect from a Steampunk character, but there is no fire. I want more than glib courtesy, dogged loyalty and circumspection from Captain Grimm. He's what I'm reading the story for. There's a big juicy character under there. I need to see some of his heart. Sooner rather than later pretty please.
