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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
This is a great, sweeping, Mars adventure, in the tradition of Burroughs, but also striding out imaginatively into uncharted territory. The airships between the stars remind me of Timlin's The Ship That Sailed to Mars, and the "science" explaining how this could be is a marvelous iteration of Victorian understandings.
The audio book is soundly read, and Arabella herself is a winning character. There are some areas of repetition and self-inflicted drama that I found mildly annoying, but on the whole, hurrah for an epic Victorian Mars adventure! Hurrah for our plucky heroine and dashing Captain Singh! Long may they sail, and swashbuckle between the stars.
The audio book is soundly read, and Arabella herself is a winning character. There are some areas of repetition and self-inflicted drama that I found mildly annoying, but on the whole, hurrah for an epic Victorian Mars adventure! Hurrah for our plucky heroine and dashing Captain Singh! Long may they sail, and swashbuckle between the stars.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was very compelling and I flew through it - Arabella is a fun character, and the setting is definitely fun.
However, it's not really a romance. Most of the development of their feelings obviously happens off page, and is only hinted at by the characters. I also found the ending resolution of their getting together pretty unsatisfying. I also had some issues with the racial tensions in this book - they weren't addressed in a meaningful and thoughtful way, and I found the reveal of the Captain's past to be very ridiculous and stereotypical.
If you're going into this expecting it to be a romance, don't. If you're going into this expecting it to be a fun steampunk sailing romp, you'll be much more satisfied, if you can look past the couple of flaws.
However, it's not really a romance. Most of the development of their feelings obviously happens off page, and is only hinted at by the characters. I also found the ending resolution of their getting together pretty unsatisfying. I also had some issues with the racial tensions in this book - they weren't addressed in a meaningful and thoughtful way, and I found the reveal of the Captain's past to be very ridiculous and stereotypical.
If you're going into this expecting it to be a romance, don't. If you're going into this expecting it to be a fun steampunk sailing romp, you'll be much more satisfied, if you can look past the couple of flaws.
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
(+) Steampunk setting.
(+) Some good vocabulary words.
(-) Boring.
(-) Lack of suspense or tension.
(-) Mary Sue.
(-) Martians.
SUMMED UP: I sadly continue to dislike steampunk novels.
(+) Some good vocabulary words.
(-) Boring.
(-) Lack of suspense or tension.
(-) Mary Sue.
(-) Martians.
SUMMED UP: I sadly continue to dislike steampunk novels.
I wanted to like this more. I'm not super into the steampunk genre, so I don't have much to compare to, but although the book was a pretty enjoyable adventure, there was a bit too much colonial-savior and male-savior stuff going on for me to really enjoy it. The Martians are rioting??? Why would they do that??? They have no reason to be upset that we colonized their planet!
The blurb for this book made me giddy with promise of Ether-pirates, Gear-based AI and an intelligent, competent female protagonist I was psyched. Unfortunately, in order to maintain its trope-y goodness it dodged the "women are the weaker sex" trope with the traditional "girl as boy" trope. Unfortunately I found her reveal as girl very traumatic. Combine that with some very sketchy and occasionally non-sensical ether space physics and I can only give this book a 3 out of 5
2 stars feels generous. Plenty of racist slangs throughout the book, "due to colonial setting." I had hope at the beginning that the main character would address them (she even started to), but eventually she cowers to "British sensibilities" (white fragility). When her gender is revealed she loses the respect of those around her. Why not have the other characters realize that gender isn't tied to ability? Ugh! Also, there are only heterosexual people in this book. Not just as a default, but it is specifically brought to our attention when the main character chides herself on mooning over the captain when "no man would." The idea for the book was cool, but that is about it. I contemplated not finishing the book several times, but as I had originally thought it would make a good Vaginal Fantasy club pick I felt obligated to finish it and record my thoughts. Almost forgot- the romance. What romance?! Terribly done! Would have been better had the book just been about a sister saving her brother. No need to force a romance! Maybe I need to change my rating to 1 star.
Trigger warnings: death of a parent, explosions, war, violence. I think that's all?
3.5 stars.
So here's the thing: everything about this book is up my alley. It's steampunk. With space travel. About a badass teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy and gets a job on a ship bound for Mars to try and save her brother from her douchey cousin. With kind of Hornblower-y feelings about it. Uh, Y.E.S.
And for the most part, I really enjoyed it. Certainly, the beginning and the end were action packed and exciting. However, the middle chunk of the book - everything that happens on the ship - was...slow. I mean, it was still interesting. But it was slow.
My main problem with this, however, was the worldbuilding. Basically, we're told in the blurb that ever since Isaac Newton witnessed bubbles floating up from his bath, mankind has been travelling in space. But that's literally the only place the origins of space travel are mentioned. So we're just thrown into this world where there are ships flying off to Mars and Venus and the Moon all the time, and apparently people can breathe in space and there are asteroids with trees and animals on them. But there's no real explanation about how all of this came to be.
I'm also not QUITE sure who the intended audience is for this book. Levine has said in the questions section about this book that he wrote it as YA but that Tor chose to publish it as an adult book. And in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like both? There's nothing in it that would STOP it from being YA (with the exception of a romantic relationship that pops up right at the very end between a teenager and a grown ass adult, and even then, it's fine by Regency standards, so...?).
But I think this would also be a pretty hard sell with a lot of teenagers. I can think of...maybe 3 kids out of the 300 I take who would be happy to pick this up, and two of them are exclusively SFF readers and will read pretty much anything you throw at them from within SFF.
So yeah. I enjoyed it enough to read the second book. And I'm actually tempted to get a copy of it for work, because kids are way more willing to read historical fiction if there are SFF elements in it. But for me, I wanted way more worldbuilding than I got.
3.5 stars.
So here's the thing: everything about this book is up my alley. It's steampunk. With space travel. About a badass teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy and gets a job on a ship bound for Mars to try and save her brother from her douchey cousin. With kind of Hornblower-y feelings about it. Uh, Y.E.S.
And for the most part, I really enjoyed it. Certainly, the beginning and the end were action packed and exciting. However, the middle chunk of the book - everything that happens on the ship - was...slow. I mean, it was still interesting. But it was slow.
My main problem with this, however, was the worldbuilding. Basically, we're told in the blurb that ever since Isaac Newton witnessed bubbles floating up from his bath, mankind has been travelling in space. But that's literally the only place the origins of space travel are mentioned. So we're just thrown into this world where there are ships flying off to Mars and Venus and the Moon all the time, and apparently people can breathe in space and there are asteroids with trees and animals on them. But there's no real explanation about how all of this came to be.
I'm also not QUITE sure who the intended audience is for this book. Levine has said in the questions section about this book that he wrote it as YA but that Tor chose to publish it as an adult book. And in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like both? There's nothing in it that would STOP it from being YA (with the exception of a romantic relationship that pops up right at the very end between a teenager and a grown ass adult, and even then, it's fine by Regency standards, so...?).
But I think this would also be a pretty hard sell with a lot of teenagers. I can think of...maybe 3 kids out of the 300 I take who would be happy to pick this up, and two of them are exclusively SFF readers and will read pretty much anything you throw at them from within SFF.
So yeah. I enjoyed it enough to read the second book. And I'm actually tempted to get a copy of it for work, because kids are way more willing to read historical fiction if there are SFF elements in it. But for me, I wanted way more worldbuilding than I got.
It missed the mark of being 5 stars because there was a LOT of drawn on scenes with too much imagery to where i found myself getting bored with the entire book.