Book Review
Oct. 19th, 2011 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariTimepiece
by Heather Albano
I read this time-travel steampunk novel with great relish. It's about Elizabeth Barton, a young woman stifled by her upper class life in the British countryside of 1815, William Carrington, a former soldier disabled in the Napoleonic wars, a mysterious pocketwatch that allows them to travel through time, and a Dickensian dystopian full of monsters and giant robots they are attempting to avert. The book is great fun and has impeccable pacing - Albano knows exactly when to hurtle forward and when to slow down and step back a bit. She also brought the different time periods and settings to life so well - there were times I could just about feel the cobblestones under my feet or hear the artillery shells thudding in the distance. The Dickensian dystopia is also quite a wonderful mix of imagination and historical fact: what if industrialization produced not just more and cheaper goods but also fantastic instruments of oppression, and what if unrest and danger came from monsters manufactured and manipulated for power and gain?
The characters are really wonderful - completely believable as people of their own time yet not so historically remote as to have no relevance or interest to the reader. Both Elizabeth and William are people straining against the cages in which their circumstances have placed them. I like the way their time-travel transforms their yearnings for better futures for themselves into a desire for a better future for the world.
I was also really pleased with the way romance is integrated into the story - it happens along the way, not as the focus of the plot or as something that slows or interrupts the adventure. And it's all done without the metaphorical sweeping string orchestra and soft focus. Instead we get a gradual shift in feelings and relationship that is much more subtle and ultimately more natural.
The complexities of time travel and the mutability (or immutability) of history is handled beautifully. it's clear that Elizabeth, William, and the friends they make are working within a complex system where nothing is simple or easy. Decisions and plans can fail or bring unexpected consequences even when they succeed.
There will be a sequel coming out in the summer of 2012, and I can't wait.
by Heather Albano
I read this time-travel steampunk novel with great relish. It's about Elizabeth Barton, a young woman stifled by her upper class life in the British countryside of 1815, William Carrington, a former soldier disabled in the Napoleonic wars, a mysterious pocketwatch that allows them to travel through time, and a Dickensian dystopian full of monsters and giant robots they are attempting to avert. The book is great fun and has impeccable pacing - Albano knows exactly when to hurtle forward and when to slow down and step back a bit. She also brought the different time periods and settings to life so well - there were times I could just about feel the cobblestones under my feet or hear the artillery shells thudding in the distance. The Dickensian dystopia is also quite a wonderful mix of imagination and historical fact: what if industrialization produced not just more and cheaper goods but also fantastic instruments of oppression, and what if unrest and danger came from monsters manufactured and manipulated for power and gain?
The characters are really wonderful - completely believable as people of their own time yet not so historically remote as to have no relevance or interest to the reader. Both Elizabeth and William are people straining against the cages in which their circumstances have placed them. I like the way their time-travel transforms their yearnings for better futures for themselves into a desire for a better future for the world.
I was also really pleased with the way romance is integrated into the story - it happens along the way, not as the focus of the plot or as something that slows or interrupts the adventure. And it's all done without the metaphorical sweeping string orchestra and soft focus. Instead we get a gradual shift in feelings and relationship that is much more subtle and ultimately more natural.
The complexities of time travel and the mutability (or immutability) of history is handled beautifully. it's clear that Elizabeth, William, and the friends they make are working within a complex system where nothing is simple or easy. Decisions and plans can fail or bring unexpected consequences even when they succeed.
There will be a sequel coming out in the summer of 2012, and I can't wait.
