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Cwmlech Manor #1 - The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
Fourteen masters of speculative fiction, including two graphic storytellers, from Appalachia, ancient Rome, future Australia, and alternate California, create alternate universes where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
422 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2011
About the author
Kelly Link
202 books2,507 followersKelly Link is an American author best known for her short stories, which span a wide variety of genres - most notably magic realism, fantasy and horror. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 665 reviews
October 1, 2011
I haven't enjoyed a YA anthology this much since Zombies Vs. Unicorns. Picking authors who can write and have a lot of interest in the genre, as opposed to those who are popular, really paid off here. (The only exception to this assumption is the opening short story by Cassandra Clare. But I guess there was no way to avoid that as Clare is currently considered to be the shining beacon of YA steampunk and thus assigned as the main attraction in this book.)
The subtitle of the collection is An Anthology if Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, and indeed it's not a lie, this book is full of imaginative and original stories.
My vision of what "steampunk" is is pretty pedestrian and looks something like this:
+
+
For the most part, the authors cater to such "vision" and a few even manage to bend it to their purposes and create some darn good stories. Although there are some who think that using words like "engineer" or "gadget" once or twice in a story is sufficient to make it steampunk. I disagree, but what do I know?
Now to the stories themselves.
My most favorite in the collection, without contest, Dylan Horrocks's Steam Girl. It's a sweet story about a developing friendship (and maybe more) between a lonely boy and a new girl in school who calls herself Steam Girl and tells strange tales about her inventions and various steampunky interplanetary adventures. Are her stories real or imaginary?
The other shorts that caught my attention:
Libba Bray's The Last Ride of the Glory Girls - about a gang of girls who rob trains using a clockwork that stops time. This story is so good I wouldn't mind reading a whole book about the Glory Girls and their adventures.
In Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow limbless and mutilated children injured by steam-powered machines who live in an orphanage get rid of their evil master and substitute him with an automaton.
Next two stories are both ghostly and with the most feminist flare. The main character in Ysabeau S. Wilce's Hand in Glove, Constable Aurelia Etreyo, seeks both respect from her male colleagues and justice for an innocent man accused of multiple murders. The narrator of Delia Sherman's The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor, a servant girl who dreams of becoming an engineer, helps her master to find hidden treasure with some help from the resident ghost.
Calling Elizabeth Knox's Gethsemane steampunk would be a stretch. But this story about 4 strange people caught in a natural disaster is so curiously and intricately written that I am willing to forgive the deficiencies in steampunk department. I loved how life stories of the characters intertwined and transformed, rolling into one another.
The collection also has two successful post-apocalyptic pieces. In Garth Nix's Peace in Our Time and Christopher Rowe's Nowhere Fast steampunk future is, respectively, a cause and the effect of the downfall of the civilization.
The two graphic stories (Shawn Cheng's Seven Days Beset by Demons and Kathleen Jennings's Finishing School) presented in Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories while provide some diversion from prose are pretty negligible.
My least favorite stories, in the descending order of my enjoyment, are:
Kelly Link's The Summer People has absolutely nothing to do with steampunk. It's a tale about a girl's quest to rid herself of the fae folk she is bound to serve.
The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson is set in a AU Ancient Rome and involves a future-predicting machine used for revenge.
Both Cassandra Clare's Some Fortunate Future Day and Holly Black's Everything Amiable and Obliging have good ideas (the first one is about time reversing and the second - automaton-loving), but are too unpolished, unappealing in terms of writing and character development. It might be a matter of personal taste though, I have never liked anything written by either of these authors.
All in all my experience with this collection has been very pleasant. Even the weakest short stories in this anthology are very readable. I recommend.
The subtitle of the collection is An Anthology if Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, and indeed it's not a lie, this book is full of imaginative and original stories.
My vision of what "steampunk" is is pretty pedestrian and looks something like this:
+
+
For the most part, the authors cater to such "vision" and a few even manage to bend it to their purposes and create some darn good stories. Although there are some who think that using words like "engineer" or "gadget" once or twice in a story is sufficient to make it steampunk. I disagree, but what do I know?
Now to the stories themselves.
My most favorite in the collection, without contest, Dylan Horrocks's Steam Girl. It's a sweet story about a developing friendship (and maybe more) between a lonely boy and a new girl in school who calls herself Steam Girl and tells strange tales about her inventions and various steampunky interplanetary adventures. Are her stories real or imaginary?
The other shorts that caught my attention:
Libba Bray's The Last Ride of the Glory Girls - about a gang of girls who rob trains using a clockwork that stops time. This story is so good I wouldn't mind reading a whole book about the Glory Girls and their adventures.
In Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow limbless and mutilated children injured by steam-powered machines who live in an orphanage get rid of their evil master and substitute him with an automaton.
Next two stories are both ghostly and with the most feminist flare. The main character in Ysabeau S. Wilce's Hand in Glove, Constable Aurelia Etreyo, seeks both respect from her male colleagues and justice for an innocent man accused of multiple murders. The narrator of Delia Sherman's The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor, a servant girl who dreams of becoming an engineer, helps her master to find hidden treasure with some help from the resident ghost.
Calling Elizabeth Knox's Gethsemane steampunk would be a stretch. But this story about 4 strange people caught in a natural disaster is so curiously and intricately written that I am willing to forgive the deficiencies in steampunk department. I loved how life stories of the characters intertwined and transformed, rolling into one another.
The collection also has two successful post-apocalyptic pieces. In Garth Nix's Peace in Our Time and Christopher Rowe's Nowhere Fast steampunk future is, respectively, a cause and the effect of the downfall of the civilization.
The two graphic stories (Shawn Cheng's Seven Days Beset by Demons and Kathleen Jennings's Finishing School) presented in Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories while provide some diversion from prose are pretty negligible.
My least favorite stories, in the descending order of my enjoyment, are:
Kelly Link's The Summer People has absolutely nothing to do with steampunk. It's a tale about a girl's quest to rid herself of the fae folk she is bound to serve.
The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson is set in a AU Ancient Rome and involves a future-predicting machine used for revenge.
Both Cassandra Clare's Some Fortunate Future Day and Holly Black's Everything Amiable and Obliging have good ideas (the first one is about time reversing and the second - automaton-loving), but are too unpolished, unappealing in terms of writing and character development. It might be a matter of personal taste though, I have never liked anything written by either of these authors.
All in all my experience with this collection has been very pleasant. Even the weakest short stories in this anthology are very readable. I recommend.
October 15, 2022
Disappointing Overall
For a collection subtitled, “An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Tales”, this was fantastically disappointing.
The collection was uneven at best. Some of the stories were just a slog to get through.
I often liked the comics (there were several) better than the written stories.
I read this using “immersion reading” (ebook and audio at the same time).
This might be an example of bad audio readers ruining a bunch of stories.
In some cases, I couldn’t tell if the audio narrator ruined the story or the story was bad anyway.
In some cases, it was obvious that both were true.
Overall Ratings
Overall rating: 3
Overall narration: 3
Audio Narration
Audio readers for the whole book: Julia
Whelan, Arthur Morey, Sarah Coomes,
Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus
Why don’t these anthologies announce the audio
narrators for each story? Alas, many of them don’t.
I was able to guess the identity of the male narrators, as I was familiar with Arthur Morey’s voice since he reads a lot of Margaret Atwood’s material.
Morey was the only audio narrator who was consistently good. He reads steadily in his distinctive voice without histrionics, and he makes no mistakes (even reading Latin). Alas, he only read one story, the last one, which unsurprisingly was the best of the bunch.
The Individual Stories
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
4
Audio Narrator: ?
I liked this story, despite its verging on the twee.
There’s time travel in this story, and I’m a
sucker for time travel.
In a world at war (complete with airships,
automatons, etc.), Rose, an adolescent girl,
is left alone when her father goes off to battle.
She is cared for by automatons invented by her father.
There’s a garden robot, a mechanical
cook, and life sized talking dolls. The dolls were
designed by her dad to have personalities.
He’s created other inventions as well.
Then, one day, Rose’s life changes when a
wounded soldier shows up in her garden.
The naive and inexperienced Rose concocts
a romantic fantasy about him.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Audio narrator: ?
4
Another story featuring time travel via a strange
and unusual device.
There’s a lot of reflection on the nature of
time in this story.
Great story. Sort of a quasi-Western on
another planet. Our narrator Addie Jones
is a very young orphaned woman who lives on
an unnamed planet. She’s a former
“Believer” (they were a cult of religious
baptism), an employee of the Pinkerton Detective
agency, and an outlaw.
She’s great at repairing clocks, guns, and
anything mechanical. She speaks in
a backwoods twang, but she’s smart and
likeable.
She gets stuck in a bad situation. Does she
get out of it?
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Audio narration: 2. Terrible. Nearly ruined the story.
Story: 3. Almost gave this a 2, but the surprise ending redeemed it a bit
Narrator: Nico Evers-Swindell (The actor from New Zealand)
I didn’t like his plain vanilla, sing song, reading in a generic American accent like he was reading the newspaper.
Also he gives Monty a sort of cheery, lilting speech, almost Irish in accent. It was pretty inappropriate for the character, a new kid who becomes the ringleader of the orphans.
He made lots of reading errors. He pronounced Sault Sainte Marie “Sole Saint Marie” for example.
I also didn’t care for the stilted pseudo-nineteenth
century dialogue.
The tale is sort of Dickensian science fiction. Like a steampunk Oliver Twist.
It's set in a ghastly orphanage with horrible conditions, enforced by the creepy man who runs the outfit.
It could have been a great story.
Idea: great.
Execution: bad
But it had nice ending.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
No audio.
4
An adorable comic depicting a Steampunk
version of the Seven Deadly Sins. It
features an Asian artist selling his steampunk
machines depicting Guinevere and Lancelot.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Audio narrator: ?
3.5 Story
3 Narration
The narration, in a Southern drawl, is irritating me a bit.
I used to like Wilce’s writing more when I
was younger. Now her inventories like the
following seem a bit twee:
”He’s taken stealie boys and jackers, cagers and rum padders,
sweeteners and dollymops. He’s arrested mashers and moochers, B-boys
and bully rocks.“
I have mixed feelings about this story.
It’s almost a self-parody (or a parody of
Frankenstein).
Maybe it’s sort of tongue in cheek (or hand
in glove).
Anyway, it’s the story of two police:
The golden boy, gorgeous Detective Wilkins and
the ignored and abused Constable Aurelia
Etreyo, who’s obsessed with bringing
modern methods (like dusting for
fingerprints) into the backwards Califa
Police Department and despises Wilkins,
who scoffs at modern police methods.
Detective Wilkins single-handedly catches
the serial murderer that’s been terrorizing
Califa. Or does he?
The story was so outrageous at times it
strained credulity.
But the ending does wrap things up
nicely. In the end, the story worked,
in its own way.
Why oh why the unnamed audio narrator
reads this in a folksy Southern accent is
something I don’t understand. Maybe because
it’s a tall tale? (Although I think Wilce’s
Califa is a fantasy version of California or
some city there, perhaps San Francisco).
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
Audio narrator: ?
Story: 3
Audio narration: 2
Audio narration in an exaggerated, theatrical of Welsh accent. Also, the English aristo accents (RP?)
sounded really phony and exaggerated.
I’m finding the melodrama and weird accents of the audio narrators very distracting. Also, why don’t they say, “Read for you by..”?
I had to restart this 3 times because the
reader was distracting and annoying.
The story wasn’t bad. It is, as the title
indicates, a ghost story.
The narrator is Welsh teenager Tacy Goff, who
has lived near Cwmlech Manor ( which is either in Wales
or on the Welsh border) all her life and
had family and friends working there.
Tacy is a clever and feisty girl who is interested
in automata and engineering. But at the time
(it’s a steampunk version of the Victorian Age)
she’s told there would be no opportunities
like that for a blacksmith’s daughter (no
female engineers). So when she’s offered
a job as housekeeper at Cwmlech Manor,
she gratefully accepts.
The bad audio narration nearly ruined the story for
me.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
Story: 3
Narration: 3.5
The audio narration is much better here.
Instead of assuming some phony accent,
the narrator (I’m assuming it’s NZ actor
Nico Evers-Swindell again) is speaking in
his own Kiwi accent, which sounds much
more natural and unaffected. Since the
story takes place in a fictional town,
Gethsemane, on a fictional South
Pacific Island, part of the
(also fictional) Shackle Islands, the
accent is suited to the locale.
A disaster occurs in and around the town
of Gethsemane. (The religious symbolism
is a bit heavy handed: there’s Gethsemane
and the town of Cavalry, not far away.
There’s also an important character
named Mary).
The story is a bit open ended and draws
no clear conclusion.
Parts of it are affecting, parts confusing.
A more serious, less entertaining read
than some of the other stories in this anthology.
The most steampunky element of the story
is a zeppelin.
The Summer People by Kelly Link
Story: 3.5
Narration: 3.5
Fran ( and her friend Ophelia) take care of
the house of the Summer People. Who are
the Summer People anyway?
I liked this one.
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
Narration: Nico Evers-Swindell
This narrator is much better when he speaks
in his natural NZ accent.
Story 3.5
Narration 3.5
A strange story about the end of the world,
brought about by someone who hated noise.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Narration: 3
Story: 3
Preachy, dull, and heavy handed story about
federal government intervention in a
time in the future when oil, personal
automobiles, and airplanes are outlawed,
as these things have helped ruin the earth.
Finishing School: A Colonial Adventure by Kathleen Jennings
No narration.
4
A comic about an orphaned girl who built a
flying machine.
I like the comics in this book better than the written stories.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
Narration: 3.5
Story: 3.5
Narrator Nico Evers-Swindell is so much
better when he just reads in his Kiwi
accent instead of putting on a fake
accent.
A touching story about two young misfits
who live in fantasy worlds and fall in love.
I’m not always big on love stories, but
this one’s sweet.
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
Narration: 2.5
Story: 2.5
Narrator: More phony British aristo accents
(RP or “received pronunciation”).
Histrionic emphasis. Overacting.
Oh! Such melodrama!
Both narration and story are like a bad
Regency costume drama.
I’m not sure if the audio narrator ruined
the story or it was just that bad.
Nice, satisfyingly romantic ending though.
Defiant automatons in alternative Regency England.
Lots of flirtations and romance.
The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson
4
The audio narrator is Arthur Morey, whose voice I
recognize from all the Margaret Atwood work
he’s read. Finally, a competent audio reader!
Hurray!
Far and away the best story. And the best read.
In Ancient Rome, a brilliant engineer,
Marcus Furius, constructs a stochastikon, a
computing machine which calculates fate,
for rich and ambitious Crassus, who leads a
military campaign against Parthia. Crassus is
certain that, with the aid of this wonder, he
cannot lose.
Morey is an excellent reader. He reads quietly and
steadily. He is expressive without histrionics. He makes no mistakes, even reading Latin.
For a collection subtitled, “An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Tales”, this was fantastically disappointing.
The collection was uneven at best. Some of the stories were just a slog to get through.
I often liked the comics (there were several) better than the written stories.
I read this using “immersion reading” (ebook and audio at the same time).
This might be an example of bad audio readers ruining a bunch of stories.
In some cases, I couldn’t tell if the audio narrator ruined the story or the story was bad anyway.
In some cases, it was obvious that both were true.
Overall Ratings
Overall rating: 3
Overall narration: 3
Audio Narration
Audio readers for the whole book: Julia
Whelan, Arthur Morey, Sarah Coomes,
Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus
Why don’t these anthologies announce the audio
narrators for each story? Alas, many of them don’t.
I was able to guess the identity of the male narrators, as I was familiar with Arthur Morey’s voice since he reads a lot of Margaret Atwood’s material.
Morey was the only audio narrator who was consistently good. He reads steadily in his distinctive voice without histrionics, and he makes no mistakes (even reading Latin). Alas, he only read one story, the last one, which unsurprisingly was the best of the bunch.
The Individual Stories
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
4
Audio Narrator: ?
I liked this story, despite its verging on the twee.
There’s time travel in this story, and I’m a
sucker for time travel.
