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A review by princess_starr
A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz
1.0
With the end of Shelley Adina's Magnificent Devices earlier this year, and the impending end of Gail Carriger’s Finishing School and Custard Protocol series (NOOOOOOOO!), I need to find a new steampunk series to get completely obsessed with. I’ve picked up the first books in a couple of series, but given my schedule up until last month, I slotted them in the “We’ll eventually get around to this” pile. (Thank god I went on vacation, otherwise known as “I could probably plow through a book per day, right? Eight books should hold me over, right?”)
When I first picked this up, I had initially found book 2 of the series, The Clockwork Heart, because it caught my eye. (I’ve wanted to use that title for ages; sadly haven’t found the right story for it yet.) I did at least see the first book, A Conspiracy of Alchemists, and decided to go for chronological order.
There are two major problems with this book. The first being is that I had to stop at a certain point and check the publication date on this, because I’m shocked that some of the things in here got published in 2013. One of the rightful criticisms of steampunk is that it is a fetishization of colonialism and white privilege that relies on “Oh, well, we’re being HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!” when no, you have giant robots or dirigibles or significant tech in the Victorian era, and doubly so when you throw in magic and supernatural creatures. Gail Carriger isn’t 100% perfect about racial representation in her books (see the main plot of Prudence), but at least she makes an effort to be inclusive. There’s incredibly colonialized setting of Istanbul, constantly referred as Constantinople in the book. (They Might Be Giants aside, Scott Westerfeld made it a point to refer to the city correctly in Behemoth when it would have been “historically accurate” to use Constantinople.) And then there is the horrendously racist mention of a member of the Council of Warlocks, who Our Hero thinks is corrupted because “he has yellow teeth and sells opium, rotting the fine upstanding country of England!”
WHY?
Why? There’s utterly no reason for this! There’s already enough ample evidence that the Council of Warlocks aren’t going to respect Elle’s wishes, there’s no reason to throw in the racism! It’s not needed! And again, you lose the “historical accurate” defense when you have fairies and vampires and magicians and steampunk running around! In fact, it just made me hate Marsh for the entire book, and I didn’t really like him to begin with.
Aside from being a racist, Marsh also throws Elle into this grand scheme by forcing her to activate her powers unknowingly, and intentionally keeps information from her until the drama is needed. And we’re supposed to be rooting for them to get together. Instead of sitting down and saying to Elle, “Okay, I know exactly why you hate me and the organization that I represent, BUT this is what’s going to happen if we don’t hone your powers and they get a hold of you,” no, we have Marsh tricking Elle into going with him and then he throws her at an ancient statue to forcibly activate her Oracle powers. Oh, but it’s okay because he actually really does love her and wants to protect Elle from being used by the Warlocks or the Alchemists! Marsh just won’t tell her until he needs to rescue her at the very end, by which point his withholding information has caused her to be stuck with a Macguffin bracelet, nearly had her life force sucked away, and kidnapped by the bad guys.
And Elle was just underwhelming. There’s a lot in this book that feels like someone went down a checklist of “What’s popular in steampunk?” and threw them all in here without really exploring those avenues. Elle is a Lady Dirigible Pilot who doesn’t need a MAN to tell her what to do, and she hates skirts and much prefers pants! I really wanted to like Elle, but it felt like her dream to own her own shipping fleet just feels more like she’s trying to be a Strong Female Character rather than exploring what that would mean in this society. And I also hated that Elle basically becomes a damsel in the end. She gets kidnapped and really doesn’t think of trying to escape until the last minute, and even though she saves the day, it’s more thanks to her powers forcing themselves into being rather than Elle being proactive. We spend half of the opening with nearly every male character going “Ugh a female pilot. You can’t handle the dangers of the job,” and Elle going “Oh, no! My father gave me a pistol! I can handle myself!” and she really can’t.
