Etiquette and Espionage, by Gail Carriger

Title: Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2013
Length: 320 pages
Genre: YA steampunk
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: 4 stars

I was super-excited to get my hands on Ms. Carriger’s latest novel, her first foray into YA fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed her Parasol Protectorate series, and I’m so glad that she’s decided to continue on in this world even though she wrapped that series up. Etiquette & Espionage did not disappoint me.

Sophronia, a fourteen-year-old youngest daughter in the 1850s, is unusual. She climbs dumbwaiters and gets herself into terrible fixes and is generally an embarrassment to her family, a socially-aspirant gentry . Little does her mother know that when she packs Sophronia off to finishing school, she’s actually giving the girl just what she needs. Her unusual new circumstances first become apparent when she chats with Dimity, also headed to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, and her brother Pillover, destined for Bunson and Lacroix’s Boys’ Polytechnique. As Dimity chatters cheerfully about evil geniuses, covert recruits, Picklemen, and Custard Pots of Iniquity, Sophronia begins to suspect something is odd. When her carriage is attacked by flywaymen, their escort goes into unconvincing hysterics, and Sophronia has to take command of the horses and rescue them all, her suspicions are rather confirmed.

It turns out that Sophronia has landed at a school designed not only to turn her into a lady but to turn her lethal as well. Or, rather, the Academy has landed at her — for it’s a floating school, suspended from enormous balloons. A werewolf named Captain Niall (!) serves as ship-to-ground transport and teaches combat, a vampire covers history and deportment, mechanical staff patrol the hallways as prefects, the students learn poisons and manipulation alongside powders and manners, and the headmistress has no idea that any of it is going on. Sophronia begins to settle in at the Academy and into an easy friendship with Dimity, though she has more trouble with the others in her dormitory. Sidhaeg (!) is prickly and recalcitrant, Agatha a shy wallflower, Preshea a snob, and Monique is none other than their escort, demoted back to debut rank for refusing to give up the whereabouts of the mysterious “prototype” which the flywaymen were after. Sophronia and Monique do not get on at all, and their rivalry drives much of the action in the book. Sophronia also uses her climbing abilities to sneak into the restricted areas, where she makes friends with the sooties who keep the ship running, including Soap, a London-born boy of African descent (and props to Carriger for including a non-white character in an English historical novel!). Sophronia, never having seen a black person before, is startled by him at first but gets over it quickly. The two become friends, and Soap introduced her to Vieve (!), niece to Professor Beatrice Lefoux (!) and a budding inventor. As the plot progresses, Sophronia finds them tremendously useful in her various schemes and maneuvers.

I felt as though the story bobbled a bit at the end of the first act and the beginning of the second. There’s a stretch where the sense of character isn’t particularly strong. It is interesting to have a leading character who is so introverted and private, but it also damages the narrative a bit, at least for me. When the POV character is not particularly reflective or emotive, I (a consummate extrovert) find it harder to engage with her. It was hard to feel emotionally connected to Sophronia, and sometimes her actions seemed very abrupt because there had been little build-up to them. I admire that Sophronia is such a practical and plain-dealing heroine, but I could’ve used a larger window into her soul.

The other problem that I had was that when Sophronia first arrives at the floating school, she has absolutely no idea what’s going on, and no one will tell her. Maddeningly, nothing gets explained for a very long time. After a while, this starts to frustrate me as a reader — and I recognise that not everyone may feel this way. It’s a valid literary trope and one frequently used in YA, but I personally struggle with it. I hate being left totally in the dark. It tends to make me rush, hoping I’ll get to the explanation, but then I end up having to go back and re-read chapters in case I missed something. I understand delaying gratification and teasing the reader, but some information in this book gets played a little too close to the chest.

There are still a lot of questions left unanswered at the end of the book, and I’m hoping we’ll get more information on them in future installments — I want to know why this extraordinary pair of schools exists. Right now, the answer seems to be “just because.” I find that unsatisfying. What need does England have for an elite cadre of female assassins and a coterie of admittedly evil geniuses? What role in society are they fulfilling? For what purpose? If the Headmistress has no idea what’s going on, who does? Who drives this whole thing? Who founded it? For what reasons? I love Carriger’s world-building, but I wish we’d gotten just a little bit more on this front at the outset.

I did think, though, that I saw a glimmer of potential for change in the school’s directives, one that I hope we’ll see expanded in future books in the series. Right now, the school seems quite competitive, designed to set these ladies against each other. Sophronia, though, sees more benefit in bringing her cohorts together, drawing on their disparate skills to achieve a communal goal. I would like to see that theme develop further. So much popular opinion, especially when it comes to teenage girls, likes to promote their potential for cattiness, sniping, and backstabbing; I would love to see more YA fiction promoting healthier ideas on what they’re capable of.

The second half of the book improves greatly, though, as a few things do finally get explained and as more action enters the narrative in the final act. Sophronia deduces that Monique must have hidden the prototype at Sophronia’s family home while collecting her, and so she determines to retrieve it with the help of her friends (and new pet, mechanimal dog Bumbersnoot). Sophronia’s skills really get to shine here, and the sense of action and excitement is wonderful fun.