In a world at war (complete with airships,
automatons, etc.), Rose, an adolescent girl,
is left alone when her father goes off to battle.
She is cared for by automatons invented by her father.
There’s a garden robot, a mechanical
cook, and life sized talking dolls. The dolls were
designed by her dad to have personalities.
He’s created other inventions as well.
Then, one day, Rose’s life changes when a
wounded soldier shows up in her garden.
The naive and inexperienced Rose concocts
a romantic fantasy about him.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Audio narrator: ?
4
Another story featuring time travel via a strange
and unusual device.
There’s a lot of reflection on the nature of
time in this story.
Great story. Sort of a quasi-Western on
another planet. Our narrator Addie Jones
is a very young orphaned woman who lives on
an unnamed planet. She’s a former
“Believer” (they were a cult of religious
baptism), an employee of the Pinkerton Detective
agency, and an outlaw.
She’s great at repairing clocks, guns, and
anything mechanical. She speaks in
a backwoods twang, but she’s smart and
likeable.
She gets stuck in a bad situation. Does she
get out of it?
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Audio narration: 2. Terrible. Nearly ruined the story.
Story: 3. Almost gave this a 2, but the surprise ending redeemed it a bit
Narrator: Nico Evers-Swindell (The actor from New Zealand)
I didn’t like his plain vanilla, sing song, reading in a generic American accent like he was reading the newspaper.
Also he gives Monty a sort of cheery, lilting speech, almost Irish in accent. It was pretty inappropriate for the character, a new kid who becomes the ringleader of the orphans.
He made lots of reading errors. He pronounced Sault Sainte Marie “Sole Saint Marie” for example.
I also didn’t care for the stilted pseudo-nineteenth
century dialogue.
The tale is sort of Dickensian science fiction. Like a steampunk Oliver Twist.
It's set in a ghastly orphanage with horrible conditions, enforced by the creepy man who runs the outfit.
It could have been a great story.
Idea: great.
Execution: bad
But it had nice ending.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
No audio.
4
An adorable comic depicting a Steampunk
version of the Seven Deadly Sins. It
features an Asian artist selling his steampunk
machines depicting Guinevere and Lancelot.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Audio narrator: ?
3.5 Story
3 Narration
The narration, in a Southern drawl, is irritating me a bit.
I used to like Wilce’s writing more when I
was younger. Now her inventories like the
following seem a bit twee:
”He’s taken stealie boys and jackers, cagers and rum padders,
sweeteners and dollymops. He’s arrested mashers and moochers, B-boys
and bully rocks.“
I have mixed feelings about this story.
It’s almost a self-parody (or a parody of
Frankenstein).
Maybe it’s sort of tongue in cheek (or hand
in glove).
Anyway, it’s the story of two police:
The golden boy, gorgeous Detective Wilkins and
the ignored and abused Constable Aurelia
Etreyo, who’s obsessed with bringing
modern methods (like dusting for
fingerprints) into the backwards Califa
Police Department and despises Wilkins,
who scoffs at modern police methods.
Detective Wilkins single-handedly catches
the serial murderer that’s been terrorizing
Califa. Or does he?
The story was so outrageous at times it
strained credulity.
But the ending does wrap things up
nicely. In the end, the story worked,
in its own way.
Why oh why the unnamed audio narrator
reads this in a folksy Southern accent is
something I don’t understand. Maybe because
it’s a tall tale? (Although I think Wilce’s
Califa is a fantasy version of California or
some city there, perhaps San Francisco).
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
Audio narrator: ?
Story: 3
Audio narration: 2
Audio narration in an exaggerated, theatrical of Welsh accent. Also, the English aristo accents (RP?)
sounded really phony and exaggerated.
I’m finding the melodrama and weird accents of the audio narrators very distracting. Also, why don’t they say, “Read for you by..”?
I had to restart this 3 times because the
reader was distracting and annoying.
The story wasn’t bad. It is, as the title
indicates, a ghost story.
The narrator is Welsh teenager Tacy Goff, who
has lived near Cwmlech Manor ( which is either in Wales
or on the Welsh border) all her life and
had family and friends working there.
Tacy is a clever and feisty girl who is interested
in automata and engineering. But at the time
(it’s a steampunk version of the Victorian Age)
she’s told there would be no opportunities
like that for a blacksmith’s daughter (no
female engineers). So when she’s offered
a job as housekeeper at Cwmlech Manor,
she gratefully accepts.
The bad audio narration nearly ruined the story for
me.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
Story: 3
Narration: 3.5
The audio narration is much better here.
Instead of assuming some phony accent,
the narrator (I’m assuming it’s NZ actor
Nico Evers-Swindell again) is speaking in
his own Kiwi accent, which sounds much
more natural and unaffected. Since the
story takes place in a fictional town,
Gethsemane, on a fictional South
Pacific Island, part of the
(also fictional) Shackle Islands, the
accent is suited to the locale.
A disaster occurs in and around the town
of Gethsemane. (The religious symbolism
is a bit heavy handed: there’s Gethsemane
and the town of Cavalry, not far away.
There’s also an important character
named Mary).
The story is a bit open ended and draws
no clear conclusion.
Parts of it are affecting, parts confusing.
A more serious, less entertaining read
than some of the other stories in this anthology.
The most steampunky element of the story
is a zeppelin.
The Summer People by Kelly Link
Story: 3.5
Narration: 3.5
Fran ( and her friend Ophelia) take care of
the house of the Summer People. Who are
the Summer People anyway?
I liked this one.
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
Narration: Nico Evers-Swindell
This narrator is much better when he speaks
in his natural NZ accent.
Story 3.5
Narration 3.5
A strange story about the end of the world,
brought about by someone who hated noise.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Narration: 3
Story: 3
Preachy, dull, and heavy handed story about
federal government intervention in a
time in the future when oil, personal
automobiles, and airplanes are outlawed,
as these things have helped ruin the earth.
Finishing School: A Colonial Adventure by Kathleen Jennings
No narration.
4
A comic about an orphaned girl who built a
flying machine.
I like the comics in this book better than the written stories.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
Narration: 3.5
Story: 3.5
Narrator Nico Evers-Swindell is so much
better when he just reads in his Kiwi
accent instead of putting on a fake
accent.
A touching story about two young misfits
who live in fantasy worlds and fall in love.
I’m not always big on love stories, but
this one’s sweet.
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
Narration: 2.5
Story: 2.5
Narrator: More phony British aristo accents
(RP or “received pronunciation”).
Histrionic emphasis. Overacting.
Oh! Such melodrama!
Both narration and story are like a bad
Regency costume drama.
I’m not sure if the audio narrator ruined
the story or it was just that bad.
Nice, satisfyingly romantic ending though.
Defiant automatons in alternative Regency England.
Lots of flirtations and romance.
The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson
4
The audio narrator is Arthur Morey, whose voice I
recognize from all the Margaret Atwood work
he’s read. Finally, a competent audio reader!
Hurray!
Far and away the best story. And the best read.
In Ancient Rome, a brilliant engineer,
Marcus Furius, constructs a stochastikon, a
computing machine which calculates fate,
for rich and ambitious Crassus, who leads a
military campaign against Parthia. Crassus is
certain that, with the aid of this wonder, he
cannot lose.
Morey is an excellent reader. He reads quietly and
steadily. He is expressive without histrionics. He makes no mistakes, even reading Latin.
December 24, 2012
Short story anthologies are tough. This one is a strong three stars. Even though there were no lost causes, as I read I never thought I'd give it four. Some stories soared, but I guess not high enough or long enough.
Another thing, and it is a Catch-22, but I found myself impatiently flipping pages at times, wondering how many remained. I longed for novels, I think. I wanted the stories to draw me in faster and deep, some did, yet I was still impatient, wondering when it would end.
One last thing. Steampunk? This was a good introduction. Turns out I've read some steampunk (Philip Pullman). Even though I will read more steampunk, including some of these authors, I did tire, at times, of reading this all at once. I appreciate the effort to develop speculative fiction, fantasy, and not emulate Tolkien. I like the machines and the respect for mechanical skills, but am not entirely convinced including those things alone makes a distinct genre. Some of the stories contained more of those elements than others.
Brief, perhaps idiosyncratic and unhelpful, responses to each story:
"Some Fortunate Future Day" by Cassandra Clare: Included dirigibles. Wartime. Abandoned female lead who may amuse and/or appall. Ambiguous ending? Mostly enjoyed.
"The Last Ride of the Glory Girls" by Libba Bray: Interesting world. Strong female leads. Orphans. Rebellion. Ambiguous ending that may satisfy. Mostly enjoyed.
"Clockwork Fagin" by Cory Doctorow: Read one of his novels. Orphans. Rebellion. Murder. Mostly enjoyed.
"Seven Days Beset by Demons" by Shawn Cheng: Comic. Deadly Sins. Enjoyed.
"Hand in Glove" by Ysabeau S. Wilce: Still plan to read one of her novels. Murder. Horror. Female detective lead, mostly strong. Mostly enjoyed.
"The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor" by Delia Sherman: Mystery. Admiration for rank. Strong female lead. Mostly enjoyed.
"Gethsemane" by Elizabeth Knox: Less steampunk perhaps. Dirigibles. Technology goes very wrong. Female lead who perhaps sells out. Ambiguous ending. Witchcraft. Googled the author. Enjoyed.
"The Summer People" by Kelly Link: Also one of the editors. Less steampunk perhaps. Female lead who may be evil. Sinister. Mostly enjoyed.
"Peace in Our Time" by Garth Nix: May be too cute. Selfish old man. Okay.
"Nowhere Fast" by Christopher Rowe: Googled the author. Bicycles. Enjoyable female lead. Community. Memory. Longing. Enjoyed.
"Finishing School" by Kathleen Jennings: Comic. Harder to draw me in. Somewhat strong female leads. Less developed but it may just be me and comics.
"Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks: Googled the author. Setting seems to be our world. Steampunk elements are mainly in the a story within the story. Sensitive "loser" boy saved by "loser" girl and her story. Mostly enjoyed.
"Everything Amiable and Obliging" by Holly Black: Read a novel by this author. Strong female lead. Technology goes wrong. Slightly disturbing topic of machines and love. Enjoyed.
"The Oracle Engine" by M.T.Anderson: Strong narrative voice. Flying machines. War. Men. Revenge. Twists. Enjoyed.
I enjoyed the stories. I guess something about their execution kept me from being completely drawn in? This could easily be four stars for some/many people, I suspect. All these authors are writers to keep an eye on.
Another thing, and it is a Catch-22, but I found myself impatiently flipping pages at times, wondering how many remained. I longed for novels, I think. I wanted the stories to draw me in faster and deep, some did, yet I was still impatient, wondering when it would end.
One last thing. Steampunk? This was a good introduction. Turns out I've read some steampunk (Philip Pullman). Even though I will read more steampunk, including some of these authors, I did tire, at times, of reading this all at once. I appreciate the effort to develop speculative fiction, fantasy, and not emulate Tolkien. I like the machines and the respect for mechanical skills, but am not entirely convinced including those things alone makes a distinct genre. Some of the stories contained more of those elements than others.
Brief, perhaps idiosyncratic and unhelpful, responses to each story:
"Some Fortunate Future Day" by Cassandra Clare: Included dirigibles. Wartime. Abandoned female lead who may amuse and/or appall. Ambiguous ending? Mostly enjoyed.
"The Last Ride of the Glory Girls" by Libba Bray: Interesting world. Strong female leads. Orphans. Rebellion. Ambiguous ending that may satisfy. Mostly enjoyed.
"Clockwork Fagin" by Cory Doctorow: Read one of his novels. Orphans. Rebellion. Murder. Mostly enjoyed.
"Seven Days Beset by Demons" by Shawn Cheng: Comic. Deadly Sins. Enjoyed.
"Hand in Glove" by Ysabeau S. Wilce: Still plan to read one of her novels. Murder. Horror. Female detective lead, mostly strong. Mostly enjoyed.
"The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor" by Delia Sherman: Mystery. Admiration for rank. Strong female lead. Mostly enjoyed.
"Gethsemane" by Elizabeth Knox: Less steampunk perhaps. Dirigibles. Technology goes very wrong. Female lead who perhaps sells out. Ambiguous ending. Witchcraft. Googled the author. Enjoyed.
"The Summer People" by Kelly Link: Also one of the editors. Less steampunk perhaps. Female lead who may be evil. Sinister. Mostly enjoyed.
"Peace in Our Time" by Garth Nix: May be too cute. Selfish old man. Okay.
"Nowhere Fast" by Christopher Rowe: Googled the author. Bicycles. Enjoyable female lead. Community. Memory. Longing. Enjoyed.
"Finishing School" by Kathleen Jennings: Comic. Harder to draw me in. Somewhat strong female leads. Less developed but it may just be me and comics.
"Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks: Googled the author. Setting seems to be our world. Steampunk elements are mainly in the a story within the story. Sensitive "loser" boy saved by "loser" girl and her story. Mostly enjoyed.
"Everything Amiable and Obliging" by Holly Black: Read a novel by this author. Strong female lead. Technology goes wrong. Slightly disturbing topic of machines and love. Enjoyed.
"The Oracle Engine" by M.T.Anderson: Strong narrative voice. Flying machines. War. Men. Revenge. Twists. Enjoyed.
I enjoyed the stories. I guess something about their execution kept me from being completely drawn in? This could easily be four stars for some/many people, I suspect. All these authors are writers to keep an eye on.
December 1, 2011
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a new young adult collection edited by veteran anthologists Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. Featuring twelve conventional short stories and two graphic entries, Steampunk! showcases a wide variety of ideas and styles that fall under the steampunk umbrella. The collection is entertaining and is lent extra freshness by the variety of settings explored by the authors: none of the stories are set in Victorian London.
The book begins with “Some Fortunate Future Day” by Cassandra Clare. This is a creepy little story about a rather warped young girl who desires love but knows very little about it. The ending will leave you wondering, “How many times…”
Set in an alternate Wild West on another planet, Libba Bray’s “The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” follows a girl who goes undercover with a gang of female outlaws and finds her loyalties shifting toward them and away from the Pinkertons she works for. The narrative voice is terrific — I kept imagining the story being told by Hailee Steinfeld — and the religious cult that haunts her past is chilling.
“Clockwork Fagin” by Cory Doctorow is set in an oppressive orphanage for children maimed in factory accidents. Their keeper meets his untimely end, and the kids see a chance to seize their own destinies. The story is macabre, a bit twisted, and darkly funny, and ends in a surprisingly uplifting way.
The first of the two graphic entries is Shawn Cheng’s “Seven Days Beset by Demons.” I don’t think I quite “got” this one. I had trouble liking the protagonist, and while I enjoyed other stories in the anthology that revolved around unsympathetic characters, this one didn’t give me much to sink my teeth into except the emotional state of the protagonist. His reactions just seemed way overboard in regards to how briefly he’d known his love interest, but I’ll grant that this may have been an intentional decision related to the story’s Seven Deadly Sins theme.
Ysabeau S. Wilce offers a tale of early forensics and mad science in “Hand in Glove.” A detective struggles against her fellow officers’ reluctance to embrace newfangled methods of crime-solving as she investigates a mysterious murder spree. An enjoyable story.
“The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor” by Delia Sherman is a charming entry, a Gothic ghost story with a mechanical twist. It’s beautifully written and doesn’t go quite where you expect it to, in large part because of its spirited heroine who chafes at restrictions of both gender and class.
Elizabeth Knox’s “Gethsemane” is set in the South Pacific but is based, at least in part, on the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee in the West Indies island of Martinique. Knox follows four characters, each of whom has a story, and each of these stories is made up of a complex tangle of truth and lies. The lies start to unravel as disaster strikes Gethsemane, and the truths discovered are often tragic, but the process of learning them is satisfying for the reader.
“The Summer People” by Kelly Link is a story of fairies in Appalachia. The steampunk connection is a bit tenuous — you could remove the steampunk and still have essentially the same story — but it does provide a clever new look at why one shouldn’t take certain metals along while visiting the fairies. Even though it’s really more of a fairy story than a steampunk one, “The Summer People” is haunting; I think I’ll remember its twist and the rooms of the fairies’ house for a long time.
