Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Wonder Engine

I really enjoyed the Clocktaur Wars books and flew through them. The clocktaurs are creepy, and the gnomes are wonderful with their surprisingly complex society.

I'm not the biggest fan of love triangles as subplots, especially when

one of the characters in the triangle ends up dead in the resolution

.

It surprises me that more reviews tag this "light hearted" than "dark." It's certainly funny at times, but also has demons and mysterious fatal plague, and flesh-eating tattoos. I wouldn't call it "light."

That doesn't mean I don't recommend it, though, it is really fun to watch some morally gray characters forced to work alongside a paladin and a young sheltered scholar.

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skl_hcn's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Unlike the first book, the romantic plot was a huge part and it was not done well. The plot was fantastic, the romance ruined it.

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achingallover's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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booksthatburn's review

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

THE WONDER ENGINE is a perfect sequel to THE CLOCKWORK BOYS, full of wit and care between a small group of people expecting to spend the rest of their extremely brief lives in one another's company against long odds and in great danger.

Grimehug plays more more central role here, but specifically not as one of the heroes. He's accompanying the humans so that some gnole is keeping track of them, much as other gnoles accompany the clocktaurs. Learned Edmund's change of character is gradual enough to feel reasonable, but is a complete transformation from his first appearance in THE CLOCKWORK BOYS. I love Slate and Caliban, and I like finding out a bit more of Slate's former life in Anuket City. Brenner continues to be a lurky assassin and an excellent character.

This does a tremendous amount of worldbuilding related to gnoles as their society intersects with humans in Anuket City. It also shows much of Anuket City's underworld, which is highly involved in most other parts of the city's functioning.

As the second book in a duology, this shows the crew’s whole stay in Anuket City and briefly addresses the aftermath. It addresses Slate and Caliban’s feelings for each other, the mystery of the Clocktaurs, Gnole society, and Learned Edmund’s personal growth. It doesn’t leave anything for later, while other books are set in this same world, these particular characters’ story seems wrapped up for now. Slate and Caliban are the main point-of-view characters, just like in the first book, with a brief section or two from other characters. I don’t think anything is both introduced and resolved here, but this is literally part two of two books and it has its own storyline by being specific to a place while the first book was the journey there.

If someone read just this book without the first one it might make enough sense to be interesting, but several parts of the finale and a lot of the character growth depends on seeing how they started out, which is contained in CLOCKWORK BOYS. While it might still be enjoyable on its own, I definitely recommend reading both books as they are much better together.

If you enjoyed THE CLOCKWORK BOYS then don't skip THE WONDER ENGINE!

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