Reviews

Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel by Paul Guinan, Anina Bennett

kurtwombat's review

4.0

A marvelous tale of the first mechanical man created in the late 19th century. Equal parts art book, graphic novel, history text--this Gump like adventure has the mechanical man Boilerplate moving through history but not in a way that trivializes like Gump...but as a critique of the world man created as the 20th century burst into being. Created with the intention of freeing man from war, Boilerplate instead was misused like new technology often is. Can almost be read as a straight historic text as Boilerplate's interaction with history is presented in a thorough and fleshed out manner. Each event is presented in a historical context, given a full background with tasty famous people mixed in all over the place. From the Boxer Rebellion to Teddy Roosevelt's mythic charge up San Juan Hill to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, it's a delightful trip through time. Especially interesting to me was the original US/Korean conflict--known as the Korean Expedition of 1871. The art work is fantastic--original and recreations with Boilerplate inserted in history--historical photographs with Boilerplate inserted all seem to work. The work is effortless and never seems forced.

szeglin's review

5.0

What a fun, fantastic book! Highly recommended for fans of history, alternate history, robots, or photo manipulation. By the time I finished this, I was half-convinced there really had been a Boilerplate. As I worked through the book, I received a touchup on my knowledge of late 19th and early 20th American history. The text and illustrations and photographs conveyed real historical information with a bit of robotic whimsy. I'll definitely be cracking Boilerplate open again in the future.

rabbithero's review

3.0

An interesting exercise, if a bit bloated. At times, the level of detail Guinan and Bennett deploy is distracting- there is TOO much detail that the pages become exhausting, and a lot of the information provided about Boilerplate itself is identical, with only the setting changed. Still, it's a fun attempt at creating a faux- history, which is something I've not often seen done in this manner. There's a lot of interesting history on display here, and the angle of presenting it through the lens of a mechanical man is neat, but overall it feels a little lifeless. The characters of Archie and Lily Campion are almost stock characters, lacking in any notable quirks or characteristics that would make them uniquely human. Being that Boilerplate itself is devoid of personality (I actually emailed the author to ask if Boikerplate could actually speak, as the book never explains), the Campions are the thread that ties this narrative together, and other than the fact that they know a lot of famous people, they both are sort of...generically progressive, which smacks of not wanting to make your hero a bad guy.

Fine, but not something I'd return to.