Garth Nix’s “Peace in Our Time” centers on an old man who at first seems doddering and innocent, but whose role in a horrific cataclysm unfolds gradually as he is interrogated by a young woman. An interesting character study.
Christopher Rowe’s “Nowhere Fast” is set in Kentucky in a post-apocalyptic future. Anti-technological beliefs have taken over, to the point of becoming repressive. Into this setting comes a young man in a device that isn’t at all exotic to us, but is shocking to the townspeople: a car. I thought this story was going somewhere darker than it actually went, but it’s a thought-provoking look at how any philosophy can be taken too far.
The second graphic entry is “Finishing School” by Kathleen Jennings. Engaging and well-drawn, “Finishing School” tells the story of a famous aviatrix’s first flight as seen through the eyes of her childhood friend, now a dentist. I enjoyed it and wished there were more of it; I wanted to see more of both women’s lives.
“Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks is set in our own time, as a teenage boy falls slowly and awkwardly in love with a geeky, outcast girl in his class. They bond over the graphic novels the girl writes, which relate the adventures of Steam Girl, an author avatar whose life is filled with planet-hopping high adventure. Meanwhile, they face bullying at school, and it also becomes evident that the Steam Girl yarns are more closely tied to their creator’s troubled real life than one might expect. “Steam Girl” is an absolutely beautiful story in which any high-school pariah — current or former — will see a little bit of him or herself. (ETA: And I want to tell Shanaia that It Gets Better for geeks too! Get thee to a SF con, girl. You'll be beating off suitors with a stick.)
Next is Holly Black’s “Everything Amiable and Obliging.” This story is set in an alternate Regency England where automata are employed as domestics and in other subservient positions. The narrator’s cousin falls in love with an automaton, and the narrator tries to scuttle the romance by proving the automaton is incapable of love. Like “Nowhere Fast,” this is a story I thought was going to go darker than it did. Black paints a disturbing scenario regarding the sentience (or not) and the free will (or not) of the robots, but ties it up in a way that seems fluffier than is warranted by the themes.
Closing out the anthology is M.T. Anderson’s “The Oracle Engine.” Anderson places his entry in an ancient Rome that never was. It’s much like the real, historical Rome — but these Romans have more advanced technology. They have flying machines, and it’s implied that they nuked Carthage. “The Oracle Engine” draws on the real-life history of the consul Crassus and uses that as the foundation for a terrific story of revenge. If you know your Greco-Roman mythology, it’s not hard to guess where this story is going, but Anderson makes the journey irresistible. (Also includes a great joke that's ostensibly about an order of male Vestals dedicated to the oracle engine, but is really a little poke at present-day computer geeks.)
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a solid anthology well worth picking up by any young adult (or not-so-young adult) reader interested in the steampunk genre. Especially satisfying were the complex characters who populate these tales and the diverse range of settings. My personal favorites were the entries by Link, Horrocks, and Anderson, but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole collection and have discovered some new authors to try.
The book begins with “Some Fortunate Future Day” by Cassandra Clare. This is a creepy little story about a rather warped young girl who desires love but knows very little about it. The ending will leave you wondering, “How many times…”
Set in an alternate Wild West on another planet, Libba Bray’s “The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” follows a girl who goes undercover with a gang of female outlaws and finds her loyalties shifting toward them and away from the Pinkertons she works for. The narrative voice is terrific — I kept imagining the story being told by Hailee Steinfeld — and the religious cult that haunts her past is chilling.
“Clockwork Fagin” by Cory Doctorow is set in an oppressive orphanage for children maimed in factory accidents. Their keeper meets his untimely end, and the kids see a chance to seize their own destinies. The story is macabre, a bit twisted, and darkly funny, and ends in a surprisingly uplifting way.
The first of the two graphic entries is Shawn Cheng’s “Seven Days Beset by Demons.” I don’t think I quite “got” this one. I had trouble liking the protagonist, and while I enjoyed other stories in the anthology that revolved around unsympathetic characters, this one didn’t give me much to sink my teeth into except the emotional state of the protagonist. His reactions just seemed way overboard in regards to how briefly he’d known his love interest, but I’ll grant that this may have been an intentional decision related to the story’s Seven Deadly Sins theme.
Ysabeau S. Wilce offers a tale of early forensics and mad science in “Hand in Glove.” A detective struggles against her fellow officers’ reluctance to embrace newfangled methods of crime-solving as she investigates a mysterious murder spree. An enjoyable story.
“The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor” by Delia Sherman is a charming entry, a Gothic ghost story with a mechanical twist. It’s beautifully written and doesn’t go quite where you expect it to, in large part because of its spirited heroine who chafes at restrictions of both gender and class.
Elizabeth Knox’s “Gethsemane” is set in the South Pacific but is based, at least in part, on the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee in the West Indies island of Martinique. Knox follows four characters, each of whom has a story, and each of these stories is made up of a complex tangle of truth and lies. The lies start to unravel as disaster strikes Gethsemane, and the truths discovered are often tragic, but the process of learning them is satisfying for the reader.
“The Summer People” by Kelly Link is a story of fairies in Appalachia. The steampunk connection is a bit tenuous — you could remove the steampunk and still have essentially the same story — but it does provide a clever new look at why one shouldn’t take certain metals along while visiting the fairies. Even though it’s really more of a fairy story than a steampunk one, “The Summer People” is haunting; I think I’ll remember its twist and the rooms of the fairies’ house for a long time.
Garth Nix’s “Peace in Our Time” centers on an old man who at first seems doddering and innocent, but whose role in a horrific cataclysm unfolds gradually as he is interrogated by a young woman. An interesting character study.
Christopher Rowe’s “Nowhere Fast” is set in Kentucky in a post-apocalyptic future. Anti-technological beliefs have taken over, to the point of becoming repressive. Into this setting comes a young man in a device that isn’t at all exotic to us, but is shocking to the townspeople: a car. I thought this story was going somewhere darker than it actually went, but it’s a thought-provoking look at how any philosophy can be taken too far.
The second graphic entry is “Finishing School” by Kathleen Jennings. Engaging and well-drawn, “Finishing School” tells the story of a famous aviatrix’s first flight as seen through the eyes of her childhood friend, now a dentist. I enjoyed it and wished there were more of it; I wanted to see more of both women’s lives.
“Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks is set in our own time, as a teenage boy falls slowly and awkwardly in love with a geeky, outcast girl in his class. They bond over the graphic novels the girl writes, which relate the adventures of Steam Girl, an author avatar whose life is filled with planet-hopping high adventure. Meanwhile, they face bullying at school, and it also becomes evident that the Steam Girl yarns are more closely tied to their creator’s troubled real life than one might expect. “Steam Girl” is an absolutely beautiful story in which any high-school pariah — current or former — will see a little bit of him or herself. (ETA: And I want to tell Shanaia that It Gets Better for geeks too! Get thee to a SF con, girl. You'll be beating off suitors with a stick.)
Next is Holly Black’s “Everything Amiable and Obliging.” This story is set in an alternate Regency England where automata are employed as domestics and in other subservient positions. The narrator’s cousin falls in love with an automaton, and the narrator tries to scuttle the romance by proving the automaton is incapable of love. Like “Nowhere Fast,” this is a story I thought was going to go darker than it did. Black paints a disturbing scenario regarding the sentience (or not) and the free will (or not) of the robots, but ties it up in a way that seems fluffier than is warranted by the themes.
Closing out the anthology is M.T. Anderson’s “The Oracle Engine.” Anderson places his entry in an ancient Rome that never was. It’s much like the real, historical Rome — but these Romans have more advanced technology. They have flying machines, and it’s implied that they nuked Carthage. “The Oracle Engine” draws on the real-life history of the consul Crassus and uses that as the foundation for a terrific story of revenge. If you know your Greco-Roman mythology, it’s not hard to guess where this story is going, but Anderson makes the journey irresistible. (Also includes a great joke that's ostensibly about an order of male Vestals dedicated to the oracle engine, but is really a little poke at present-day computer geeks.)
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a solid anthology well worth picking up by any young adult (or not-so-young adult) reader interested in the steampunk genre. Especially satisfying were the complex characters who populate these tales and the diverse range of settings. My personal favorites were the entries by Link, Horrocks, and Anderson, but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole collection and have discovered some new authors to try.
June 5, 2011
I love the idea of steampunk. I love the fashion it has inspired, and the subculture around it, and I want to love the fiction. I haven't read a whole lot of it yet, for various reasons, and what I have read hasn't always worked for me. This anthology, though - put together by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, coming out from Candlewick Press - makes me very happy indeed. It might be the fact that it is aimed at the YA market that helps it hit the mark so well. It takes the notion of steampunk and does some seriously mad things with it. There are outrageous characters, unexpected settings, and some wonderful wonderful narratives. With very little fog and few bowler hats. There are a number of outstanding stories.
I read Libba Bray's Going Bovine a while back and fell in love with it, so seeing her name in this ToC was like following the scent of chocolate. "The Last Ride of the Glory Girls" is, indeed, simply glorious. Girl outlaws, clockwork, friendship, religion, love, and a tantalising world - it's all here. Adelaide is adept at working with various clockwork contraptions and ends up working for the local law enforcement. As such she goes undercover, and... things proceed. The characters are charming (mostly); the plot unfolds at a brisk and enjoyable pace; and the few hints that Bray drops about the world make me want to email her right now and DEMAND a novel set in this place. The narrator's voice added to my delight with the story, too; Bray takes a chance on using a slang ('were' instead of 'was', etc) that could have seemed forced or unnatural, and manages to make it both consistent and lilting rather than jarring. This is a seriously good story.
Kelly Link contributes "The Summer People," and while I absolutely adore it I admit that I don't really understand its place in a steampunk anthology. There are some minor aspects that I can see tying into the theme, but they don't really seem important enough to make this story really fit the genre. Anyway - I'm not actually much of a one for hard 'n' fast genre delineation, so whatever. It's a brilliant story. Fran is left to look after herself, the house, and the family business while sick, when her dad decides to go and get right with God. She enlists the help of a former friend, Ophelia, and the two end up spending more time together than Fran had expected. Link gets a lot of interesting issues into this story. The relationship between the two girls is a complex one, based on family status and origin and expectations; Fran's relationship with her father is certainly a complex one; and there are suggestions that things in the wider world are going pear-shaped. Both Fran and Ophelia are very readable. This is another world about which I would devour a novel-version in a heartbeat.
Another story framed around the relationship of two unlikely friends is "Steam Girl." Using the story-within-a-story trope, Horrocks has the freaky new girl telling stories to the loner nerd at her new school. It's a wonderful, stunning mash of the indignities of being new and weird at school - oh, adolescent nightmare - together with a rollicking adventure worthy of Verne (there are dirigibles, and interplanetary jaunts). New girl and nerd work brilliantly, while the jock and the popular girl made me have flashbacks. Unlike the previous two stories, this one really works perfectly at this length, I think because the world itself was familiar.
"Nowhere Fast" was written by Christopher Rowe, and in reading it I had to double-check that I wasn't back reading Welcome to the Greenhouse, because its steampunk-ish-ness comes as a result of climate change and the end of oil. A stranger, a car, and a young woman questioning her upbringing all illuminate a world where treading lightly on the earth is the paramount virtue. There are interesting familial relationship at play here, as well as friendships, and a sly comment on local vs national power structures, too.
Finally, the anthology finishes with "Oracle Engine," by MT Anderson. Over the last few years I've had discussions with a fellow Roman-history-fan about the lack of 'Romanpunk' in our lives. Of course, she has since written a collection of short stories with that very title... and Anderson's story fits into that as-yet-uncluttered subgenre. It's based on true Roman events - those surrounding Crassus, richest man in Rome, and his rivalry with Pompey and Caesar; Anderson makes it fit the theme by making this a Rome like the alternate histories of Cherie Priest, Richard Harland or Scott Westerfeld's efforts in steampunkland. Also, he adds an oracle engine (duh, hence the title), and that's just cool. Plus Minervan Virgins, sly Roman jokes, and a style reminiscent of Roman historians. A worthy end to the anthology indeed.
June 6, 2018
Една доста забавна антология. Повечето разкази са успели да хванат викторианския дух на стиймпънка, а в онези, които не са успели има доста идейни неща.
“Some Fortunate Future Day” на Cassandra Clare е тъжно-красива история за влюбено момиче, попаднало под ударите на войната. Има и доста приятна заигравка с времевата фантастика. Само парните елементи бяха малко насилени вътре.
“The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” на Libba Bray е един от онези трогателни опити за съпоставяне на все още дивата Северна Америка с Британия през викторианската епоха. Съответно имаме група непълнолетни престъпнички и съответните преследващи ги пинкертоновци. Историята , обаче е доста забавна и с изненадващ финал.
“Clockwork Fagin” на Cory Doctorow е брутално добър разказ стил Дикенс, но в алтернативна вселена, където има огромни часовникови и парни механизми. В едно сиропиталище за деца получили инвалидност, заради работа из разни отвратителни фабрики идва ново хлапе и ситуацията с деспотичния директор коренно се променя.
“Seven Days Beset by Demons.” на Shawn Cheng е изключително грозен и безсмислен комикс.
“Hand in Glove.” на Ysabeau S. Wilce е полицейска история с феминистични нотки, която има доста малко общо със стиймпънка. Като цяло вървеше добре, но се пооака на развръзката.
“The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor” на Delia Sherman е призрачна история с парапънк елементи. Прилична, но отново със засран финал.
“Gethsemane” на Elizabeth Knox е първата от двете истории, стъпили на действителни събития. В случая изригването на Мон Пеле и унищожението на Сен Пиер през 1902. Историята е доста прилично навързана, но можеше доста по-добре да се вкарат фантастичните елементи, някой друг дирижабъл, просто не върши работа.
“The Summer People” на Kelly Link е второто най-добро нещо в сборника. Изключително бредбъров разказ с откачените нотки на Кели в него. Стиймпънка е едва забелязващ се, но Кели Линк обича да изкривява темите в подобни антологии.
“Peace in Our Time” на Garth Nix е добра фантастика с непредвидим финал и доста материал за размисъл. Хареса ми, но ми стоеше леко недовършена, умишлено може би.
“Nowhere Fast” на Christopher Rowe е забавен утопичен експеримент за свят в който технологията е подтискана, поради екологични подбуди. Едно хлапе с ръчно сглобена парна машина обикаля по комунални поселища и навсякъде го приемат с доста резерви.
“Finishing School” на Kathleen Jennings поне е по-симпатично нарисуван от предходния комикс, а има и идея, която не е плоска като земята :P. Все пак, не виждам смисъл от комиксчета тип последна страница на вестник в тези антологии (в някой от Bordrland-ите пак имаше такива простотии).
“Steam Girl” на Dylan Horrocks няма много общо със стиймпънка като поджанр, но е чудесна приключенска фантастика в духа на пълп списанията от 30-те и 40-те. На всичкото отгоре има и много сладка история за първата любов.
“Everything Amiable and Obliging.” на Holly Black вече си пасва на мястото в сборника. Ей това е стиймпънк, с атмосфера, цел и движещ действието допуск. Една благородничка се влюбва в аутоматона си за танци, а той изненадващо отговаря на чувствата и. Когато роднините се опитват да прекратят романса им, цялата механизирана къща се вдига на бунт.
“The Oracle Engine.” на M.T. Anderson завършва антологията и направо отвява. Исторически достоверната история на Марк Крас, подплътена с доволно много парни машини, летящи бойни флотилии и един примитивен компютър, който предсказва бъдещето. Разкош.
Приятно четиво, но малко ни се разминаха представите за жанра с тези на съставителя. Все пак имаше доста добри попадения.
“Some Fortunate Future Day” на Cassandra Clare е тъжно-красива история за влюбено момиче, попаднало под ударите на войната. Има и доста приятна заигравка с времевата фантастика. Само парните елементи бяха малко насилени вътре.
“The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” на Libba Bray е един от онези трогателни опити за съпоставяне на все още дивата Северна Америка с Британия през викторианската епоха. Съответно имаме група непълнолетни престъпнички и съответните преследващи ги пинкертоновци. Историята , обаче е доста забавна и с изненадващ финал.