For anyone who wondered why I (!)ed a few times in this review, it’s because there are several connections in Etiquette & Espionage to the Parasol Protectorate series. This book is set some twenty-odd years before that series begins, so there’s a lot of potential for crossover cameos. Even the MacGuffin of the book, the prototype, is a component of technology that becomes crucial by the time of the Protectorate series. Carriger also takes a few moments to poke fun at the steampunk world in general, through a clique of boys at Pillover’s school, the Pistons, who sew gears to their clothing for no reason but fashion, smudge their eyes with kohl, and like to crash parties and spike the punch. It’s a good-natured and, let’s face it, well-deserved ribbing.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with Etiquette & Espionage. There were a few bumps that kept it from perfection, in my opinion, but — that’s true of the first couple Harry Potter books as well. For a first foray into YA fiction, Carriger’s done a lovely job. I absolutely devoured this first installment, and I’m excited to see where the rest of the series goes.

Fables #2: Animal Farm, by Bill Willingham

Title: Fables #2: Animal Farm
Author: Bill Willingham
Illustrators: Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha
Year of Publication: 2002-2003
Length: 128 pages
Genre: graphic novel: magical realism, fairy-tale/folklore
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 3.5 stars

I know most people prefer this volume to the first, but I diverge from popular opinion here. The concept here is quite good, but I find the execution rushed and a little lacking.

As punishment for faking her own death — and ostensibly so the sisters can spend some quality time reconnecting — Rose Red has to go with Snow White for her annual visit up to the Farm, a protected area in upstate New York where all those Fables live who cannot pass for human. This includes the menagerie of talking animals as well as sentient bits of clothing and crockery, Lilliputians, mythical creatures, and other assorted beings. Some few “passing” humans live there, as well — the Old Woman has chosen that location rather than give up living in her Shoe, for example — but by and large, the population is bestial. And their forced segregation is causing problems. Snow White arrives unexpectedly in the middle of a highly suspect meeting, where the animals are purportedly discussing the prospect of returning to their Homelands — and she discovers that Weyland Smith, who had been in charge of the Farm, has mysteriously decided to “retire” without telling anyone.

Things take a swift and sudden turn for the worse when Colin, one of the Three Little Pigs, turns up murdered. Unlike in the first volume, Willingham doesn’t play coy with the mystery here — the reader learns quickly that Goldilocks and the Three Bears are behind it. Goldi has turned into quite the reactionary, guiding the revolt of the Farm community not out of any real idealism but simply because she seems to have gotten a taste for violence. (There’s also a pretty disturbing revelation regarding the nature of her relationship with Baby Bear). She musters the troops with a bloodthirsty enthusiasm that would do any third-world dissident proud, and Snow finds herself on the run, pursued by half the predators in legend.

My favourite character in this volume is definitely Reynard the fox, suave trickster but loyal friend to Snow, who plays a vital role in tamping down the insurgency. I also enjoy that this volume introduces a concept that becomes quite important later on — that the more popular a Fable’s story is, the more resilient the character is to destruction. Some, as you can imagine, are nigh-indestructible — while others, whose stories have faded from mundie culture, have more to worry about.

Not much happens back in the city while all of this is going on, but Willingham drops a lot of tantalising hints, both about other characters and about the way the Fables community functions — again, all things that will be important later. I appreciate this for the sense of wholeness that it gives. I love world-building, and I love when all the details and side stories are well-thought-out, even if we don’t get to see them in their entirety yet.

The art is nice in this volume — full of details, especially in the crowd scenes. The violence and gore are appropriately disturbing. These are not Bowdlerized fairy tales — but a lot closer to the spirit of the original tales, to be sure. Everything has a price, and sometimes that price is blood. Fables doesn’t pull its punches in that regard.

Beauty and the Werewolf, by Mercedes Lackey

Title: Beauty and the Werewolf (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms #6)
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Year of Publication: 2011
Length: 408 pages
Genre: fantasy romance
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: 3 stars
Spoiler Warning: Armed and active, because there’s no way to discuss what I liked and disliked about this book without “giving away” the ending.

This book suffers from its predictability. And that’s a shame, because there was a lot of potential here, and I did enjoy this book — but very much in a fluffy, easy-to-digest sort of way. This book is the latest in Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdoms series, which I generally enjoy but which are far from the best fairy tale adaptations out there. She’s starting turning them into mash-ups more than just retellings, and this one smushes Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood (as though the cover didn’t give those things away). So we meet Bella (and as a sidebar: is anyone else really sick of that name for heroines? Which is a shame, because it’s a lovely name, really, but Twilight has just caused it to be so overplayed. Especially as short for Isabella. Couldn’t we get more creative? Arabella? Annabella? Orabella? Something?), the eldest daughter of a merchant, who has for years run her household, keeping her stepmother and stepsisters in line. She also periodically makes trips out into the woods to chat with “Granny”, a wisewoman who lives out there — and while coming back from one of these jaunts, she gets nipped by a werewolf. When the King’s forces find out what happened to her, they essentially kidnap her and take her to the home of Duke Sebastian — the werewolf — for a quarantine to see if she’s infected. Sebastian’s werewolf curse is a great secret, kept from the world at large, and though not only a Duke but a magician in his own right, he is looked after by his illegitimate half-brother, Eric, a woodsman and gamekeeper who patrols the forests to try and keep everyone safe from him. Ostensibly. We first meet Eric when he’s sexually assaulting women at a party in town, and then when he encounters Bella in the woods and mistakes her for a peasant girl rather than the daughter of someone of consequence, he tries to coerce her into having sex with him — and as good as says that he takes that “in trade” when he catches female poachers, in exchange for letting them off. So he’s pretty clearly a sleaze and set up from the very beginning to be the villain.

