Book Review
May. 23rd, 2013 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariGanymede
by Cherie Priest
The third book in the Clockwork Century series, Ganymede takes us down to New Orleans, where airship captain Andan Cly has been hired by his former lover Josephine Early to retrieve a prototype submarine from lake Ponchartrain and sneak it out of the city. This is complicated both by the uncertainty of operating an experimental device and by the fact that New Orleans is a contested area in the Civil War*, and is thus occupied by Texas, which is closely allied with the Confederacy. And in the background, there is New Orleans' growing zombie problem.
Like the other books in the series, Ganymede was a lot of fun, although the action was slower to start in this one. However, that did allow for a really great exploration of 1880s New Orleans and more good world-building, especially concerning the effects of a longer Civil War. The characters are great, too, especially Josephine, who is complex and extremely capable at making things happen the way she wants them to. She's able to be a driving force in New Orleans even though she is operating almost entirely from the margins. I also loved the way Priest does not use the past relationship between Josephine and Andan to create superfluous sexual tension or a love triangle. It's refreshing to have past lovers meet up in a novel and have it be totally fine and not all about resolving or rekindling their relationship. I'm also intrigued that there is starting to be a suggestion of a plot arc for the whole series, having to do with the zombies (and possibly another such arc concerning the war). There are at least two more books, and I'm very interested to see how that will play out.
*In Priest's alternate history, the Civil War was extended by the development of steam technology, and thus this book takes place in the early 1880s, with the war still going strong.
by Cherie Priest
The third book in the Clockwork Century series, Ganymede takes us down to New Orleans, where airship captain Andan Cly has been hired by his former lover Josephine Early to retrieve a prototype submarine from lake Ponchartrain and sneak it out of the city. This is complicated both by the uncertainty of operating an experimental device and by the fact that New Orleans is a contested area in the Civil War*, and is thus occupied by Texas, which is closely allied with the Confederacy. And in the background, there is New Orleans' growing zombie problem.
Like the other books in the series, Ganymede was a lot of fun, although the action was slower to start in this one. However, that did allow for a really great exploration of 1880s New Orleans and more good world-building, especially concerning the effects of a longer Civil War. The characters are great, too, especially Josephine, who is complex and extremely capable at making things happen the way she wants them to. She's able to be a driving force in New Orleans even though she is operating almost entirely from the margins. I also loved the way Priest does not use the past relationship between Josephine and Andan to create superfluous sexual tension or a love triangle. It's refreshing to have past lovers meet up in a novel and have it be totally fine and not all about resolving or rekindling their relationship. I'm also intrigued that there is starting to be a suggestion of a plot arc for the whole series, having to do with the zombies (and possibly another such arc concerning the war). There are at least two more books, and I'm very interested to see how that will play out.
*In Priest's alternate history, the Civil War was extended by the development of steam technology, and thus this book takes place in the early 1880s, with the war still going strong.