“Clockwork Fagin” на Cory Doctorow е брутално добър разказ стил Дикенс, но в алтернативна вселена, където има огромни часовникови и парни механизми. В едно сиропиталище за деца получили инвалидност, заради работа из разни отвратителни фабрики идва ново хлапе и ситуацията с деспотичния директор коренно се променя.
“Seven Days Beset by Demons.” на Shawn Cheng е изключително грозен и безсмислен комикс.
“Hand in Glove.” на Ysabeau S. Wilce е полицейска история с феминистични нотки, която има доста малко общо със стиймпънка. Като цяло вървеше добре, но се пооака на развръзката.
“The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor” на Delia Sherman е призрачна история с парапънк елементи. Прилична, но отново със засран финал.
“Gethsemane” на Elizabeth Knox е първата от двете истории, стъпили на действителни събития. В случая изригването на Мон Пеле и унищожението на Сен Пиер през 1902. Историята е доста прилично навързана, но можеше доста по-добре да се вкарат фантастичните елементи, някой друг дирижабъл, просто не върши работа.
“The Summer People” на Kelly Link е второто най-добро нещо в сборника. Изключително бредбъров разказ с откачените нотки на Кели в него. Стиймпънка е едва забелязващ се, но Кели Линк обича да изкривява темите в подобни антологии.
“Peace in Our Time” на Garth Nix е добра фантастика с непредвидим финал и доста материал за размисъл. Хареса ми, но ми стоеше леко недовършена, умишлено може би.
“Nowhere Fast” на Christopher Rowe е забавен утопичен експеримент за свят в който технологията е подтискана, поради екологични подбуди. Едно хлапе с ръчно сглобена парна машина обикаля по комунални поселища и навсякъде го приемат с доста резерви.
“Finishing School” на Kathleen Jennings поне е по-симпатично нарисуван от предходния комикс, а има и идея, която не е плоска като земята :P. Все пак, не виждам смисъл от комиксчета тип последна страница на вестник в тези антологии (в някой от Bordrland-ите пак имаше такива простотии).
“Steam Girl” на Dylan Horrocks няма много общо със стиймпънка като поджанр, но е чудесна приключенска фантастика в духа на пълп списанията от 30-те и 40-те. На всичкото отгоре има и много сладка история за първата любов.
“Everything Amiable and Obliging.” на Holly Black вече си пасва на мястото в сборника. Ей това е стиймпънк, с атмосфера, цел и движещ действието допуск. Една благородничка се влюбва в аутоматона си за танци, а той изненадващо отговаря на чувствата и. Когато роднините се опитват да прекратят романса им, цялата механизирана къща се вдига на бунт.
“The Oracle Engine.” на M.T. Anderson завършва антологията и направо отвява. Исторически достоверната история на Марк Крас, подплътена с доволно много парни машини, летящи бойни флотилии и един примитивен компютър, който предсказва бъдещето. Разкош.
Приятно четиво, но малко ни се разминаха представите за жанра с тези на съставителя. Все пак имаше доста добри попадения.
March 2, 2012
Overall, a quality collection. There's at least five stories I really really liked and none I'd call anything worse than mediocre. My favourites are starred.
Some Fortunate Days by Cassandra Clare: In retrospect it's probably a good thing this was the first story of the collection. It's not terrible but the next couple stories hit it out of the park and there's no way this wouldn't have felt like a disappointment if I'd read it after Libba Bray or Cory Doctorow's story. I also think she took the least interesting route she possibly could have with the ending: The setting was weakly delineated too; the next couple entries have a much stronger sense of place. 3 stars
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray*: Talented mechanic out of an isolated religious community meets Australian girl gang? Criminal adventures and bonus meditations on the nature of time? Characters and setting described well enough to seem fascinating and individual despite the confines of a thirty page word count? Yes please. I'd pay to read an entire novel of this. 5 stars
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow*: Charles Dickens-esque take on an orphanage for children injured at work in Canada. Again, I'd happily read an expanded version of this. 4.5 stars
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng: Kind of a downer coming after two such quality tales. Very slight too, I could take or leave it. 3 stars
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce*: Detective work and the scientific method. It's a bit of a stretch to call this one steampunk but I liked the . Great character voice too. 4 stars
The Ghost of Gwemlach Manor by Delia Sherman: Can't think of much to say but I did like it. Ghost story featuring automatons and a sensible mechanic's daughter hired to work as a housekeeper for an inventor. I liked the friendship between the protaganist and the titular ghost. 4 stars
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox: Makes no effort to be steampunk whatsoever. Suffered from the short story format; there's several stories in this collection I liked enough to want to read as a novel but this one needed to be one. Would have worked much better with space to expand on the characters and their relationships. 3.5 stars
The Summer People by Kelly Link: Also makes no effort to fit the steampunk theme of the collection. Story of a girl freeing herself from her role as a faery housekeeper, not terribly engaging. Liked the sense of place though. 3 stars
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix: Meh. 2.5 stars
Nowhere Fast by Christoper Rowe: Interesting take on technological progress versus environmental concerns. Satisfied with what I got, I wouldn't want a book of this but I liked the story. 3.5 stars
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings: An orthodontist reminiscences about the time her friend Gwendoline built a flying machine at their boarding school. Okay but now I want to read about the adventures of the legendary Gwendoline Bryne. This would make a great introductory chapter to a series. 4 stars
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks: Sweet story about the developing relationship between a loner boy and the new girl who tells him stories about her adventures as an interplanetary adventurer and inventor. 4 stars
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black*: Questions of humanity and power relations in love wrapped in an upstairs/downstairs romance package. Holly Black consistently writes short stories I enjoy, this was no exception. 4.5 stars
Oracle Engine by M. T. Anderson*: Alternate history based on a true Roman story with a steampunk twist. The world building is excellent, I was caught up right away. Has an ending you're likely to see coming – particularly if you're familiar with Roman history – but like most stories that deal with fate and revenge, that's kind of the point. Great ending to the anthology. 5 stars
Excellent collection. I'm especially impressed with the effort to take steampunk out of the standard Victorian London setting: the stories range across Canada, Rome, Wales, and the southern United States. It spans time as well: there's historical, contemporary, and futuristic settings. I even got a couple new authors to keep an eye from this, I'll be looking out for more from Dylan Horrocks and M. T Anderson in the future. 4 stars
Some Fortunate Days by Cassandra Clare: In retrospect it's probably a good thing this was the first story of the collection. It's not terrible but the next couple stories hit it out of the park and there's no way this wouldn't have felt like a disappointment if I'd read it after Libba Bray or Cory Doctorow's story. I also think she took the least interesting route she possibly could have with the ending: The setting was weakly delineated too; the next couple entries have a much stronger sense of place. 3 stars
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray*: Talented mechanic out of an isolated religious community meets Australian girl gang? Criminal adventures and bonus meditations on the nature of time? Characters and setting described well enough to seem fascinating and individual despite the confines of a thirty page word count? Yes please. I'd pay to read an entire novel of this. 5 stars
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow*: Charles Dickens-esque take on an orphanage for children injured at work in Canada. Again, I'd happily read an expanded version of this. 4.5 stars
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng: Kind of a downer coming after two such quality tales. Very slight too, I could take or leave it. 3 stars
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce*: Detective work and the scientific method. It's a bit of a stretch to call this one steampunk but I liked the . Great character voice too. 4 stars
The Ghost of Gwemlach Manor by Delia Sherman: Can't think of much to say but I did like it. Ghost story featuring automatons and a sensible mechanic's daughter hired to work as a housekeeper for an inventor. I liked the friendship between the protaganist and the titular ghost. 4 stars
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox: Makes no effort to be steampunk whatsoever. Suffered from the short story format; there's several stories in this collection I liked enough to want to read as a novel but this one needed to be one. Would have worked much better with space to expand on the characters and their relationships. 3.5 stars
The Summer People by Kelly Link: Also makes no effort to fit the steampunk theme of the collection. Story of a girl freeing herself from her role as a faery housekeeper, not terribly engaging. Liked the sense of place though. 3 stars
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix: Meh. 2.5 stars
Nowhere Fast by Christoper Rowe: Interesting take on technological progress versus environmental concerns. Satisfied with what I got, I wouldn't want a book of this but I liked the story. 3.5 stars
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings: An orthodontist reminiscences about the time her friend Gwendoline built a flying machine at their boarding school. Okay but now I want to read about the adventures of the legendary Gwendoline Bryne. This would make a great introductory chapter to a series. 4 stars
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks: Sweet story about the developing relationship between a loner boy and the new girl who tells him stories about her adventures as an interplanetary adventurer and inventor. 4 stars
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black*: Questions of humanity and power relations in love wrapped in an upstairs/downstairs romance package. Holly Black consistently writes short stories I enjoy, this was no exception. 4.5 stars
Oracle Engine by M. T. Anderson*: Alternate history based on a true Roman story with a steampunk twist. The world building is excellent, I was caught up right away. Has an ending you're likely to see coming – particularly if you're familiar with Roman history – but like most stories that deal with fate and revenge, that's kind of the point. Great ending to the anthology. 5 stars
Excellent collection. I'm especially impressed with the effort to take steampunk out of the standard Victorian London setting: the stories range across Canada, Rome, Wales, and the southern United States. It spans time as well: there's historical, contemporary, and futuristic settings. I even got a couple new authors to keep an eye from this, I'll be looking out for more from Dylan Horrocks and M. T Anderson in the future. 4 stars
July 7, 2012
Overall, a solid compilation. A couple of stories weren’t steampunkish enough (Link’s) and/or compelling (Knox’s). Even Garth Nix’s entry was just a short shaggy dog story, as it were, though the punch line did make you think. But there were far more excellent tales than not. Clare, Bray, Doctorow, Rowe, and Black kept true to the theme and turned out enjoyable and imaginative stories. “The Oracle Engine,” with its basis in Roman history, was interesting for a while, but it soon became obvious what was going to happen. (Though if you haven’t read anything about the Greek oracles and how their predictions were misinterpreted – most famously, the “wooden wall” of Athens – then the resolution might be a surprise.) “Hand in Glove,” Wilce’s detective story, was a blast to read; I longed for it to be a novel or a series of stories à la Sherlock Holmes. Sherman’s ghost story was somewhat predictable yet captivating nonetheless. But my favorite by far was Dylan Horrock’s “Steam Girl,” with its two likable, equally interesting characters, and a plot that keeps you enthralled and as off-balance as the narrator. It’s a superb work, and one that could have been the title story in the collection (i.e., Steam Girl and Other Steampunk Stories).
The best thing about Steampunk! is that the editors made good on their promise to explore and expand what steampunk means, giving us a set of stories that avoids repetition of setting, plot, or character. Here’s hoping they do Steampunk! II.
The best thing about Steampunk! is that the editors made good on their promise to explore and expand what steampunk means, giving us a set of stories that avoids repetition of setting, plot, or character. Here’s hoping they do Steampunk! II.
September 13, 2011
I only read the Cory Doctorow story 'Clockwork Fagin', as I picked up a free preview copy of the story on my Kindle. Doctorow proves with his story that he does steampunk just as well as he does cyberpunk. It was definitely good enough to make me consider buying the entire anthology.
December 3, 2019
2.82142857143 / 2.5
I don't normally go for Steampunk, and it may have come out in the ratings. The authors I read this for greatly let me down. The entire anthology let me down a fair bit and it saddened me, and also took me way. to. long. to read. It was just generally tiring.
Some Fortunate Future Day - Cassandra Clare // ★★
This was relatively creepy. Like this girl is living in her house alone with just clockwork creatures to keep her company, and this boy fighting in a war lands in her garden, so she concocts this idea in her head that they will fall in love and get married. So there's insta-love. And we don't Rose's age, which is creepy. And there's time travel. I just didn't like this.
TW// talk of alcoholism, previous loss of loved one, death of pet, death, war themes
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls - Libba Bray // ★★★
A girl goes undercover to work out exactly how a girl gang are pulling off remarkably impossible robberies. They steal from rich people by pausing time with a device. So the girl get's pulled in deeper and deeper, and I would definitely like to think there is some homoerotic subtext in there.
TW// weight comments, violence, previous loss of loved ones, talk of prostitution, sexual harassment
Clockwork Fagin - Cory Doctorow // ★★★★
One day this boy comes along to a home for children who have become disabled via workplace accident. Once he takes charge they start to build a mechanical guardian to fool the supervisors. This is all about found family and it's great! It's definitely one of the better ones
TW// talk of suicide, previous loss of loved one, talk of alcoholism, whipping, death, abuse
Seven Days Beset By Demons - Shawn Cheng // ★★.5
This is a cartoon about the seven deadly sins. I don't really know what to think about this. The art was kind of basic(says the person with no artistic talent)
TW// alcohol consumption
Hand in Glove - Ysabeau S. Wilce // ★★.5
Either swear. Or don't. This is a literal pet peeve of mine. Swear. Or don't. Don't use the words frack or something. I don't care. Just don't. This has sexism as a main theme which was interesting, and it wasn't solved. Like that was the reason no one was listening to her. You can't start with that topic, and not resolve it or look at it head on. It's basically Frankenstein's monster, and it combines magic + science, with necromancy which is cool
TW// death, sexism
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor - Delia Sherman // ★★★★
Set in Wales, with an aristocrat ghost, the lost descendant, a girl housekeeper and a mechanical kitchen maid with that great old mansion aesthetic
TW// death, previous loss of loved one, violence
Gethsemane - Elizabeth Knox // ★★
This is very complicated and I couldn't keep track. On one hand this is about human relationships and human interactions, but also there was a geyser which explodes. I think this also might be set in New Zealand, because she’s a NZ author, but also I swear at some point they use the words ‘European Snow’. So maybe not.
TW// death, loss of loved one, violence, alcohol consumption, use of the word w*tch, slavery
The Summer People - Kelly Link // ★★★.5
TW// talk of alcohol consumption, talk of alcoholism, previous loss of loved one, use of the word 'lez'
Peace In Our Time - Garth Nix // ★★.5
This has an old man living in seclusion, and an assassin/interrogator coming to his house and throughout the short, we find out why he’s living alone, where everyone went, and generally just about how terribly having the codes to world damaging war weapons in the hands of a few powerful people.
TW// death, war themes, portrayal of mental illness (probably dementia or Alzheimer's)
Nowhere Fast - Christopher Rowe // ★★★
This is a rural town that lives with minimal contact with other towns because there are no cars because 2 generations back there was a major war, where they fought for a better, cleaner Earth. Now, a guy has come to town in a self-made car. This is disturbingly similar to what could possibly happen at some point in the near future.(Which is maybe the point of Steampunk as a genre)
TW// war themes, violence
Finishing School - Kathleen Jennings // ★
THis was a cartoon set at a finishing school with colonialism at the heart and a lot of homoerotic subtext. So. Your looking at that 1 Star aren’t you. It just. was really bad. Like I didn’t like the art style which feels mean, but. And the plot was super. confusing. And a lot happened that was really confusing.
TW// previous loss of loved one
Steam Girl - Dylan Horrocks // ★★★.5
This questions reality, what’s real and what’s not. A new girl comes to school, and she’s kind of weird. She always wears a helmet, and that’s enough for her to be bullied. But when the main character who’s name I don’t remember, befriends her, he gets bullied as well. They bond over a comic the girl has written. It’s really good and super sad.
TW// fatphobia, talk of school shooting, use of the word freak, talk of drug usage, bullying, talk of sexual harassment
Everything Amiable Obliging - Holly Black // ★★.5
*with tears in my eyes* Holly Black, why did you write about some of my least favourite tropes? Incest, bot/human relationships. I’m very sad. I wrote aroace, so maybe it wasn’t all bad? But I don’t think there was an aroace character so very confused. There was also talk of sexbots which may be my inner asexual but. ew. They exist in real life, I don’t need them in an anthology written in,,, 2011? Oh. They may not have existed… Still! Everything about this wasn’t good, but it was written well so? 2 Stars.(I don’t want to give anything by Holly Black less than 2 Stars)
TW// previous loss of loved one, talk of gambling, talk of prostitution
The Oracle Engine - M. T. Anderson ★★★.5
This was Rome, and Steampunk, so obviously Clockwork Oracle and classic Roman betrayals etc. I liked this. With tragedy and deaths and just classic Roman stuff.