I was so hoping he wouldn’t be. If Lackey hadn’t given him those casual rapist qualities, he would’ve been a really interesting character — because he knows his trade well, and . So I kept vaguely hoping that he would turn out to be other than he seemed and that someone else would be the real villain, because it would’ve allowed him to be a much stronger character. The trouble is that… we never meet anyone else. If Eric was a red herring, there was never any indication of who he might be a red herring for, so it’s pretty clear that there are not, in fact, any other villains in the story. And the other problem is that — again, casual rapist qualities aside — he’s a much more interesting character than our theoretical male hero, Sebastian, who is pretty much just a complete milksop. As is often the case in the Five Hundred Kingdoms stories — and this has been a criticism I’ve had of the whole series — the love story seems completely slapped on. There’s really no reason for Bella to fall for him except proximity, and we don’t get any emotional depth out of either of them. They just sort of… decide to get married because of … reasons. It’s odd. These books would, on the whole, be better without the romance angle at all.

All of that said — there are things to like about this book. I didn’t find Bella as annoying as it seems some Goodreads reviewers did. I thought she actually avoided a lot of pitfalls, and if there were points that were a little too “look how unconventional a female she is!”, well, that’s often true of many of the historical romances I read as well. The very best parts of the book, in my estimation, were the ones where Bella was interacting with the invisible servants, learning to communicate with them, and learning from them. That was very clever on Lackey’s part. They’re sort of wraiths (in a ghostly way, not a Dementor way), largely stripped of memory and personality, but a few of them hold a sense of themselves as individuals, and the way they interact with Bella is a lot of fun to watch develop. I always enjoy when she thinks about magic and explains its workings in new ways. Some of Sebastian’s practices are definitely reminiscent of her Elemental Masters series as well, and it gives a little more shape to magic in the Five Hundred Kingdoms. We also see Godmother Elena back again for a cameo, which is a nice sense of continuity.

Overall, this is perfectly serviceable fluff. Not exquisite, and I’m pretty sure that The Fire Rose is a far superior version of this story from Lackey, but it was a quick and enjoyable enough read.

Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman

Title: Practical Magic
Author: Alice Hoffman
Year of Publication: 1995
Length: 317
Genre: magical realism
New or Re-Read?: re-read
Rating: 4.5 stars

This is one of those things where I love the book, and I love the movie, but they are completely different stories, and I love them in very different ways. Most people know the movie but not the book, and in a lot of ways, that’s a shame. The book is not as easy to digest. The characters are more complex and not always as likeable, but they’re very real. But that’s a lot of why I like it. I find something to empathise with in almost all of the main characters, and sometimes it’s for their flaws rather than for their virtues. Sally’s sense of justice, Gillian’s need to be adored, Antonia’s childish selfishness, Kylie’s spooky intuition. I don’t identify with any one of them entirely, but I can see some part of myself in each, and that makes the book thoroughly enjoyable.

The story: Sally and Gillian, orphaned at an early age, grow up with their aunts (or possibly great-aunts; it’s never made quite clear, but it doesn’t seem possible, age-wise, that Jet and Frances are their mother’s sister). Strange things happen all around their family, giving them a reputation for witchcraft and leading to the girls being ostracized by their peers — but the women of their town still come to the aunts for advice and help. The sisters grow up quite close, having no other options for companionship, despite how different they are; they also learn learn by negative example, watching the women who come to the aunts, crazy for love. They both end up building high walls around their hearts, though in different ways. Sally eventually does love and marry, but falls into a deep year-long depression when she’s widowed; Gillian begins using and losing men from the age of 14 on, tearing through hearts with no conscience or consequence, until a brute named Jimmy hooks her but good. Both girls end up running away from their childhood home, though it takes Sally rather longer to make the break. They don’t see each other for eighteen years, during which time Sally’s daughters grow into teenagers — nowhere near as close as she and Gillian were. Antonia is spoiled and self-centered and often quite cruel to younger, awkward Kylie.

Their lives up-end, though, when Gillian turns up unexpectedly with Jimmy dead in the car, believing she accidentally murdered him by dosing him with belladonna. She and Sally bury him beneath a lilac bush which is soon overteeming with unseasonal blooms. His malevolence bleeds from beyond the grave, putting all four women at each others’ throats until they can determine to come together to rid their lives of the influence (with a little help called in from the aunts).

The book isn’t called Practical Magic for nothing; the magic is far less overt in the book than in the movie, almost accidental in lots of ways, nothing more than folklore in others. But it definitely is still there, an undercurrent — whole sections of the book will go by that are just about life, plain and simple, and then one little thing will pop up to remind you that the Owens women are not like everyone else. But throughout it all, they are also still women — who grow, and make mistakes, and snipe at each other, and regret it.  There’s a lot in there about growing up — not just in the obvious ways, as we see both sets of sisters through the ever-tumultuous teenage years.

It was Gillian’s story, more than any other, that hit me this time around. Not that I’ve ever been as reckless as she is, but her lesson is one of recovering from damage and learning to trust. For both her and Sally, the romance is another understated theme — but an important one. Love catches them both by surprise, but when it hits them, it seems to do so like a ton of bricks. Things fall into place, despite the challenges, despite their damage, and when they do, both the women know it’s meant to be. And I find that inspiring.

Practical Magic is a great book and terribly compelling. It weaves reality in with the paranormal in a way that is so simple and elegant — no flash, no pretense, just human lives that happen to be touched by this little bit of something extra. Alice Hoffman is wonderful with creating complex, dynamic characters who are at once so special and so relatable. Highly recommended — especially if you like the movie. The book is different, as I said — less simple, less comical, with a more subdued supernatural element — but still definitely worth the try.

