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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Fun space story with sailing ships navigating between planets and a spunky girl fighting the rules of 1800s propriety to save her family. Dastarty cousins, Martian battles, and automatons keep things lively. I'm off to look for the next book.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
I'm really torn about this book. It reminded me strongly of childhood favorite The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and I flew through, especially the portions set on the ship during the voyage to Mars, but reading it with the knowledge I have today I could not help but see it was built on a rotten foundation of colonialism.
I think the author intended to avoid some of the problems of British colonial rule while still enjoying the adventurous explorer atmosphere by setting the book on a fictional Mars with a fictional sentient Martian species, but it felt too much like a bad analogy for how indigenous American populations were treated by explorers.
I also don't know enough about British and Indian colonial history to know how to read the backstory of an Indian character but am cautious about how it was described.
YMMV but I am personally not willing to wade through two more books for Arabella to potentially discover that the Martians are not inferior to the British/ so-called "civilized" society. Which is a bummer because I did enjoy many aspects of this book.
I think the author intended to avoid some of the problems of British colonial rule while still enjoying the adventurous explorer atmosphere by setting the book on a fictional Mars with a fictional sentient Martian species, but it felt too much like a bad analogy for how indigenous American populations were treated by explorers.
I also don't know enough about British and Indian colonial history to know how to read the backstory of an Indian character but am cautious about how it was described.
YMMV but I am personally not willing to wade through two more books for Arabella to potentially discover that the Martians are not inferior to the British/ so-called "civilized" society. Which is a bummer because I did enjoy many aspects of this book.
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
A very entertaining yarn along the lines of Jules Verne and HG Wells, but set in 1813, so hello sexism and girls can't do anything, and some cogpunk elements and airships that fly between Mars and Earth.
Meet Arabella, a bright determined young lady who gets dragged back to Earth by her well meaning but terribly socially uptight mother. When events mean Arabella has to find her way back home to Mars to save her brother, the tale takes a ship turn, but set in space and our young hero has to disguise who she is to get taken anywhere, because the whole girl thing.
I found this tale very enjoyable, the science a little disbelieving, but if you accept it in the vein of the style of the story, then it all hangs together well and makes sense.
Arabella is a likeable person, loyal, kind, honest and hardworking and will do anything to save her family, even her mother who she does not see eye to eye. I had to like her.
Things do not go the way you would expect them, and the last third act of the tale is an eventful one, with some play outs that I did see coming, while others were a little out of the blue, but considering the social order of the time period, they make perfect sense.
I won't spoil it for you though.
Give this a go if you like classic adventure stories, fun sci-fi adventure and headstrong heroines.
Meet Arabella, a bright determined young lady who gets dragged back to Earth by her well meaning but terribly socially uptight mother. When events mean Arabella has to find her way back home to Mars to save her brother, the tale takes a ship turn, but set in space and our young hero has to disguise who she is to get taken anywhere, because the whole girl thing.
I found this tale very enjoyable, the science a little disbelieving, but if you accept it in the vein of the style of the story, then it all hangs together well and makes sense.
Arabella is a likeable person, loyal, kind, honest and hardworking and will do anything to save her family, even her mother who she does not see eye to eye. I had to like her.
Things do not go the way you would expect them, and the last third act of the tale is an eventful one, with some play outs that I did see coming, while others were a little out of the blue, but considering the social order of the time period, they make perfect sense.
I won't spoil it for you though.
Give this a go if you like classic adventure stories, fun sci-fi adventure and headstrong heroines.
I wanted to love it, I really did. The writing was so descriptive and reminded me of Jules Verne's work for good and for Ill.
Spoilers below...
It was just as adventurous and just as sickeningly colonialist as Verne's work. The benevolent colonialism and sexism undercut Arabella's characterization and made her into a kind of Mary Sue. And the romance was very one-sided and he characterization of Captain Singh as some royal from India with limited character development (Having a character who is in love with him repeatedly saying how good and honorable he is does not complex character make) felt clumsy, especially with the attempts to gloss over imperialism and the imposition of British norms on the martians. The Martian rebellion was eerily reminiscent of the Sepoy Rebellion in colonial India, and the convenient resolution and Arabella's seeming ability to talk people out of anything and everything felt like some idealized version of the narrative.
Spoilers below...
It was just as adventurous and just as sickeningly colonialist as Verne's work. The benevolent colonialism and sexism undercut Arabella's characterization and made her into a kind of Mary Sue. And the romance was very one-sided and he characterization of Captain Singh as some royal from India with limited character development (Having a character who is in love with him repeatedly saying how good and honorable he is does not complex character make) felt clumsy, especially with the attempts to gloss over imperialism and the imposition of British norms on the martians. The Martian rebellion was eerily reminiscent of the Sepoy Rebellion in colonial India, and the convenient resolution and Arabella's seeming ability to talk people out of anything and everything felt like some idealized version of the narrative.
Arabella of Mars is a regency era interplanetary romance, where the British Empire has colonized Mars. They have done so with regular sailing vessels (can a vessel be regular if it has to navigate in six directions?) because apparently space is somehow filled with air. Even though this premise is scientifically ludicrous, Levine works hard to try and convince you that, having accepted this bit of fantasy, the rest of his world is at least internally coherent and logical.