TW// loss of loved one, financial struggles, death, incest
This anthology was fine. Nothing particularly special and no 5 Stars? But I would recommend Steam Girl, The Summer People, The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor, and Clockwork Fagin!
----------
I am sad. Holly Black *sniffs* let me down. RTC.
I don't normally go for Steampunk, and it may have come out in the ratings. The authors I read this for greatly let me down. The entire anthology let me down a fair bit and it saddened me, and also took me way. to. long. to read. It was just generally tiring.
Some Fortunate Future Day - Cassandra Clare // ★★
This was relatively creepy. Like this girl is living in her house alone with just clockwork creatures to keep her company, and this boy fighting in a war lands in her garden, so she concocts this idea in her head that they will fall in love and get married. So there's insta-love. And we don't Rose's age, which is creepy. And there's time travel. I just didn't like this.
TW// talk of alcoholism, previous loss of loved one, death of pet, death, war themes
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls - Libba Bray // ★★★
A girl goes undercover to work out exactly how a girl gang are pulling off remarkably impossible robberies. They steal from rich people by pausing time with a device. So the girl get's pulled in deeper and deeper, and I would definitely like to think there is some homoerotic subtext in there.
TW// weight comments, violence, previous loss of loved ones, talk of prostitution, sexual harassment
Clockwork Fagin - Cory Doctorow // ★★★★
One day this boy comes along to a home for children who have become disabled via workplace accident. Once he takes charge they start to build a mechanical guardian to fool the supervisors. This is all about found family and it's great! It's definitely one of the better ones
TW// talk of suicide, previous loss of loved one, talk of alcoholism, whipping, death, abuse
Seven Days Beset By Demons - Shawn Cheng // ★★.5
This is a cartoon about the seven deadly sins. I don't really know what to think about this. The art was kind of basic
TW// alcohol consumption
Hand in Glove - Ysabeau S. Wilce // ★★.5
Either swear. Or don't. This is a literal pet peeve of mine. Swear. Or don't. Don't use the words frack or something. I don't care. Just don't. This has sexism as a main theme which was interesting, and it wasn't solved. Like that was the reason no one was listening to her. You can't start with that topic, and not resolve it or look at it head on. It's basically Frankenstein's monster, and it combines magic + science, with necromancy which is cool
TW// death, sexism
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor - Delia Sherman // ★★★★
Set in Wales, with an aristocrat ghost, the lost descendant, a girl housekeeper and a mechanical kitchen maid with that great old mansion aesthetic
TW// death, previous loss of loved one, violence
Gethsemane - Elizabeth Knox // ★★
This is very complicated and I couldn't keep track. On one hand this is about human relationships and human interactions, but also there was a geyser which explodes. I think this also might be set in New Zealand, because she’s a NZ author, but also I swear at some point they use the words ‘European Snow’. So maybe not.
TW// death, loss of loved one, violence, alcohol consumption, use of the word w*tch, slavery
The Summer People - Kelly Link // ★★★.5
‘Be Bold, Be Bold, But not too BoldThis is really cool. It kind of start’s surrounding religion (apparently, I don’t really remember this aspect of the book), and the girl is sick. But she still has to work because her Dad isn’t in town, and one of her ex-friends comes and helps her clean houses, and then helps her get better by visiting a house, and her Dad’s made enemies, and I’m doing a really bad job of explaining it by I enjoyed it! Also the friend is a lesbian, and I spent the entire thing waiting for the MC to be like
TW// talk of alcohol consumption, talk of alcoholism, previous loss of loved one, use of the word 'lez'
Peace In Our Time - Garth Nix // ★★.5
This has an old man living in seclusion, and an assassin/interrogator coming to his house and throughout the short, we find out why he’s living alone, where everyone went, and generally just about how terribly having the codes to world damaging war weapons in the hands of a few powerful people.
TW// death, war themes, portrayal of mental illness (probably dementia or Alzheimer's)
Nowhere Fast - Christopher Rowe // ★★★
This is a rural town that lives with minimal contact with other towns because there are no cars because 2 generations back there was a major war, where they fought for a better, cleaner Earth. Now, a guy has come to town in a self-made car. This is disturbingly similar to what could possibly happen at some point in the near future.
TW// war themes, violence
Finishing School - Kathleen Jennings // ★
THis was a cartoon set at a finishing school with colonialism at the heart and a lot of homoerotic subtext. So. Your looking at that 1 Star aren’t you. It just. was really bad. Like I didn’t like the art style which feels mean, but. And the plot was super. confusing. And a lot happened that was really confusing.
TW// previous loss of loved one
Steam Girl - Dylan Horrocks // ★★★.5
This questions reality, what’s real and what’s not. A new girl comes to school, and she’s kind of weird. She always wears a helmet, and that’s enough for her to be bullied. But when the main character who’s name I don’t remember, befriends her, he gets bullied as well. They bond over a comic the girl has written. It’s really good and super sad.
TW// fatphobia, talk of school shooting, use of the word freak, talk of drug usage, bullying, talk of sexual harassment
Everything Amiable Obliging - Holly Black // ★★.5
*with tears in my eyes* Holly Black, why did you write about some of my least favourite tropes? Incest, bot/human relationships. I’m very sad. I wrote aroace, so maybe it wasn’t all bad? But I don’t think there was an aroace character so very confused. There was also talk of sexbots which may be my inner asexual but. ew. They exist in real life, I don’t need them in an anthology written in,,, 2011? Oh. They may not have existed… Still! Everything about this wasn’t good, but it was written well so? 2 Stars.
TW// previous loss of loved one, talk of gambling, talk of prostitution
The Oracle Engine - M. T. Anderson ★★★.5
This was Rome, and Steampunk, so obviously Clockwork Oracle and classic Roman betrayals etc. I liked this. With tragedy and deaths and just classic Roman stuff.
TW// loss of loved one, financial struggles, death, incest
This anthology was fine. Nothing particularly special and no 5 Stars? But I would recommend Steam Girl, The Summer People, The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor, and Clockwork Fagin!
----------
I am sad. Holly Black *sniffs* let me down. RTC.
February 11, 2021
3.5 stars is closer but on the lower side. Some stories I really liked, others I didn't care for at all and felt I wasted time on a couple even.
These were the ones I actually enjoyed (above 2.5 stars worth):
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare - Rose is a bit scary in her obsessions. But I also feel bad for her, all alone. I want to know her age!
Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray - Alt reality western. Some parts were strange but others good. I wanted to get know what she would do in the end. A lot very too vague but would love to see fleshed out into a full story.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow - Great orphanage story! Love what these kids do (less what specifically they do to get an automaton..eww..) to improve their lives, despite their situation.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S Wilce - I didn't care much for the writing style, felt too much like parts taken from other stories, including Frankenstein and a certain spooky family movie/series that has seen many remakes). Yet still decent and curious.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman - This was really good. Another favorite here. A gothic tale, old manors, and automatons. I kept expecting a hint of romance though...
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox - Started off interesting but felt too scattered. Who people really were and why they did what they did. The ending does cover it but it felt broken in execution.
The Summer People by Kelly Link - What rich possibilities!! I wanted more! Were there fae?! Who are the summer people exactly?! I want a full novel of this. Ending was a bit confusing though.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks - Sci-fi meets steampunk in this tale within a tale. And what is the truth in the story? Very creative.
Everything Amiable and Obliging - Sentient automatrons?? A hint of romance...gone wrong. I really enjoyed this one as well.
The Oracle Engines - Strange historical story sent in Roman times. A story of Caesar, Crassusm Pompei and Marcus as never told. Interesting at times, but slow and overdrawn.
These were the ones I actually enjoyed (above 2.5 stars worth):
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare - Rose is a bit scary in her obsessions. But I also feel bad for her, all alone. I want to know her age!
Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray - Alt reality western. Some parts were strange but others good. I wanted to get know what she would do in the end. A lot very too vague but would love to see fleshed out into a full story.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow - Great orphanage story! Love what these kids do (less what specifically they do to get an automaton..eww..) to improve their lives, despite their situation.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S Wilce - I didn't care much for the writing style, felt too much like parts taken from other stories, including Frankenstein and a certain spooky family movie/series that has seen many remakes). Yet still decent and curious.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman - This was really good. Another favorite here. A gothic tale, old manors, and automatons. I kept expecting a hint of romance though...
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox - Started off interesting but felt too scattered. Who people really were and why they did what they did. The ending does cover it but it felt broken in execution.
The Summer People by Kelly Link - What rich possibilities!! I wanted more! Were there fae?! Who are the summer people exactly?! I want a full novel of this. Ending was a bit confusing though.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks - Sci-fi meets steampunk in this tale within a tale. And what is the truth in the story? Very creative.
Everything Amiable and Obliging - Sentient automatrons?? A hint of romance...gone wrong. I really enjoyed this one as well.
The Oracle Engines - Strange historical story sent in Roman times. A story of Caesar, Crassusm Pompei and Marcus as never told. Interesting at times, but slow and overdrawn.
March 3, 2013
Initial reaction: Well that was fairly freaky. I'll admit I saw this listed in my feed, saw the link to read it and took some odd minutes to read it. To be honest, Rose was a bit too self-absorbed for my liking, so I didn't like her, but there were parts of this story that were interesting, and I think the automatons were a nice touch, though I felt like there was still more to the story needed, even with the freakish ending (and yeah, I consider it freakish for a number of reasons).
Full review:
"Some Fortunate Future Day" was a short story under 5,000 words that was featured in the Steampunk compliation by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. I've read a few of Clare's short stories and found some of them worth the brief reads, but while there were some interesting ideas with this particular story, it wasn't my cuppa. I think part of that might've been the rather brash and absorbed character of Rose, who lives among a group of automatons while waiting for her father to return home from war. She happens upon a stranger who ends up stranded near her home and nurses him back to health. She also falls madly in love with him. Yet when circumstances aren't to be and she blames herself for not making herself appealing to him...well, I think one can read the ending for themselves and get the idea. I'll admit it was interesting in a twist, freakish way, but the execution didn't quite draw me in for lack of connection. I liked parts of the tone, which had a dark coloring and almost keen desperation on the part of Rose. I also liked the personalities of the automatons. The setting was well drawn for the brevity, but didn't quite draw me into the story completely.
I think it was worth the time taken to read, but not one of my favorite stories on the whole.
Overall score: 2/5
Full review:
"Some Fortunate Future Day" was a short story under 5,000 words that was featured in the Steampunk compliation by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. I've read a few of Clare's short stories and found some of them worth the brief reads, but while there were some interesting ideas with this particular story, it wasn't my cuppa. I think part of that might've been the rather brash and absorbed character of Rose, who lives among a group of automatons while waiting for her father to return home from war. She happens upon a stranger who ends up stranded near her home and nurses him back to health. She also falls madly in love with him. Yet when circumstances aren't to be and she blames herself for not making herself appealing to him...well, I think one can read the ending for themselves and get the idea. I'll admit it was interesting in a twist, freakish way, but the execution didn't quite draw me in for lack of connection. I liked parts of the tone, which had a dark coloring and almost keen desperation on the part of Rose. I also liked the personalities of the automatons. The setting was well drawn for the brevity, but didn't quite draw me into the story completely.
I think it was worth the time taken to read, but not one of my favorite stories on the whole.
Overall score: 2/5
August 9, 2014
I've been struggling to understand what 'steampunk' means. A month ago, I'd have mentioned such words as 'Victorian', 'invention', 'pipes', and 'weird' before giving up and muttering 'steam' and 'punk'. This anthology has its share of all these things, but as I read through these stories - many of them good, a few of them great - I realized that steampunk is more than its accoutrements. It's an almost spiritual belief that technology can achieve miracles, wonders, and perhaps even transcendence. This is illustrated in what I consider to be the best of these stories, 'Steam Girl', in which the highly imaginative tales that one lonely child tells another prove to be the awakening and salvation that both of them need.
Not all wonders are bright though. Another standout story, 'The Oracle Engine', explores an alternate Rome during the period of the first Triumvirate, in which a wronged child seeks his revenge through the use of his invention, the eponymous Oracle Engine. There are many other good stories, and that renders the not-so-great ones both forgettable and inconsequential.
"I was ten or thereabouts", narrates a character in one of the stories, "and I was mad for wonders." I think there is a need for a little bit of that madness in all of us, and 'Steampunk!' fulfills it admirably.
Not all wonders are bright though. Another standout story, 'The Oracle Engine', explores an alternate Rome during the period of the first Triumvirate, in which a wronged child seeks his revenge through the use of his invention, the eponymous Oracle Engine. There are many other good stories, and that renders the not-so-great ones both forgettable and inconsequential.
"I was ten or thereabouts", narrates a character in one of the stories, "and I was mad for wonders." I think there is a need for a little bit of that madness in all of us, and 'Steampunk!' fulfills it admirably.
May 16, 2021
This was a great introduction to some ideas and themes of Steampunk, as interpreted by some very talented folks. It was so fun to see the ideas woven into lots of different kinds of stories. I thought this anthology was very well-rounded. I also liked that most of the stories had solid endings, which is sometimes a problem for me with short stories. Two of the tales were graphic stories and didn't show up well on my kindle so I skipped them.
Some Fortunate Future Day; In a rural setting a lonesome girl serves a lost soldier. (household automatons)
*The Last Ride of the Glory Girls; A western with female characters which explores race and class. (time machine)
*Clockwork Fagin; Great plot about a children's orphanage. This one was my favorite. (machinery, reanimation and taxidermy!)
Seven Days Beset by Demons; graphic
Hand in Glove; Police Procedural with horror elements. (reanimation, early forensics)
*The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor; A ghost story set in Wales with some romance. (household automatons)
Gethsemane; An industrial accident involving four characters of dubious backstories. One of my least favorites (airships and steam mechanics)
The Summer People; Fanciful and intriguing, but I wanted more to happen. (magic, and some kind of alternate species)
Peace in Our Time; Short and self-contained with only two characters (mechanical and steam technology)
Nowhere Fast; Dystopian in tone, one of my least favorites. (mechanical and steam technology)
Finishing School; graphic
Steam Girl; Contemporary Y/A romance.
Everything Amiable and Obliging; A romance involving 2 young couples. (a domestic dancing automaton!)
Oracle Engine; Set in Rome and applying the themes to war.
Some Fortunate Future Day; In a rural setting a lonesome girl serves a lost soldier. (household automatons)
*The Last Ride of the Glory Girls; A western with female characters which explores race and class. (time machine)
*Clockwork Fagin; Great plot about a children's orphanage. This one was my favorite. (machinery, reanimation and taxidermy!)
Seven Days Beset by Demons; graphic
Hand in Glove; Police Procedural with horror elements. (reanimation, early forensics)
*The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor; A ghost story set in Wales with some romance. (household automatons)
Gethsemane; An industrial accident involving four characters of dubious backstories. One of my least favorites (airships and steam mechanics)
The Summer People; Fanciful and intriguing, but I wanted more to happen. (magic, and some kind of alternate species)
Peace in Our Time; Short and self-contained with only two characters (mechanical and steam technology)
Nowhere Fast; Dystopian in tone, one of my least favorites. (mechanical and steam technology)
Finishing School; graphic
Steam Girl; Contemporary Y/A romance.
Everything Amiable and Obliging; A romance involving 2 young couples. (a domestic dancing automaton!)
Oracle Engine; Set in Rome and applying the themes to war.
December 4, 2016
Not my favorite anthology. There were a few good ones, but most were rather dry and unremarkable.
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare: This was kind of a confusing mismash of time reversing and an unrequited romance. I found it enjoyable enough but too short to be really fleshed out.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray: I don't really know what was going on here, a bunch of girls robbing trains while stopping time, I think? I wish I liked Libba Bray but I always lose interest in her stuff very quickly.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow: This one followed children injured by the steam powered machines that live in an orphanage and end up rebelling. It was a good idea but only had okay execution.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng: One of the two comic stories. I’m not sure if I really got this… It was about an artist who falls in love with a girl who doesn't love him and it really has no resolution at all.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce: A murder mystery with a female detective.