Timeless, by Gail Carriger

Title: Timeless (Parasol Protectorate #5)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2012
Length: 386 pages
Genre: steampunk adventure
New or Re-Read?: New!
Rating: 4.5 stars
Spoiler Warning: For the series as a whole, Changeless-forward, really

I said in my review of Heartless that the Parasol Protectorate series just keeps getting better, and Timeless did not disappoint me. I think it’s the best of the series. All of the characters are handled well, Carriger’s descriptions are both vivid and precise, and her dialogue, as always, sparkles with wit and humour. Like the rest of the series, this is steampunk with a fine froth and a sense of humour. Timeless also continues the exploration of the political ramifications of the collision of the paranormal and the scientific, delving far back into he AU’s history as well as setting the stage for its future.

Timeless jumps two years forward from Heartless, two years that have been peaceful — well, as peaceful as anything is likely to get in the Maccon household, especially considering they live in a vampire’s closet so that said vampire can serve as adoptive father to two-year-old Prudence, who happens to be a metanatural. Born from her supernatural werewolf father and preternatural Alexia, Prudence possesses the capability to absorb a supernatural’s aspect — leaving said supernatural mortal until such time as Alexia can use her preternatural abilities to cancel everything out. It certainly makes life interesting — not least for their neighbours — but all in all, things seem to be sorting themselves out.

And then Alexia gets, by way of the local vampire queen, a summons to appear with her daughter in Alexandria (yes, the one in Egypt) before Matakara, the oldest vampire living. At the same time, Sidhaeg — Conall’s multi-great-granddaughter and Alpha of his old Scottish pack — shows up, looking for her missing Beta, who had been in Egypt on a mission for her. The Beta reappears, but gets murdered before he can get more than a few words out to Alexia. So Alexia packs up her family — and the Tunstells and their acting troupe — and heads out via steamer (werewolves being notoriously poor floaters). From there, the story whirls through a sequence of mishaps, supernatural political entanglements, and strange occurrences. The action clips along at a great pace, both in Alexandria and back at home, as the Maccons abroad and the wolf pack back at home both try to sort out the mystery of the God-Breaker Plague.

The really great thing here, which started to become prominent in Blameless and Heartless, is Carriger’s ability to not forget character development admist all the action. For a lot of the book, that really shines in Biffy and Lyall, though we do get a fair bit out of Alexia and Conall as well. Biffy’s swiftly becoming my favourite character in the whole series, really, because he goes through such a transformative journey from when we meet him to the end of this book. Without giving too much away, Carriger handles the various aspects of his personality and relationship dynamics really well, with a lot of tenderness and a lot of psychological awareness. She handles the expanding cast of characters without sacrificing any emotional realism, and she jumps back and forth between the two plotlines in a way that makes sure the reader never loses sight of what’s going on.

Carriger also does a nice job weaving multicultural elements into the story. I particularly like the “Drifters”, balloon-living nomads of the North African desert. We don’t get to spend a whole lot of time with them, but you get a sense of real cultural texture nonetheless. I love the idea of this herd of balloons, linked together by nets that the women and children use for social interaction. Her descriptions of steampunk Alexandria and Upper Egypt are a great blend of imaginative and clearly well-researched, and the cast of extras that the Maccon/Tunstell party meets there adds even more colour and excitement to the series.

I also commend Carriger for her ability to portray a toddler character — a notoriously difficult challenge in writing, and one that many authors seem to avoid at all costs. I’m convinced the difficulties in writing such young characters is the reason most happy-ever-afters end at the altar, or at least with the birth. But Carriger strikes it perfectly with Prudence. She has the right size vocabulary to reflect the state where vocalisation hasn’t quite caught up to cognitive reasoning; Prudence understands more than she can express, and this does seem to frustrate her at times. She also manages to make Prudence charming without being saccharine, another admirable feat; Prudence demonstrates the right balance of adorability, manic impulse, and short attention span for a two-year-old. She’s also part of the story without overwhelming it, which I appreciate; too often when series do incorporate kids, it becomes all about them. Alexia’s attitude goes a long way towards keeping this from becoming a trite or obnoxious trope.

I’ve said throughout the series that Carriger is at her best when she’s writing for herself, with her own style, rather than emulating other genres, and in Timeless, she seems to have trusted that impulse entirely. There are no moments of narrative awkwardness, where the story feels like something else has collided into it from the outside; rather, we are treated to the continuing adventures of Alexia et al in Carriger’s own witty voice. It’s a delight. My only criticism is that the denouement ties up a little too quickly. I could’ve used a bit more exploration of the new constructs our characters find themselves in at the end of the series, about how they’re going to move forward from here on out. Ultimately, it just ended way too soon; I could have happily spent a lot more time with these characters.

Timeless is an adventure story that manages to be lighthearted and emotionally tugging at the same time. Carriger gives us characters we can care about, but without ever taking herself too seriously. The series as a whole has fantastic energy, superb wit, and a sparkle that I’ve yet to find in other steampunk literature. The Parasol Protectorate series is just plain fun. I’m tremendously sorry to say goodbye to this series, but I’m delighted that Carriger’s world will be continuing in the YA Finishing School Series and the adult Parasol Protectorate Abroad series. The former will take place some twenty-five years earlier in the AU’s history; the latter is due to feature our Prudence, all grown up and taking on the world. Both are due out in 2013, and I eagerly anticipate their arrival.

Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Title: Carpe Jugulum
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year of Publication: 1998
Length: 378 pages
Genre: fantasy / humour
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 3.75 stars

This felt appropriate to review on Halloween.