So, the year is 1813 and Napoleon is a threat in the skies. Arabella is a British girl having grown up and lived all her life in colonial Mars, which has its own native population. I don't really feel like describing the plot too much (girl has to save her brother from a murderous plot, disguises herself as a boy, adventures in a ship in space, pirates, automata, romance, etc). About the romance, I feel like it could have been better explored (and I hope it will develop in the sequels), because as it is I only saw mutual admiration (which is a solid basis for romance) and not a lot of emotional depth. In the next book I hope to see that and also an exploration of the social stigma of a bi-racial couple, which was hinted at in the ending.
What I wanted to see more, and again I think it will be a theme present in the sequels, is the question of the colonial enterprise itself. In the first part of the book you follow Arabella as a brave, sensible girl who is desperate to save her brother and who chafes at societal constraints regarding women. Her position as a member of colonial society isn't really the focus for a long portion of the book, and only occasionally does that enter into the plot to show you that Arabella is not entirely British nor entirely Martian. She is ready to defend the natives from the casual slander she hears about them and shows great admiration for them. However, it all comes crashing down in the last portion of the book. Arabella is made to confront her own somewhat idyllic ideas about colonial society. As a reader do you root for the intrepid girl you were rooting for all along or do you root for the oppressed martians?
All in all, a nice read. I'm looking forward to book 2, Arabella and the Battle of Venus.
So, the year is 1813 and Napoleon is a threat in the skies. Arabella is a British girl having grown up and lived all her life in colonial Mars, which has its own native population. I don't really feel like describing the plot too much (girl has to save her brother from a murderous plot, disguises herself as a boy, adventures in a ship in space, pirates, automata, romance, etc). About the romance, I feel like it could have been better explored (and I hope it will develop in the sequels), because as it is I only saw mutual admiration (which is a solid basis for romance) and not a lot of emotional depth. In the next book I hope to see that and also an exploration of the social stigma of a bi-racial couple, which was hinted at in the ending.
What I wanted to see more, and again I think it will be a theme present in the sequels, is the question of the colonial enterprise itself. In the first part of the book you follow Arabella as a brave, sensible girl who is desperate to save her brother and who chafes at societal constraints regarding women. Her position as a member of colonial society isn't really the focus for a long portion of the book, and only occasionally does that enter into the plot to show you that Arabella is not entirely British nor entirely Martian. She is ready to defend the natives from the casual slander she hears about them and shows great admiration for them. However, it all comes crashing down in the last portion of the book. Arabella is made to confront her own somewhat idyllic ideas about colonial society. As a reader do you root for the intrepid girl you were rooting for all along or do you root for the oppressed martians?
All in all, a nice read. I'm looking forward to book 2, Arabella and the Battle of Venus.
Take what you know of the science of outer space and forget it while you read this book. This is an alternate history set during the Regency era where space travel is possible and Mars has been colonized. Once you find yourself accepting this premise you are in for a rollicking fun ride.
This book is a fun, fun throwback to the adventure stories of old where teenage girls have to pretend to be boys to have adventures and save their families from ruin.
Considering this is a throwback to the old adventure stories, the plot does feel a bit contrived at times, the ending especially and yet it works quite well and I feel trying to tell a more “realistic” story under these circumstances would have unraveled the whole thing.
The characters are on a whole engaging, Arabella herself is a classic plucky heroine who I found easy to identify with and care about, and the ships crew felt...mostly fleshed out, at least the ones we were meant like and care about and the villains were properly villainous and despicable.
I did have a few concerns with the native Mars culture that was introduced but this also felt somewhat appropriate with the style of old school adventure stories, and we didn't get that much time to really explore them so it's possible future stories will balance out my concerns.
This was a fun book to read and I am looking forward to more in this series and more by this author.
This book is a fun, fun throwback to the adventure stories of old where teenage girls have to pretend to be boys to have adventures and save their families from ruin.
Considering this is a throwback to the old adventure stories, the plot does feel a bit contrived at times, the ending especially and yet it works quite well and I feel trying to tell a more “realistic” story under these circumstances would have unraveled the whole thing.
The characters are on a whole engaging, Arabella herself is a classic plucky heroine who I found easy to identify with and care about, and the ships crew felt...mostly fleshed out, at least the ones we were meant like and care about and the villains were properly villainous and despicable.
I did have a few concerns with the native Mars culture that was introduced but this also felt somewhat appropriate with the style of old school adventure stories, and we didn't get that much time to really explore them so it's possible future stories will balance out my concerns.
This was a fun book to read and I am looking forward to more in this series and more by this author.
Yes, you are seeing those dates correctly - I finished this book the day I received it! I was lucky enough to receive an ARC (Advanced reader's copy) of this novel, and began reading it immediately once it arrived. I finished it that same evening. Arabella is a self-motivated young woman, one who does not conform to society's perception of her supposed role. She sets out on a quest that would be difficult for anyone, much less a teenage girl taking on a role for which she has no experience whatsoever. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys Burroughs, fantasy, steam punk, and/or adventure.
DNF at 13%. Male authors should be able to write about teenage girls without objectifying them.
Just reading the first couple of pages drew me in a story which will be in my mind marked as "utterly delightful". Many aspects of the book are right up my street; we have a historical flair, a strong but not too badass female charakter and an adventourous and piratey vibe - and the mars and the Martians. The characters, especially Arabella, are well rounded with strength and flaws and actions, which luckily are not always smart and even sometimes seems contradictory. Just the ending felt a bit rushed and I would have loved it to be a little bit longer.