I found it to be enjoyable enough.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman: Follows a girl looking for hidden treasure for her master is aided by a ghost. I liked this well enough, as I love ghost stories.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox: A natural disaster story that's only kind of steampunk. It was okay, nothing in particular stood out to me.
The Summer People by Kelly Link: This was one of my favorites even though it basically isn't even steampunk at all. It follows a girl bound to serve the fae. I really liked the way it was written.
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix: I don’t really know what was happening here. I tried to read Nix once before, and I really just don't care for his style.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe: This one was set in post apocalyptic Kentucky, and another story that was just fine at best.
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings: The second comic story. It details the story of a woman's first flight. It was alright as well, not much to say about it.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks:Really cute my favorite one and had the best writing style of all of them. It was really cute and I loved the writing style. Definitely my favorite in the anthology!
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black: This one was about a girl who falls in love with an automaton. I wasn't really a fan, I just really dislike stories about people falling in love with robots/computers.
Oracle Engine by MT Anderson: This one was set in an alternate Ancient Rome. I couldn't engage myself in this one at all.
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare: This was kind of a confusing mismash of time reversing and an unrequited romance. I found it enjoyable enough but too short to be really fleshed out.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray: I don't really know what was going on here, a bunch of girls robbing trains while stopping time, I think? I wish I liked Libba Bray but I always lose interest in her stuff very quickly.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow: This one followed children injured by the steam powered machines that live in an orphanage and end up rebelling. It was a good idea but only had okay execution.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng: One of the two comic stories. I’m not sure if I really got this… It was about an artist who falls in love with a girl who doesn't love him and it really has no resolution at all.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce: A murder mystery with a female detective.
I found it to be enjoyable enough.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman: Follows a girl looking for hidden treasure for her master is aided by a ghost. I liked this well enough, as I love ghost stories.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox: A natural disaster story that's only kind of steampunk. It was okay, nothing in particular stood out to me.
The Summer People by Kelly Link: This was one of my favorites even though it basically isn't even steampunk at all. It follows a girl bound to serve the fae. I really liked the way it was written.
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix: I don’t really know what was happening here. I tried to read Nix once before, and I really just don't care for his style.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe: This one was set in post apocalyptic Kentucky, and another story that was just fine at best.
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings: The second comic story. It details the story of a woman's first flight. It was alright as well, not much to say about it.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks:Really cute my favorite one and had the best writing style of all of them. It was really cute and I loved the writing style. Definitely my favorite in the anthology!
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black: This one was about a girl who falls in love with an automaton. I wasn't really a fan, I just really dislike stories about people falling in love with robots/computers.
Oracle Engine by MT Anderson: This one was set in an alternate Ancient Rome. I couldn't engage myself in this one at all.
June 6, 2016
Really excellent collection of steampunk stories, some of them well out of the usual mold. (The steampunk ancient Roman Empire was a particularly nice touch.) The graphic stories didn't win my heart as much, but they're a nice way to break things up. Link's own contribution is a very interesting story, but the only one of the batch I wouldn't actually classify as steampunk.
May 17, 2022
Read as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict: Not a keeper.
The thing about this anthology is that a lot of these stories simply... aren't steampunk. There are definitely some standouts; "Clockwork Fagin" is solid, as I expect from Cory Doctorow, and I enjoyed "Some Fortunate Future Day" far more than I expected with Cassie Clare's name on it. "Gethsemane" was a truly steampunk story which was not defined by being steampunk, with a dreamy, gauzy quality to it which made me remember how much I like Elizabeth Knox. "Hand in Glove" was a clever mystery story. "The Oracle Engine" missed steampunk in the time period, but hit every other aspect, so I think it gets a pass.
But others, even if I liked them, didn't belong in a steampunk anthology. "The Summer People" is a concept I'd happily read more of, but it's more about the fey with a few steampunk aesthetic flourishes, in a completely modern setting. "Nowhere Fast" is post-apocalyptic with a touch of solarpunk, but it isn't steampunk. "Steam Girl" hops back and forth from steampunk to not, and doesn't really come down firmly one one side or the other. It's kind of disappointing to find so many weak points in an anthology which claims to be about exploring the concepts of steampunk, but then veers away from the subgenre repeatedly.
Also - and this is a very 2022 perspective, I acknowledge - there's a lot of depth unplumbed regarding the actual Victorian era associated with steampunk and what it looked like around the world and in different cultures. For all its variety, this wasn't a very diverse anthology, and as the conversation about representation in books has changed since it was published, that means it hasn't stood the test of even this short period of time.
The thing about this anthology is that a lot of these stories simply... aren't steampunk. There are definitely some standouts; "Clockwork Fagin" is solid, as I expect from Cory Doctorow, and I enjoyed "Some Fortunate Future Day" far more than I expected with Cassie Clare's name on it. "Gethsemane" was a truly steampunk story which was not defined by being steampunk, with a dreamy, gauzy quality to it which made me remember how much I like Elizabeth Knox. "Hand in Glove" was a clever mystery story. "The Oracle Engine" missed steampunk in the time period, but hit every other aspect, so I think it gets a pass.
But others, even if I liked them, didn't belong in a steampunk anthology. "The Summer People" is a concept I'd happily read more of, but it's more about the fey with a few steampunk aesthetic flourishes, in a completely modern setting. "Nowhere Fast" is post-apocalyptic with a touch of solarpunk, but it isn't steampunk. "Steam Girl" hops back and forth from steampunk to not, and doesn't really come down firmly one one side or the other. It's kind of disappointing to find so many weak points in an anthology which claims to be about exploring the concepts of steampunk, but then veers away from the subgenre repeatedly.
Also - and this is a very 2022 perspective, I acknowledge - there's a lot of depth unplumbed regarding the actual Victorian era associated with steampunk and what it looked like around the world and in different cultures. For all its variety, this wasn't a very diverse anthology, and as the conversation about representation in books has changed since it was published, that means it hasn't stood the test of even this short period of time.
November 28, 2012
I really enjoyed this collection of steampunk short stories from YA authors. It is a really entertaining read and perfect for when I had a few minutes and didn't want to start a new book. Unfortunately, the stories from the authors I already know were largely disappointing, with the notable exception of Libba Bray, and I was impressed with stories by a lot of authors whom I'd only vaguely or never heard of before. Overall a really nice read, and well worth the money I spent.
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
I liked this story, but it was ultimately quite predictable. The incident with the rabbit was really creepy though, and I loved the dolls. Some how I expected more from a C. Clare short story, especially since it's the first one of the anthology.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
This was awesome, tightly written and engaging. I liked the charcters, and the whole story had a warmth to it that I enjoyed. It was also a lot longer than the previous story, which allowed it to get into some nice character development and world building.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Really well written and fun, with a great narrator. The story is well thought out and although it has a conveinient ending, the desperation and tenacity of the orphans is readily beliveable.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
A cute graphic short story about a young man who sells mechanical devices, who is in love with a woman who doesn't feel the same way. I love the way that each day corresponds to one of the deadly sins, it's very clever.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
My favourite story so far, told incredibly well and with likeable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and wish it was longer! Clever and creepy, and not one to miss.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
I didn't like this one, it wasn't very enjoyable, and a little weird. More of a ghost story than a steampunk story to be honest.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
Another fairly disappointing story - mostly because many of the main characters didn't have names for a long time and it's hard to keep track of 'the boy', 'the girl', 'the woman' and 'the man' all the time. I liked the volcano though.
The Summer People by Kelly Link
This was wonderful! Wistful, magical and with a hint of eerie, this short story was the perfect read before bed :-)
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
A quick, haunting story that showcased the brilliance of Nix's writing. I really enjoyed it, and I wish there was an accompanying novel-sized story.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Another quick story, set in a strange future, where cars (petroleum powered) are illegal. An interesting look at how the world may react to fuel shortages and environmental changes.
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
A fun graphic story about a young girl's determination to achieve the impossible, and her steadfast but realistic friend. Nicely told as a flashback so we can see how the succeeded in their respective dreams.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
One of my favourite stories: bittersweet and incredibly detailed. I loved it, I loved Steam Girl and I wish there was more!
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
A somewhat disappointing story, mainly because Holly Black is so famed and well regarded, and this story fell ... flat. There was a lot to think about, but it was predictable and weird.
The Oracle Engine by M. T. Anderson
This was set in an alternate Ancient Rome and was interesting to read. I liked the oracle machine and the concept behind the story, but felt sorry for all the characters. This is a really tragic story.
You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic .
Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
I liked this story, but it was ultimately quite predictable. The incident with the rabbit was really creepy though, and I loved the dolls. Some how I expected more from a C. Clare short story, especially since it's the first one of the anthology.
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
This was awesome, tightly written and engaging. I liked the charcters, and the whole story had a warmth to it that I enjoyed. It was also a lot longer than the previous story, which allowed it to get into some nice character development and world building.
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Really well written and fun, with a great narrator. The story is well thought out and although it has a conveinient ending, the desperation and tenacity of the orphans is readily beliveable.
Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
A cute graphic short story about a young man who sells mechanical devices, who is in love with a woman who doesn't feel the same way. I love the way that each day corresponds to one of the deadly sins, it's very clever.
Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
My favourite story so far, told incredibly well and with likeable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and wish it was longer! Clever and creepy, and not one to miss.
The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
I didn't like this one, it wasn't very enjoyable, and a little weird. More of a ghost story than a steampunk story to be honest.
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
Another fairly disappointing story - mostly because many of the main characters didn't have names for a long time and it's hard to keep track of 'the boy', 'the girl', 'the woman' and 'the man' all the time. I liked the volcano though.
The Summer People by Kelly Link
This was wonderful! Wistful, magical and with a hint of eerie, this short story was the perfect read before bed :-)
Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
A quick, haunting story that showcased the brilliance of Nix's writing. I really enjoyed it, and I wish there was an accompanying novel-sized story.
Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Another quick story, set in a strange future, where cars (petroleum powered) are illegal. An interesting look at how the world may react to fuel shortages and environmental changes.
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
A fun graphic story about a young girl's determination to achieve the impossible, and her steadfast but realistic friend. Nicely told as a flashback so we can see how the succeeded in their respective dreams.
Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
One of my favourite stories: bittersweet and incredibly detailed. I loved it, I loved Steam Girl and I wish there was more!
Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
A somewhat disappointing story, mainly because Holly Black is so famed and well regarded, and this story fell ... flat. There was a lot to think about, but it was predictable and weird.
The Oracle Engine by M. T. Anderson
This was set in an alternate Ancient Rome and was interesting to read. I liked the oracle machine and the concept behind the story, but felt sorry for all the characters. This is a really tragic story.
You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic .
October 11, 2011
Steampunk is a fun genre, one I have begun to explore with excitement. While I have not loved all of the steampunk novels I have read to this point, I have uniformly enjoyed the idea behind them, the out-of-place mechanization accepted as normal in an otherwise old-fashioned society. What attracts me most to this, I expect, is the similarity between steampunk and magical realism, the only difference being that the magic lies in the technology.
With such thoughts in mind, I was eager to read this anthology, particularly considering that some authors I already enjoy contributed stories, such as M. T. Anderson, Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray and Cory Doctorow. In fact, these authors cap the anthology. It begins with the stories by the three I listed last and ends with M. T. Anderson's tale.
Despite what should have been a strong beginning, I found the start of the anthology utterly tedious. I did actually Clare's, Bray's and Doctorow's stories, but none of them blew me away. Then, the next four stories I found to be completely awful, the anthology not picking up in quality again until Kelly Link's story, which, while interesting, really did not seem like steampunk so much as science fiction or fantasy, depending upon where the summer people came from.
The latter half of the anthology, though, was totally satisfactory. I enjoyed all of the stories but the graphic novel Finishing School. Speaking of the comics included (Finishing School and Seven Days Beset by Demons), why were they so awful? I love that comics were included and applaud the blending of formats, but really think they could have found something better. Seven Days Beset by Demons was by far the worst story in the anthology, for it lacked plot, carried a heavy-handed religious bent and did not particularly smack of steampunk. Epic fail.
The best stories, in my opinion, were "Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks, "Everything Amiable and Obliging" by Holly Black, and "The Oracle Engine" by M. T. Anderson, the final three stories in the anthology. I must admit I am a bit biased against most of the others, because I quickly tired of reading the poor grammar of western characters, who say things like "I done seen them people." No thanks.
If you hate that all steampunk takes place in Victorian England and want to see where else it can be set, then you'll enjoy this wide range of interpretations (although personally, I found the ones in a modern setting a bit odd). Be prepared to slog through a couple of long stories that you might not be especially interested in. Or just skip those and move on.
With such thoughts in mind, I was eager to read this anthology, particularly considering that some authors I already enjoy contributed stories, such as M. T. Anderson, Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray and Cory Doctorow. In fact, these authors cap the anthology. It begins with the stories by the three I listed last and ends with M. T. Anderson's tale.
Despite what should have been a strong beginning, I found the start of the anthology utterly tedious. I did actually Clare's, Bray's and Doctorow's stories, but none of them blew me away. Then, the next four stories I found to be completely awful, the anthology not picking up in quality again until Kelly Link's story, which, while interesting, really did not seem like steampunk so much as science fiction or fantasy, depending upon where the summer people came from.
The latter half of the anthology, though, was totally satisfactory. I enjoyed all of the stories but the graphic novel Finishing School. Speaking of the comics included (Finishing School and Seven Days Beset by Demons), why were they so awful? I love that comics were included and applaud the blending of formats, but really think they could have found something better. Seven Days Beset by Demons was by far the worst story in the anthology, for it lacked plot, carried a heavy-handed religious bent and did not particularly smack of steampunk. Epic fail.
The best stories, in my opinion, were "Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks, "Everything Amiable and Obliging" by Holly Black, and "The Oracle Engine" by M. T. Anderson, the final three stories in the anthology. I must admit I am a bit biased against most of the others, because I quickly tired of reading the poor grammar of western characters, who say things like "I done seen them people." No thanks.
If you hate that all steampunk takes place in Victorian England and want to see where else it can be set, then you'll enjoy this wide range of interpretations (although personally, I found the ones in a modern setting a bit odd). Be prepared to slog through a couple of long stories that you might not be especially interested in. Or just skip those and move on.
September 26, 2011
One of the best anthologies I've read in a long time. While there were a few stories that made me wonder why they were being considered steampunk, I enjoyed all of them. Okay, so Seven Day Beset by Demons was a let down, but that was the only one.
These authors are not steampunk authors, or even genre writers. Where so many steampunk writers seem to think of the world before the story, these are simply authors who have taken on the concept of steampunk and used it to accent a story, and for that, the impact and dept of the world is so much more potent. I think fans of steampunk and readers who are new to the genre will both find this a fantastic collection.
Also, the cover is really, really pretty.
Some of my favorites are:
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctrow
The Ghost of Cymwer Manor by Delia Sherman
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
and The Summer People by Kelly Link
but really, everything in here is good. Go read it.
These authors are not steampunk authors, or even genre writers. Where so many steampunk writers seem to think of the world before the story, these are simply authors who have taken on the concept of steampunk and used it to accent a story, and for that, the impact and dept of the world is so much more potent. I think fans of steampunk and readers who are new to the genre will both find this a fantastic collection.
Also, the cover is really, really pretty.
Some of my favorites are:
The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctrow
The Ghost of Cymwer Manor by Delia Sherman
Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
and The Summer People by Kelly Link
but really, everything in here is good. Go read it.