King Verence II, in a fit of naive goodwill, issues an invitation to some neighboring vampires from Uberwald to attend the christening of his newborn daughter. Trouble is, since he’s king, that means he’s basically invited the vampires into take over the whole kingdom — which they intend to do. These are modern vampires, and the Count de Magpyr has trained his wife and children not to be susceptible to the usual pitfalls. They can eat garlic, aren’t fussed by holy water, have had religious symbols as mobiles, and barely flinch when caught in the sunlight. They subdue populations, not by sheer reigns of Gothic terror, but with a bureaucratic efficiency that’s much more frightening. Agnes Nitt discovers that she has a near-unique ability to resist their hypnotic power, thanks to her increasingly-assertive alter ego, Perdita. When Granny Weatherwax, initially absent due to sulking over having not been invited to the christening (she was, and in fact the baby was named for her, but the message went mythically astray), appears to lose her first confrontation with the vampires, it’s up to Agnes/Perdita, Nanny, and Magrat (recommissioned as a mother) to rid Lancre of its latest trouble.

This is a book that I always feel like I should like better than I do. It has the right ingredients — the Lancre Witches, mythical creatures, general snarkiness — and yet something about it always falls flat for me. I suspect in some ways it’s because this book bears too many resemblances to Lords and Ladies — which I love, but I’d rather read something with new themes than a re-hashing. There are a lot of similarities: invasive paranormal force, humanity has to remember why it fought these things to begin with and not just roll over for them, Granny ends up out of commission for a while but is preserved and triumphs via her Borrowing skill, the youngest of the three (here Agnes instead of Magrat) has to pluck up the nerve to defend the kingdom, etc. Nothing’s wrong with any of it, but you do get a bit of a feeling of having been there before.

The book picks up once Granny comes out of her sulk, and then out of her coma, and spends some time wandering about with Omnian preacher Mightily Oats. The entire dynamic between Mightily Oats and the witches is pretty great, actually, largely because of how Esme’s and Gytha’s respective prejudices bounce off of milquetoasty Mightily. The Omnian church, we can believe, once enthusiastically burned whoever it disagreed with, but has lots a lot of its fire in recent decades, not least because it schisms about three times a week, and none of the sects can even agree on who they should be burning anymore. Usually-tolerant Nanny has strong feelings about the Omnians:

“But you’ve never objected to the Gloomy Brethren, Nanny. Or to the Wonderers. And the Balancing Monks come through here all the time.”

“But none of them object to me,” said Nanny.

Esme’s a bit cannier in how she deals with Mightily, who ends up helping her back to the fight (only because he needed her guidance, of course, you understand. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t be having with his association). Esme senses what the readers get to see through Mightily’s eyes as well: that, like Agnes, he suffers from always being in two minds about things. “Good Oats” wants desperately to be a devout believer… but “Bad Oats” is the name he gives to the voice that questions, that’s skeptical, that isn’t quite sure about all of the dogma and trappings.

“You strong in your faith, then?” she asked, as if she couldn’t leave things alone.

Oats sighed. “I try to be.”

“But you read a lot of books, I’m thinking. Hard to have faith, ain’t it, when you read too many books.”

The story picks up even further when the citizens of Uberwald finally steel themselves to revolt against their vampire masters (with a little inspiration from Agnes/Perdita). The re-emergence of the old Count, a classic vampire who’ll have none of this modern nonsense, is one of the best scenes in the book. Ultimately, Carpe Jugulum is enjoyable, if not particularly exhilarating. I could have done with better exploration of new paths — the only new introduction, the Nac mac Feegle, just feels out of place against the backdrop of the vampires. They serve to get Verence out of the way and… not much else. It’s a strange diversion, to say the least.

So, overall, I don’t find Carpe Jugulum to be as strong as it might’ve been. It’s still a good read, though, and Pratchett’s humour is, as ever, quite engaging. There’s a lot of lovely satire in there about the vampires, and it’s somehow even more relevant now than it was back in 1998 when Pratchett first wrote it, considering the recent surfeit of vampire fiction. If you’re looking for non-standard vampire fare, where the arrogant toffs get what’s coming to them, then I can highly recommend Carpe Jugulum.

Post Script: I apologize for the two-week dearth of reviews. I have been first at an educational residency in Shaker Heights, OH, and second helping to run the 6th Blackfriars Conference here in Staunton. Information about those events is up on the ASC’s Education Blog, if anyone is interested.

Heartless, by Gail Carriger

Title: Heartless (Parasol Protectorate #4)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2011
Length: 374 pages
Genre: steampunk paranormal mystery
New or Re-Read?: Brand new!
Rating: 4 stars and a bit of an extra twinkle
Spoiler Warning: Quite active, not just for Heartless, but for the end of Changeless up through Blameless.

This  may be my favourite of the Parasol Protectorate series thus far. The wit is sharp, the action crisp, and the plot tight, all of which make for a highly enjoyable read.

In Heartless, Alexia receives a message from a ghost indicating that someone is planning to kill the queen. Naturally, Alexia does not see her considerably advanced pregnancy as any reason not to get to the bottom of the plot — not any more than her move into Lord Akeldama’s second closet should disrupt her affairs. (Why has she taken up residence with the new vampire potentate? Well, it appears to be the way to get the Westminster Hive to stop trying to kill her and her infant-inconvenience, which was really starting to become a considerable distraction to her). Investigating the matter takes Alexia deep into the worlds and secrets of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts alike, forcing her to put brainpower and sheer stubbornness together until she uncovers all the pieces of the puzzle.