October 23, 2011
I invariably like steampunk more when it is taken out of its expected context. Kelly Link and Gavin Grant went out of their way to do that with this delightful YA anthology. I love that the stories are set in Appalachia and Canada and Australia and ancient Rome, and that they intersect with the tropes of time travel and alternate world fiction, among other subgenres. The YA protagonists also provide a refreshing perspective on the genre. My favorite pieces in the book were Cory Doctorow's "Clockwork Fagin," Cassandra Clare's "Some Fortunate Future Day," Shawn Cheng's "Seven Days Beset by Demons," Kelly Link's "The Summer People," Christopher Rowe's "Nowhere Fast," and Dylan Horrocks' "Steam Girl." I think I've just named half the book. I should also add that this is an absolutely gorgeous hardcover.
December 21, 2014
Wow! This little novel is great and disturbing at the same time.
The settings are really interesting and well built, as always happens in a C. Clare's book. What I found a bit terrifying is the ending, which honestly gave me goosebumps.
The settings are really interesting and well built, as always happens in a C. Clare's book. What I found a bit terrifying is the ending, which honestly gave me goosebumps.
Currently reading
June 5, 2012The book walked away from me I think that another reader in my house has absconded with it.
January 18, 2013
13 short stories chosen by Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, 5* for most delightfully humorous, even gripping horrors are wonderfully written. Doctorow's "Clockwork Fagin" - ending decisively positive, my favorite. Second fave hints at Happy Ever After, Wilce's "Hand ..", also Sherman's Gwemlich "Ghost ..". Others are up in the air, doomfull, even the two pictorial tales.
Memorable unforgettable tragedy, Nix's "Peace ..", resonates for anyone ever subjected to noise sleep deprivation torture, whether hardened soldier or physically weakened hospital/ institution inmate. Horrock's "Steam Girl" is nerd hope - sweet, sad, too true. Most spoilers finish with closing line of story.
1 Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
(I like better her funny "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" from "Turn the Other Chick" http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/07...)
The reader fears the selfish romantical girl with more power than quality of character. When her new pet bunny nips, Rose 8 angrily smashes it dead; oh-oh, murderous temper, immature. Her clever inventor father sets his time gadget appropriately, but she quietly squeezes bunny dead; her father forgets her knowledge; uh-oh - cruel, vindictive, secretive sociopath.
Now, bosom outgrowing dresses, father gone six months to war, she finds a wounded soldier, blue uniform means their side, passed out in garden p4. She gets her father's talented robots to secretly heal him p4 - sly. Jonah 18, grateful, courteous, laughing, "so handsome .. it hurts her eyes." p11, "like a recruitment poster for airship pilots .. hardy, handy, and brave" p14, regales her with charms of his family and the bustling Capital - she will love them, they will love her. He surely is falling in love, and will take her away - foolish, unrealistic Rose. Until the day Jonah is well enough to leave.
2 The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Exciting action, with brave girl hurt by her past, inconclusive end, maybe better as long book? Dressed in the leather coat of John Barker (mystery) from her home town, narrator teen Adelaide Jones, expert clockwork fixer faced with imprisonment "It's your choice" p26 in "free world" p21,52, chooses Pinkerton Chief Coolidge's alternative, infiltrate the "Glory Girls", three teen bandits whose Enigma Temporal Suspension Apparatus gun stops time for 7 minutes while they rob trains, banks, whatever.
3 Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Updates Dicken's "Oliver Twist". At St Agatha's Home for the Rehabilitation of Crippled Children in Muddy York, newcomer Montreal Monty enables downtrodden amputees to rise up independent, narrated by inmate Sian O'Leary 17, originally from Hamilton, sold, like others, by impoverished parent. Review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Free from http://www.kobobooks.com/
4 Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
The moral, doom from each seven Deadly Sins - Lust, Envy, Greed, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth - is drawn in 3-6 cartoon frames per page, two pages per day, Monday to Sunday. Four youths in hats bicycle through this world. Boy (oriental slanted eyes) builds snow-globe like domes with historical romantic couples, and passing girl admires one on his cart.
5 Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Detective "Anibal Aguille y Wilkins, the golden boy of the Califa Police Department, thrice decorated, always decorative .. More than ornamental, he gets the job done .. a real hero .. adored" p108 bribes with bacon sandwich, right-handed alcoholic "Nutter Norm", found with souvenir sparklies, into confessing to serial one-handed strangler "the Squeeze". But first-year "Constable Aurelia Etreyo .. small and round and scowly" p100 ascribes to forensic evidence "the Bertillo System" p111, and tracks fingerprints, a broken thumb on left hand, to recently deceased handsome ingenue actor, corpse sold to "a medico" p120.
6 The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
Tacy Gof smith's daughter, sensible just seventeen, was ever entranced by night-dressed Lady Agatha who hid family treasure, then was slain by Roundheads. Now 1861, Sir Arthur "nearly nineteen, with a degree in mechanical engineering from London Polytechnic" p51 hires Tacy after tasting Welsh cakes. "Thin as a rake he was, with knobby wrists and sandy hair straggling over the collar of his shirt, which would have been the better for a wash and an iron" p149.
He invents mechanicals who respond to piped notes; she is "familiar with mechanicals from my cradle. Only pictures, but no need to tell him that" p150. Manor mortgaged to villain who visits with bully boys "Rat's eyes and bull's necks, no servants, and next to no luggage. No manners, neither" p164.
Mistress Angharad Cwmlech appears to save the day "A gulf as wide as the Severn there is, betwen the wanting to see a ghost and the seeing it. But Mam always said there was no shock could not be cushioned by sweet, strong tea" p159; her new friend's mother had agreed, yet cannot help. "There are rules and restrictions upon ghosts as there are upon young ladies of gentle birth. Given my choiuce, I'd be neither" p161, and Arthur has no Sight.
7 Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
A dark-skin grizzled sailor guarding white boy James offers "a plug of chaw" p159 to the blind "zombie slave" Mary who follows reclusive nameless girl witch. When engineer McCahon drills, mountain above the island port town erupts as volcano, and their true stories come to light.
8 The Summer People by Kelly Link
Fran downs Nyquil, father drives to Florida revival with "sometime girlfriend" p213 and tells her to get Roberts' house ready for weekend. Fairy "summer people" demand stuff, she spends $70/200 on them, why not refuse humans? Father banned childhood summer's pal Ophelia after one summer because she had one Barbie kiss another "just didn't have a Ken" p221. Reputed lesbian now year-round, Ophelia drives her home, asks why sometimes Appalachian dialect in her speech, and offers to help with house of fairy people.
9 Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
"The old man who had once been the Grand Technomancer, Most Mighty Mechanician, and Highest of the High Artificier Adepts was cutting his roses when he heard the unmistakeable ticktock-tocktock of a clockwerk velociped" p253 Ruane 17ish has "chilling competence in her eyes .. hands usually held weapons" p255, investigating three keys that unlocked the devastation of a world "Ahfred Progressor III" p255 left behind.
10 Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Future is good - no more polluting gas guzzling exhaust belchers, and bad - individual travel unavailable to commoners; another "be careful what you wish for". Friendly chatty Fizz claims to have driven from N. Carolina on his cobbled vehicle Rudolf "it takes forever to get anywhere now" p280, but the bicycle shop repairman calls in Federals to arrest the youth for operating a private car, revolutionary behavior.
11 Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
In wedges, triangles, and boxes, cartoon adult orthodontist Cecile recalls her now famous school-mate Gwen Byrne (chinese mother) "really sabotage .. my father, your uncle ... experimental aviators are always getting killed" p300, and works on parts left in the boarding school attic by the uncle.
12 Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
Narrator Redmond looks goofy, never been popular, smart or good at sports, "oversize teeth .. woolly black hair" "gave up looking" long ago for hidden talents his mother sees p310, until new girl inspires him to write about Rocket Boy, with her drawings and stories of heroic Steam Girl and her father, exploring beautiful Mars and Venus, but shot through by a villain to this alternate awful Earth. She calls school bully Michael "reality incarnate". An imaginary dog is "loyal and fluffy and cute. But in real life, dogs bite your hand and pee on the carpet and have sex with the sofa .. You're dog pee on the carpet" p343.
13 Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
Valerian Obermann 26, thinks of cousin Sofie as a child still p354, until his sister, pretty Amelia and dancing instructor automaton Nicholas fall in love, and the interconnected clockwork house control becomes upset, ignoring chores "stoke fires", break morning cups of chocolate. Robot butler Wexley assures them house tries to balance "needs of all the family members in concert", perhaps conflicting, cannot "truly defy", and may be reset by makers p365. Amelia commands the house to stop Valerian from throwing the off switch, as in kill p370.
14 The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson
Translated from Mendacius's True Histories of the Roman Inventors, imitates Latin prosy incantations. "The reverie is, of course, nothing but a poet's sentimental concoction and cannot be verified" p381. Marcus Furius 10 loses his home and family to a fire, because greedy Licinius Cassus keeps his fire-boat back too long, and reimburses the orphan with a single silver denarius coin. When a brilliant adult, the Medullinus Machinator builds an Oracle stockasticon to predict result of rich ruler Cassus' attack on the eastern Parthinian desert.
Competitors Julius Caesar goes north, Pompey west. Cassus dedicates seven male Vestal Virgins on the altar of Minerva to operate the contraption and kills Marcus. Despised and envied Cassus laughs at bad omens occurring, and interprets showers of gold and other predictions favorably.
Afterwords: About the Editors (publishers and writers live in Massachusetts with daughter Ursula), Authors (4-14 lines each), Acknowledgements (thank you to the roof, the walls, the floor, the paper, the ink, ...).
Memorable unforgettable tragedy, Nix's "Peace ..", resonates for anyone ever subjected to noise sleep deprivation torture, whether hardened soldier or physically weakened hospital/ institution inmate. Horrock's "Steam Girl" is nerd hope - sweet, sad, too true. Most spoilers finish with closing line of story.
1 Some Fortunate Future Day by Cassandra Clare
(I like better her funny "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" from "Turn the Other Chick" http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/07...)
The reader fears the selfish romantical girl with more power than quality of character. When her new pet bunny nips, Rose 8 angrily smashes it dead; oh-oh, murderous temper, immature. Her clever inventor father sets his time gadget appropriately, but she quietly squeezes bunny dead; her father forgets her knowledge; uh-oh - cruel, vindictive, secretive sociopath.
Now, bosom outgrowing dresses, father gone six months to war, she finds a wounded soldier, blue uniform means their side, passed out in garden p4. She gets her father's talented robots to secretly heal him p4 - sly. Jonah 18, grateful, courteous, laughing, "so handsome .. it hurts her eyes." p11, "like a recruitment poster for airship pilots .. hardy, handy, and brave" p14, regales her with charms of his family and the bustling Capital - she will love them, they will love her. He surely is falling in love, and will take her away - foolish, unrealistic Rose. Until the day Jonah is well enough to leave.
2 The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray
Exciting action, with brave girl hurt by her past, inconclusive end, maybe better as long book? Dressed in the leather coat of John Barker (mystery) from her home town, narrator teen Adelaide Jones, expert clockwork fixer faced with imprisonment "It's your choice" p26 in "free world" p21,52, chooses Pinkerton Chief Coolidge's alternative, infiltrate the "Glory Girls", three teen bandits whose Enigma Temporal Suspension Apparatus gun stops time for 7 minutes while they rob trains, banks, whatever.
3 Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow
Updates Dicken's "Oliver Twist". At St Agatha's Home for the Rehabilitation of Crippled Children in Muddy York, newcomer Montreal Monty enables downtrodden amputees to rise up independent, narrated by inmate Sian O'Leary 17, originally from Hamilton, sold, like others, by impoverished parent. Review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Free from http://www.kobobooks.com/
4 Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng
The moral, doom from each seven Deadly Sins - Lust, Envy, Greed, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth - is drawn in 3-6 cartoon frames per page, two pages per day, Monday to Sunday. Four youths in hats bicycle through this world. Boy (oriental slanted eyes) builds snow-globe like domes with historical romantic couples, and passing girl admires one on his cart.
5 Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Detective "Anibal Aguille y Wilkins, the golden boy of the Califa Police Department, thrice decorated, always decorative .. More than ornamental, he gets the job done .. a real hero .. adored" p108 bribes with bacon sandwich, right-handed alcoholic "Nutter Norm", found with souvenir sparklies, into confessing to serial one-handed strangler "the Squeeze". But first-year "Constable Aurelia Etreyo .. small and round and scowly" p100 ascribes to forensic evidence "the Bertillo System" p111, and tracks fingerprints, a broken thumb on left hand, to recently deceased handsome ingenue actor, corpse sold to "a medico" p120.
6 The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman
Tacy Gof smith's daughter, sensible just seventeen, was ever entranced by night-dressed Lady Agatha who hid family treasure, then was slain by Roundheads. Now 1861, Sir Arthur "nearly nineteen, with a degree in mechanical engineering from London Polytechnic" p51 hires Tacy after tasting Welsh cakes. "Thin as a rake he was, with knobby wrists and sandy hair straggling over the collar of his shirt, which would have been the better for a wash and an iron" p149.
He invents mechanicals who respond to piped notes; she is "familiar with mechanicals from my cradle. Only pictures, but no need to tell him that" p150. Manor mortgaged to villain who visits with bully boys "Rat's eyes and bull's necks, no servants, and next to no luggage. No manners, neither" p164.
Mistress Angharad Cwmlech appears to save the day "A gulf as wide as the Severn there is, betwen the wanting to see a ghost and the seeing it. But Mam always said there was no shock could not be cushioned by sweet, strong tea" p159; her new friend's mother had agreed, yet cannot help. "There are rules and restrictions upon ghosts as there are upon young ladies of gentle birth. Given my choiuce, I'd be neither" p161, and Arthur has no Sight.
7 Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox
A dark-skin grizzled sailor guarding white boy James offers "a plug of chaw" p159 to the blind "zombie slave" Mary who follows reclusive nameless girl witch. When engineer McCahon drills, mountain above the island port town erupts as volcano, and their true stories come to light.
8 The Summer People by Kelly Link
Fran downs Nyquil, father drives to Florida revival with "sometime girlfriend" p213 and tells her to get Roberts' house ready for weekend. Fairy "summer people" demand stuff, she spends $70/200 on them, why not refuse humans? Father banned childhood summer's pal Ophelia after one summer because she had one Barbie kiss another "just didn't have a Ken" p221. Reputed lesbian now year-round, Ophelia drives her home, asks why sometimes Appalachian dialect in her speech, and offers to help with house of fairy people.
9 Peace in Our Time by Garth Nix
"The old man who had once been the Grand Technomancer, Most Mighty Mechanician, and Highest of the High Artificier Adepts was cutting his roses when he heard the unmistakeable ticktock-tocktock of a clockwerk velociped" p253 Ruane 17ish has "chilling competence in her eyes .. hands usually held weapons" p255, investigating three keys that unlocked the devastation of a world "Ahfred Progressor III" p255 left behind.
10 Nowhere Fast by Christopher Rowe
Future is good - no more polluting gas guzzling exhaust belchers, and bad - individual travel unavailable to commoners; another "be careful what you wish for". Friendly chatty Fizz claims to have driven from N. Carolina on his cobbled vehicle Rudolf "it takes forever to get anywhere now" p280, but the bicycle shop repairman calls in Federals to arrest the youth for operating a private car, revolutionary behavior.
11 Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings
In wedges, triangles, and boxes, cartoon adult orthodontist Cecile recalls her now famous school-mate Gwen Byrne (chinese mother) "really sabotage .. my father, your uncle ... experimental aviators are always getting killed" p300, and works on parts left in the boarding school attic by the uncle.
12 Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks
Narrator Redmond looks goofy, never been popular, smart or good at sports, "oversize teeth .. woolly black hair" "gave up looking" long ago for hidden talents his mother sees p310, until new girl inspires him to write about Rocket Boy, with her drawings and stories of heroic Steam Girl and her father, exploring beautiful Mars and Venus, but shot through by a villain to this alternate awful Earth. She calls school bully Michael "reality incarnate". An imaginary dog is "loyal and fluffy and cute. But in real life, dogs bite your hand and pee on the carpet and have sex with the sofa .. You're dog pee on the carpet" p343.
13 Everything Amiable and Obliging by Holly Black
Valerian Obermann 26, thinks of cousin Sofie as a child still p354, until his sister, pretty Amelia and dancing instructor automaton Nicholas fall in love, and the interconnected clockwork house control becomes upset, ignoring chores "stoke fires", break morning cups of chocolate. Robot butler Wexley assures them house tries to balance "needs of all the family members in concert", perhaps conflicting, cannot "truly defy", and may be reset by makers p365. Amelia commands the house to stop Valerian from throwing the off switch, as in kill p370.
14 The Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson
Translated from Mendacius's True Histories of the Roman Inventors, imitates Latin prosy incantations. "The reverie is, of course, nothing but a poet's sentimental concoction and cannot be verified" p381. Marcus Furius 10 loses his home and family to a fire, because greedy Licinius Cassus keeps his fire-boat back too long, and reimburses the orphan with a single silver denarius coin. When a brilliant adult, the Medullinus Machinator builds an Oracle stockasticon to predict result of rich ruler Cassus' attack on the eastern Parthinian desert.
Competitors Julius Caesar goes north, Pompey west. Cassus dedicates seven male Vestal Virgins on the altar of Minerva to operate the contraption and kills Marcus. Despised and envied Cassus laughs at bad omens occurring, and interprets showers of gold and other predictions favorably.
Afterwords: About the Editors (publishers and writers live in Massachusetts with daughter Ursula), Authors (4-14 lines each), Acknowledgements (thank you to the roof, the walls, the floor, the paper, the ink, ...).
March 30, 2018
3/5 overall, there were a couple that I liked well enough -- 'The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor' (Delia Sherman), for being so well written in a Welsh voice and for proving that steampunk doesn't have to be about war and dystopia, a family drama can work just as well; and 'Steam Girl' (Dylan Horrocks) for proving that steampunk doesn't have to be set past, future, elsewhere or elsewhen, the modern here and now works just as well, and it had a very unusual and beautiful love story at its heart.
'Clockwork Fagin' (Cory Doctorow) surprised me with its extremely satisfying ending and the two graphic novel pieces were also a pleasant surprise.
Most of the stories were 'meh -- interesting idea but, meh' (including, disappointingly, those by Garth Nix and Cassandra Clare, whom I know are better storytellers than their truncated tales gave them credit for). I liked that (as the intro says) most of these stories are set 'anywhere but Victorian London', again making the case for steampunk as a whole world-building mindset rather than an aesthetic.
However, there were two outstanding stories, and these most prove (I think) the above point.
'The Last Ride of the Glory Girls' by Libba Bray was my absolute favourite, and I wish there had been more of it. Not in a bad 'what-just-happened' way but in a 'I could happily read and entire novel about these characters in this world' way. It was brilliantly invented, masterfully strung along, and -- after falling out of love with the Gemma Doyle series a little while ago -- reminded me why I loved Bray's writing style in the first place; unique fantasy worlds artfully and eccentrically conceived and populated by genuine characters that feel flesh-and-blood. An absolute treat from start to finish.
The other was Kelly Link's 'The Summer People' -- another modern tale, that focused (beautifully, and as not so many of the other stories chose to) on the maker aspect of steampunk. It was Link at her wacky finest (just this side of bizarre) and although reading it barely felt like steampunk (where were the dirigibles? where the bombs and rubble? what about the crazy-flawed science and the gaslit crinolines?) it was perhaps the most truly steampunk of them all -- make something quirky-beautiful out of whatever bits you've got to hand, and 'BE BOLD, BE BOLD, BUT NOT TOO BOLD' (these words are forever etched on my brain. I may get a tattoo.)
Whatever particular brand of steampunk you favour, there's something in this collection for everyone and even those stories that I wasn't keen on gave me something new and interesting to think about in the many ways that authors can play around with the same basic building blocks.
'Clockwork Fagin' (Cory Doctorow) surprised me with its extremely satisfying ending and the two graphic novel pieces were also a pleasant surprise.
Most of the stories were 'meh -- interesting idea but, meh' (including, disappointingly, those by Garth Nix and Cassandra Clare, whom I know are better storytellers than their truncated tales gave them credit for). I liked that (as the intro says) most of these stories are set 'anywhere but Victorian London', again making the case for steampunk as a whole world-building mindset rather than an aesthetic.
However, there were two outstanding stories, and these most prove (I think) the above point.
'The Last Ride of the Glory Girls' by Libba Bray was my absolute favourite, and I wish there had been more of it. Not in a bad 'what-just-happened' way but in a 'I could happily read and entire novel about these characters in this world' way. It was brilliantly invented, masterfully strung along, and -- after falling out of love with the Gemma Doyle series a little while ago -- reminded me why I loved Bray's writing style in the first place; unique fantasy worlds artfully and eccentrically conceived and populated by genuine characters that feel flesh-and-blood. An absolute treat from start to finish.
The other was Kelly Link's 'The Summer People' -- another modern tale, that focused (beautifully, and as not so many of the other stories chose to) on the maker aspect of steampunk. It was Link at her wacky finest (just this side of bizarre) and although reading it barely felt like steampunk (where were the dirigibles? where the bombs and rubble? what about the crazy-flawed science and the gaslit crinolines?) it was perhaps the most truly steampunk of them all -- make something quirky-beautiful out of whatever bits you've got to hand, and 'BE BOLD, BE BOLD, BUT NOT TOO BOLD' (these words are forever etched on my brain. I may get a tattoo.)
Whatever particular brand of steampunk you favour, there's something in this collection for everyone and even those stories that I wasn't keen on gave me something new and interesting to think about in the many ways that authors can play around with the same basic building blocks.
October 12, 2011
Like most anthologies, the stories within Steampunk! fall into three categories: Fantastic, Mediocre, and Bloody Awful. I will give the authors and editors credit, though, in that, for the most part, they're not your average steampunk. Not only are most of the stories not set in the traditional Victorian London milieu, the stories have settings ranging from Appalachia, Canada, New Zealand, Wales and beyond, from ancient Rome to futures both bleak and fantastical.
Here's a breakdown of those stories which I feel fall into the first and third categories I described above. First, the Fantastic:
--The best, most stand-out story of the entire collection was the very last one presented. Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson concerns a steampunk-flavored ancient Rome (so creative!). The story could've easily come off as cheesy or hokey, but the storytelling, along with Anderson's incredible attention to even the smallest historical detail, makes for a riveting tale. In fact, I really wish Anderson could find a way to turn his short story into a novel or series of novels. His steampunk Rome is a city I would love to revisit.
--The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray. Set in the wild, wild West (kinda; when you read it, you'll understand) and revolving around a gang of girl train robbers and the Pinkerton men (and girl) chasing them, this is a rip-roaring train ride of a story. A well-written and super fun tale.
--Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow. As its name implies, this is a riff on the whole Oliver/orphanage/mistreated waifs theme, with a deliciously inventive and satisfying comeuppance for the miserable orphan master. Richly detailed and immensely satisfying.
--Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce. As I was reading the anthology, this was initially my first choice for favorite story. This piece, above almost all others in the compilation, perfectly captures the wild inventiveness and creative storytelling necessary for a successful steampunk tale. Beautifully told, with vivid imagery, this is C.S.I meets steampunk and it's stupendous.
--The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman. A ghost story in a steampunk setting. Now that's creative! Set in a manor house in the Welsh countryside, this is a charming little tale with perhaps not that much depth, but nevertheless entertaining for what it is.
--Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks. A wonderful story-within-a-story revolving around the familiar alienation/high school-is-hell theme, with superbly entertaining results. Steam Girl is a heroine for a new generation and I would love to see more of her adventures (not to mention Rocket Boy's), especially in a graphic novel, a medium big enough and colorful enough to contain Steam Girl's exuberance.
--Everything Amiable & Obliging by Holly Black. One of the few stories set in London (in fact, I believe there was only one other story with a London-setting), this is a sugared violet, petit four treat of a confection. That's not to say it's lightweight, however. The story delves into the murky realms of what it is exactly which makes a person a person. A delightful tale with unexpected depths.
The Bloody Awful:
--Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng. A short story told in graphic novel-fashion. Now, I understand the steampunk angle as the M.C. (a vendor) peddles little clockwork vignettes. But the story itself is poor. Yeah, yeah, I get the whole 'missed opportunities due to stupid self-indulgence'; that still doesn't mean the story was done well or entertaining, which it wasn't...at all. Plus, the ending was abrupt and not satisfying, not to mention the artwork was childish and not at all creative, in my opinion.
--Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox. First off, I don't see how this qualifies as steampunk. Other than a mention of some steam works and an airship (neither of which are all that uncommon in real life, needing the fantastical touches of clockworks, automatons and other creative additions in order to make them steampunk), the story has no connection with the genre. Secondly, as it concerns a witch and a zombie, the story belongs more to the straight fantasy genre, as there's no steampunk element to either of the two characters, explaining their condition or motivations. As to the plot, it's nonsensical and pointless, with no clear direction. On a technical level, the writing is fine, quite lyrical; it's just wasted on a poor story.
--The Summer People by Kelly Link. Now, to be perfectly honest, this story isn't Bloody Awful; however, it is another story which really doesn't belong in this anthology as there's nothing steampunk about it, which is why I'm including it in this category. Apart from the mention of some clockwork mechanical toys, which aren't inherently steampunk unless placed in context, the tale revolves around fairies. Appalachian fairies, but fairies nonetheless. Unlike the story above, however, this one is actually quite good, with excellent writing and a creative plot. Had I encountered it in a fantasy- or fairy-themed anthology, I'd be singing its praises as a real winner. However, steampunk it ain't. It just doesn't belong.
--Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings. Yes, this one is steampunk and has the elements of that genre in abundance. What it doesn't have is a storyline. What little story exists is confusing, disjointed, and just plain hard to follow. Even the fact that the tale contains elements of real-life incidents doesn't help clarify the action. Very poorly done.
--The absolute weakest link of the anthology was the very first story, Some Fortunate Future Day, by Cassandra Clare. Now, I've never had the (pleasure?) of reading any of Clare's books, though I have heard the numerous critics who call her a hack. Judging from this (thankfully short) example, I'd have to say those critics are on to something. A piece of fluff, with apparently very little thought or creativity put into it, I wonder at the editors' decision to include it. For example, the M.C. is named Rose and another girl integral to the story is named Lily. Really? How clever, naming both girls after flowers; that's realistic and, boy howdy! what a stretch of the imagination. The best thing I can say about this piece is that it takes very little time or brain power to get through it. Shallow and insipid.
I have to say, out of the 14 stories contained in Steampunk!, there was a greater-than-average ratio of dreck to gems, for which I'm extremely grateful. Kudos to the editors, for while they could've done better, they also could've done a helluva lot worse.
Here's a breakdown of those stories which I feel fall into the first and third categories I described above. First, the Fantastic:
--The best, most stand-out story of the entire collection was the very last one presented. Oracle Engine by M.T. Anderson concerns a steampunk-flavored ancient Rome (so creative!). The story could've easily come off as cheesy or hokey, but the storytelling, along with Anderson's incredible attention to even the smallest historical detail, makes for a riveting tale. In fact, I really wish Anderson could find a way to turn his short story into a novel or series of novels. His steampunk Rome is a city I would love to revisit.
--The Last Ride of the Glory Girls by Libba Bray. Set in the wild, wild West (kinda; when you read it, you'll understand) and revolving around a gang of girl train robbers and the Pinkerton men (and girl) chasing them, this is a rip-roaring train ride of a story. A well-written and super fun tale.
--Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow. As its name implies, this is a riff on the whole Oliver/orphanage/mistreated waifs theme, with a deliciously inventive and satisfying comeuppance for the miserable orphan master. Richly detailed and immensely satisfying.
--Hand in Glove by Ysabeau S. Wilce. As I was reading the anthology, this was initially my first choice for favorite story. This piece, above almost all others in the compilation, perfectly captures the wild inventiveness and creative storytelling necessary for a successful steampunk tale. Beautifully told, with vivid imagery, this is C.S.I meets steampunk and it's stupendous.
--The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor by Delia Sherman. A ghost story in a steampunk setting. Now that's creative! Set in a manor house in the Welsh countryside, this is a charming little tale with perhaps not that much depth, but nevertheless entertaining for what it is.
--Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks. A wonderful story-within-a-story revolving around the familiar alienation/high school-is-hell theme, with superbly entertaining results. Steam Girl is a heroine for a new generation and I would love to see more of her adventures (not to mention Rocket Boy's), especially in a graphic novel, a medium big enough and colorful enough to contain Steam Girl's exuberance.
--Everything Amiable & Obliging by Holly Black. One of the few stories set in London (in fact, I believe there was only one other story with a London-setting), this is a sugared violet, petit four treat of a confection. That's not to say it's lightweight, however. The story delves into the murky realms of what it is exactly which makes a person a person. A delightful tale with unexpected depths.
The Bloody Awful:
--Seven Days Beset by Demons by Shawn Cheng. A short story told in graphic novel-fashion. Now, I understand the steampunk angle as the M.C. (a vendor) peddles little clockwork vignettes. But the story itself is poor. Yeah, yeah, I get the whole 'missed opportunities due to stupid self-indulgence'; that still doesn't mean the story was done well or entertaining, which it wasn't...at all. Plus, the ending was abrupt and not satisfying, not to mention the artwork was childish and not at all creative, in my opinion.
--Gethsemane by Elizabeth Knox. First off, I don't see how this qualifies as steampunk. Other than a mention of some steam works and an airship (neither of which are all that uncommon in real life, needing the fantastical touches of clockworks, automatons and other creative additions in order to make them steampunk), the story has no connection with the genre. Secondly, as it concerns a witch and a zombie, the story belongs more to the straight fantasy genre, as there's no steampunk element to either of the two characters, explaining their condition or motivations. As to the plot, it's nonsensical and pointless, with no clear direction. On a technical level, the writing is fine, quite lyrical; it's just wasted on a poor story.
--The Summer People by Kelly Link. Now, to be perfectly honest, this story isn't Bloody Awful; however, it is another story which really doesn't belong in this anthology as there's nothing steampunk about it, which is why I'm including it in this category. Apart from the mention of some clockwork mechanical toys, which aren't inherently steampunk unless placed in context, the tale revolves around fairies. Appalachian fairies, but fairies nonetheless. Unlike the story above, however, this one is actually quite good, with excellent writing and a creative plot. Had I encountered it in a fantasy- or fairy-themed anthology, I'd be singing its praises as a real winner. However, steampunk it ain't. It just doesn't belong.
--Finishing School by Kathleen Jennings. Yes, this one is steampunk and has the elements of that genre in abundance. What it doesn't have is a storyline. What little story exists is confusing, disjointed, and just plain hard to follow. Even the fact that the tale contains elements of real-life incidents doesn't help clarify the action. Very poorly done.
--The absolute weakest link of the anthology was the very first story, Some Fortunate Future Day, by Cassandra Clare. Now, I've never had the (pleasure?) of reading any of Clare's books, though I have heard the numerous critics who call her a hack. Judging from this (thankfully short) example, I'd have to say those critics are on to something. A piece of fluff, with apparently very little thought or creativity put into it, I wonder at the editors' decision to include it. For example, the M.C. is named Rose and another girl integral to the story is named Lily. Really? How clever, naming both girls after flowers; that's realistic and, boy howdy! what a stretch of the imagination. The best thing I can say about this piece is that it takes very little time or brain power to get through it. Shallow and insipid.
I have to say, out of the 14 stories contained in Steampunk!, there was a greater-than-average ratio of dreck to gems, for which I'm extremely grateful. Kudos to the editors, for while they could've done better, they also could've done a helluva lot worse.
May 3, 2019
I truly loved this one! It has great stories that are very different from one another and so unique! I have a few favorites that I'm going to be re-reading in the future for sure! It gave me those steampunk feels that I was looking for and I'd recommend it to anyone that likes steampunk or wants to see what the genre is about without the stories having to do with alternate history etc.
October 31, 2019
Didn't enjoy at all only two stories where four stars and rest one star
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April 12, 2020Some good, some meh, but all infused with that steampunkish periodic flavour. STEAM GIRL was my favourite in the collection.
April 19, 2024
Boring beyond belief. Drove me deep into a long reading slump. Not one story in this anthology is memorable. The steampunk settings is interesting but that's it.
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