I quite liked the twists and turns in the plotline. I was able to guess enough of them to feel clever, but not so many that it felt predictable, which is really the perfect balance in a thriller. The red herrings aren’t just thrown out for the sake of being there; they lead down paths of their own, vitally important to the characters and to the overall series, even if they’re not tied to the main mystery of this book. I appreciate that, because few things are so frustrating in a story as a loose end dangling out there without payoff. We also get to see the enmeshing of supernatural politics in thorough detail, picking up some of the threads from Changeless (probably my second-favourite of the series).

This book also uses technological elements a little more deftly than previous books in the series have. On the whole, the Parasol Protectorate series is more paranormal-heavy than techno-heavy, but Heartless weaves mechanical porcupines and the increasingly fearsome inventions of Madame Lefoux more neatly into the rest of the story. They feel more integrated, less like window-dressing and more like real facets of Carriger’s alternate universe. And there’s a lot to be said for the mental image of an actress walking a mechanical porcupine on a leash down the middle of a busy London street.

What I liked best about Heartless, though, was how much we got to explore the emotions and the psychological landscapes of the various characters — Lyall, Ivy, Genevieve, Akeldama, all of them get new revelations, new layers, and new facets. Alexia’s explorations, as she attempts to get to the bottom of the threat against the queen, unveil a lot of personal history. My favourite of these is Lyall’s — he’s such a perfect Beta, and in Heartless we get to see more of just what he’s done to hold his pack together with both, er, paws. Alexia thinks of Lyall as someone who no one would remember as being part of a group, except that, because of him, the group stays together — that’s a powerful skill and an incredibly valuable person to have around. Carriger also didn’t disappoint when it came to poor Biffy, Akeldama’s former drone who had, rather unfortunately, to face eternity as a werewolf instead of a vampire as he’d intended. His struggle is poignant (although not without its touches of humour, when Biffy comes to his senses after destroying wallpaper or silk breeches), and it’s a nice exploration of some of the consequences that the supernatural set faces from their actions. These character explorations — emotionally and psychologically real and satisfying ,without ever losing the effervescent tone of the book — are some of the best bits.

Add to all of this Carriger’s usual quick wit and frothy sense of irreverence, and you’ve got a thoroughly compelling read. Some of my favourite bits are the one-liners that she slips into the narrative, casual snippets which are so absurd or so sharp that they’re laugh-out-loud funny. Carriger recently mentioned on her blog (and has apparently mentioned before, though as a newcomer to the series, I hadn’t heard it before) that each of the books in the Parasol Protectorate series has been in mimicry of a particular style. Soulless was an emulation of Austen-esque early romance novels (which explains, at least, the far-too-saccharine prose of the first book), Changeless of Gothic tales, Blameless of travel-adventure novels, and Heartless of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. And it isn’t that Carriger doesn’t do these emulations well (although in Soulless I found it more a detraction than anything) — it’s that I wish she’d just trust her own style more. Timeless, out next year, is due to be the last in the series (and, judging by the cover, an Egyptology expedition), and while I’ll be quite sad to see Alexia and all the rest go, I’ll also be hoping that Carriger’s next project will showcase her own style more, rather than these experiments with genre. As I said in my review for Soulless — she’s at her best when her wit shines through.

Overall, I recommend Heartless as strongly as the rest of the series — Alexia’s story just keeps getting better. These books are inventive, intriguing, and just plain fun. They embody a lightheartedness, a willingness not to take themselves seriously, that I think the steampunk genre can really benefit from — I’d love to see more like this, and I can’t wait to keep following Carriger’s writing, hopefully for many years to come.

Every Which Way But Dead, by Kim Harrison

Title: Every Which Way But Dead (Hollows #3)
Author: Kim Harrison
Year of Publication: 2005
Length: 501 pages
Genre: urban fantasy / magical realism
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: 3.5 stars

These books are weirdly addictive, considering that I still find the heroine too stupid to live, that I still think it would be better told in the third person than in the first, and that I like almost all of the secondary characters more than the heroine.

And yet… I tore through this. I mean, it’s not a challenging read, by any means, but it is longer than the first two in the series, and long for a MMP. And it’s engaging. The plot of Every Which Way But Dead is a lot tighter than in the first two books, and it moves along at a better pace.

In Every Which Way But Dead, Rachel has to deal with the implications of having become a demon’s familiar, in The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, in exchange for his testimony against the vampire Piscary, who was trying to kill Rachel at the time the deal was struck. Piscary now being in jail, Rachel also ends up having to deal with the fallout from that: a city-wide scramble to take over his former areas of influence. Unsurprisingly to anyone who’s been following the story thus far, Trent Kalamack is mixed up in it. There’s also a new player on the field, a Mr Saladan, an accomplished ley line witch. Thanks to this mess, the danger in this book gets amped up a bit.

The characters also all get a little more well-drawn in this book. Ivy’s fallen off the wagon and is a practicing vamp again, which is troubling but also seems to have a good effect on her temper. Jenks has a temper fit when he learns Rachel’s been keeping the secret of Trent’s species from him. Kisten turns from a vapid playboy into someone we see really struggling, hurt by Piscary’s dismissal of him in favour of Ivy, trying to hold Piscary’s business together with both hands. Trent lets Rachel in on more of her own background as well as his, and his current situation and elven politics. We also meet Ceri, the demon’s former familiar, a 1000-year-old elf, and David, a Werewolf insurance agent. As I said — the rest of the cast is intriguing and complex. It’s Rachel I find annoying and dim. My biggest problem with her is that she will full-out know something is a bad idea, will admit that it’s stupid and going to get her into trouble… and then, invariably, does it anyway.

And, I’m not afraid to admit it — I like the smut. Wish there was more of it. I will cheer the day Rachel and Trent get it on (because I simply can’t believe the series won’t end up there sooner or later), but in the meantime, Kisten’s pretty entertaining. I like him better than Nick, who runs off, unable to deal with the backlash from Rachel accidentally making him her familiar. (And are you noticing how all the plot points are the result of poor decisions or incompetence on Rachel’s part?). He always seemed like a placeholder, though; Rachel’s vague thoughts about being truly serious with him always rang pretty false.

Also, if the combined forces of Kisten and Trent can get Rachel to stop dressing like she collided with the clearance rack at Hot Topic, I will be so thrilled. I cringe every time Harrison starts describing leather pants and red halter tops. I can’t decide if she’s trying to be ironic or if we’re genuinely meant to find that cool, but either way, it’s pretty dreadful.

So, overall — I’ll probably stick with this series. It’s not a priority, but I’ll keep alternating them into my schedule so long as they keep getting better rather than backsliding. These books are Twinkies for the brain — no nutritional value, pretty empty fluff, not going to fill you up, but, y’know, tasty enough for a quick sugar fix.

Blameless by Gail Carriger

Title: Blameless (Parasol Protectorate Book #3)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2010
Length: 355 pages
Genre: steampunk paranormal romance
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: 4 stars
Spoiler Warning: Not only for Blameless but for Changeless. Do NOT read this review unless you’ve read Changeless.

Seriously. Unless you want to be spoiled for Changeless, stop reading.

Okay. (Yes, taking up space so people can scroll away).

Blameless opens just about exactly where Changeless left off, give or take a couple of weeks. With Conall in a foaming rage about her supposed infidelity, as evidenced by her supposedly impossible pregnancy, Alexia flees his house to return to the less-than-warm bosom of her family. When word gets out about her indelicate state, however, Alexia faces censure from the Queen and shame from Society. In a very short amount of time, she’s gone from overlooked to quite prominent to entirely ostracized. Fortunately, Alexia doesn’t give so much of a fig for Society; she mostly seems to find its disapproval an inconvenience (which is, incidentally, how she refers to the fetus growing inside her).

So, Alexia takes to the Continent, partly to avoid murderous vampires, partly to escape her alarmingly empty-headed family. No bets on which would prove ultimately more fatal. As in Changeless, she has a traveling party with her, but this time it’s a far more high-functioning crowd: her father’s erstwhile dogsbody Floote, clever inventor Madame Lefoux, and former Woolsey pack claviger Tunstell. They end up in Italy, land of the super-religious Templars, hoping that their religious tomes will hold some clue to the nature of preternaturals and an explanation for this unexpected pregnancy.

And they do. We learn a lot about preternaturals, both in Italy and along the way. We learn some various theories about how they interact with supernaturals, about their place in the cosmos, and we see that the Templars treat Alexia rather like an infectious plague, in fact considering her a demon (or, rather, daemon, but I have trouble spelling it that way thanks to His Dark Materials where that’s something completely different). The metaphysics here are really quite fascinating, if you like that sort of thing (which I do), and some of the Continental scientists are pretty excellent satires of Victorian-era medicine. The hysteria, the casual sexism, the bizarre theories and even more bizarre solutions — it’s a nice bit of parody. And kudos to Carriger for taking her story out of England. So much steampunk stays firmly rooted in the U.K., so it was nice to sojourn elsewhere. I wish, though, that the rest of the world felt as fleshed-out as her Britannia does. Bits of it felt rather slapdash. The Templars, particularly, feel more like an amalgamation of stereotypes than a well-thought-out alternate universe incarnation — which is strange, considering how detailed Carriger’s historical and sociological divergences usually are. The Templars come off feeling a bit villain-of-the-week, without enough nuance or veracity to make them feel like a true, tangible threat. The whole Italy plot is also awfully, well, predictable. Considering what we do know about the fanatical Templars, it comes as exactly no surprise when they stop playing nice and imprison Alexia. Likewise, I don’t know if Carriger meant for Channing’s identity to be a mystery or not, but it was pretty much clear as day — he disappears from England on some vitally important mission, and meanwhile in France and Italy, this pure white werewolf is constantly saving Alexia just in the nick of time? Not much of a shock. I could’ve done with a nice red herring there.

The best parts of this book, though, are actually back in England. I always liked Professor Lyall before, but we never saw enough of him for him to really take as a fave for me. In this book, though, he’s just magnificent. With Lord Maccon drinking himself into oblivion, Lyall has to step up to hold the Woolsey pack together with both, er, paws. I do love a good Beta. His dry wit and no-nonsense behaviour shows remarkably well in Blameless. Lyall not only has to defend against challengers and attempt to knock sense into Conall, but he also ends up investigating the disappearance of Lord Akeldama. It’s that last twist which actually leads to a fantastic subplot: the accidental transformation of Biffy, formerly a vampire drone, into a werewolf. He doesn’t get a lot of time to react to this in this book — and neither does Lord Akeldama, nor do his new packmates — but I imagine it will be a prominent subplot in Heartless, and I’m looking forward to it. Carriger’s put in a creative twist that I definitely wasn’t expecting.

Like other readers, I felt like the reconciliation between Alexia and Conall was a bit too pat. For as feisty as Alexia is, I rather expected more from her than a few half-hearted protests, a few more sniffles, and then open arms. Love can make up for a lot, but considering just how awful he was to her, I was rather hoping to see a more psychologically satisfying resolution to the conflict. As it was, it sort of felt like Carriger just needed the plot to be able to move on, so she squeezed the reconciliation in where she could crowbar it. I know that Carriger aims for light-hearted fare, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all — but there’s also nothing wrong with taking a moment to let the emotions breathe. It would be a nice contrast to the predominant frivolity.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book, as I’ve enjoyed the others in the series. It’s a quick and entertaining read. I’ve already pre-ordered Heartless, which comes out at the end of the month.

Changeless, by Gail Carriger

Title: Changeless (Parasol Protectorate, Book #2)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2010
Length: 374 pages
Genre: steampunk paranormal romance
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: a very strong 4 stars
Spoiler Warnings: The first part of this entry will be spoiler-free; however, there will be a spoiler-full portion at the end, so I can talk about the important bits that go into Blameless.

Well, Carriger did not disappoint me. Changeless is a delightful book, and while it’s not perfect, it definitely improves on Soulless. The twee elements are definitely toned down here — the narrative voice didn’t aggravate me nearly as much as in the first book. Carriger’s stopped trying to convince the reader that she can emulate Victorian styles and is letting far more of her natural wit show through, and the book is much better for it.

The plot in this book is more a true mystery. A plague of humanization has incapacitated supernaturals, first in London, then moving up the Isle and all the way into Scotland. Alexia, charged by the Queen to investigate just this sort of thing, treks northward, with a most unusual party in tow: her beyond-bratty half-sister Felicity, her feather-headed friend Ivy, an excitable actor-turned-claviger called Tunstell, and a crafty, cross-dressing French inventor, Madame Lefoux.

Can I just say? I adore Genevieve Lefoux. She’s just the sort of alternate strong female character I was hoping for throughout Soulless. She’s warmer, more affectionate, and more charming than Alexia, which makes them excellent foils for each other. I also love Carriger’s willingness to let her characters have alternate sexualities — between Akeldama and his drones and then Lefoux’s proclivities, it’s quite refreshing. Yes, Madame Lefoux doesn’t just eschew feminine frippery in favour of well-tailored male clothing, she’s also a lesbian. I find myself hoping that Genevieve will eventually get to have her way with Alexia, who does seem to get a frisson of excitement out of their interactions. Probably not likely, but still something I can hope for, and if not in canon… well, there’s always fanfic.

I love that we got to see more of werewolf dynamics in this book, and that some of the pack rules are explained in more detail. And I also do get that Alpha female I was hoping for — Sidheag is quite a treat. Irascible and prickly, yet somehow likeable at the same time. I hope we’ll see more of her in the future — I feel like there’s a decent setup there, with Conall having re-established contact with his old pack, and with her, after all, being his multi-great grand-daughter. There’s potential in her.

The plot rolls along at a good place, with some exciting twists and turns. If some of them stretch credulity a bit… well, it is paranormal fiction, so that’s probably to be expected. Carriger really has drawn the details of her world quite well, from the basic rules that her alternate universe operates under to the visuals of places, people, and things. I suspect the overly-elaborate discussions of clothing might be trying to the patience of some readers, but I, with my affection for Victoriana garb and my aspirations as a costumer, quite enjoy them.

I think my major criticism of this book is Ivy. She was frivolous but not a complete idiot in Book One, but she’s hazardously dim in Book Two. It’s a little unbelievable first that someone could be that dense, but even more than Alexia would remain friends with such a person. It went past my ability to suspend disbelief, and it really pressed my patience. She went from character to caricature, and it wasn’t becoming.

My other complaint is that I wanted more sizzle out of the sex scenes in this book. They were a little repetitive — Alexia wants to talk, Conall gets handsy, Alexia pushes him away long enough to talk, Conall eventually prevails, curtains fall over the scene. I sort of feel like Carriger didn’t quite use the irresistible passion they supposedly have for each other quite well enough. I’d love to be shown, not told of, more of the heat.

Those two complaints are pretty minor, though, and overall, Changeless excited me so much that I had to start Blameless immediately upon finishing, even though I’ve intended to be alternating between my various reading projects. Why the imperative? Well… That has to do with the emotional cliffhanger of an ending. Alexia finds herself in an awfully tight spot, and how she deals with it gets held off till the next book.

Warning: Spoilers Beyond This Point

First off, the solution to the mystery — Alexia was kind of an idiot to trust Angelique so blindly. I mean, seriously, how did she never suspect her of misdoings? For someone who’s supposed to be so practical and level-headed, she had an enormous blind spot there. I suppose that might be a commentary on Victorian class structure and the ignorance of the uppers as to the doings of their social lessers… but I somehow suspect not.

The big thing, though, that requires the spoiler warning? Alexia is in, to put this Victorian-ly, in a delicate condition. And oh.my.goodness I am so pleased with how Carriger is handling the pregnancy. Because I guessed very early on that Alexia had, somehow, gotten knocked up. And honestly, that disappointed me a little. It was so predictable, so stereotypical, such a pedestrian progression for a romance series to take. Married in book one, pregnant in book two, baby in book three. I was feeling a little let-down.

And then Conall reacted.

And this is why I was so anxious to get along to Blameless. There’s no baby yet, she’s still pregnant in the third (and, I believe, fourth) book, so Carriger’s not rollicking along to that particular point. And it isn’t happy-ever-after. It’s exactly the opposite. Conall, under the belief that werewolves can’t procreate (being, technically, dead), accuses Alexia of infidelity, and the novel ends with the two of them severely estranged. I must say, he’s kind of an idiot — I’d assumed from the beginning that, since he’s returned to humanity when she touches him, he’d likely be restored to potency as well.

So! There’s that deliciously harrowing emotional entanglement, and I’m on to Blameless, over a hundred pages in already, actually, and quite excited about it.