The entire plot of the book doesn’t make sense to me either because it’s completely underused. We’re set up that the world is divided into Light (science and alchemy) and Shadow (magic and other supernatural beings) and that because of this Division, magic is slowly disappearing from the world. We’ve also got absinthe fairies and Nightwalkers (vampires) and a bevy of other supernatural creatures. They do absolutely nothing. The main conflict is basically started because the Alchemists are bound to the Nightwalkers, and they hate this arrangement, which is why they need an Oracle to rip open a dimensional portal. But the only thing that the main villain Nightwalker does is brood around and complain about how slowly the plan is going. (The only—ONLY—thing that I liked in this book was the scene on the Orient Express where Elle meets a Nightwalker named Loisa who’s visiting her uncle in Transylvania. “Oh yes, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about him, after that business in Whitby with the lawyer’s wife.”) The book opens with narration from an absinthe fairy named Adele, who’s stuck being a muse and runs off with Elle. Why? We don’t know! Adele doesn’t do anything until Elle’s kidnapped; she spends most of the book providing unnecessary narration! Again, it feels like there was a checklist employed in “What can I use for steampunk fantasy?” but there’s never anything done with it.
This would be a passable albeit underwhelming book overall. But given the unnecessary racism and Marsh’s treatment towards Elle, it incredibly soured my reading of it. It’s not needed, and there’s an undercurrent of “But HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!” to it, which again, you’ve got magicians and vampires in an alternate history. You can list off your research credentials as much as you want at the end, but there’s so much that can be done in steampunk without needing to adhere to incredibly outdated viewpoints of the area. Needless to say, I will not be picking up The Clockwork Heart after all.
When I first picked this up, I had initially found book 2 of the series, The Clockwork Heart, because it caught my eye. (I’ve wanted to use that title for ages; sadly haven’t found the right story for it yet.) I did at least see the first book, A Conspiracy of Alchemists, and decided to go for chronological order.
There are two major problems with this book. The first being is that I had to stop at a certain point and check the publication date on this, because I’m shocked that some of the things in here got published in 2013. One of the rightful criticisms of steampunk is that it is a fetishization of colonialism and white privilege that relies on “Oh, well, we’re being HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!” when no, you have giant robots or dirigibles or significant tech in the Victorian era, and doubly so when you throw in magic and supernatural creatures. Gail Carriger isn’t 100% perfect about racial representation in her books (see the main plot of Prudence), but at least she makes an effort to be inclusive. There’s incredibly colonialized setting of Istanbul, constantly referred as Constantinople in the book. (They Might Be Giants aside, Scott Westerfeld made it a point to refer to the city correctly in Behemoth when it would have been “historically accurate” to use Constantinople.) And then there is the horrendously racist mention of a member of the Council of Warlocks, who Our Hero thinks is corrupted because “he has yellow teeth and sells opium, rotting the fine upstanding country of England!”
WHY?
Why? There’s utterly no reason for this! There’s already enough ample evidence that the Council of Warlocks aren’t going to respect Elle’s wishes, there’s no reason to throw in the racism! It’s not needed! And again, you lose the “historical accurate” defense when you have fairies and vampires and magicians and steampunk running around! In fact, it just made me hate Marsh for the entire book, and I didn’t really like him to begin with.
Aside from being a racist, Marsh also throws Elle into this grand scheme by forcing her to activate her powers unknowingly, and intentionally keeps information from her until the drama is needed. And we’re supposed to be rooting for them to get together. Instead of sitting down and saying to Elle, “Okay, I know exactly why you hate me and the organization that I represent, BUT this is what’s going to happen if we don’t hone your powers and they get a hold of you,” no, we have Marsh tricking Elle into going with him and then he throws her at an ancient statue to forcibly activate her Oracle powers. Oh, but it’s okay because he actually really does love her and wants to protect Elle from being used by the Warlocks or the Alchemists! Marsh just won’t tell her until he needs to rescue her at the very end, by which point his withholding information has caused her to be stuck with a Macguffin bracelet, nearly had her life force sucked away, and kidnapped by the bad guys.
And Elle was just underwhelming. There’s a lot in this book that feels like someone went down a checklist of “What’s popular in steampunk?” and threw them all in here without really exploring those avenues. Elle is a Lady Dirigible Pilot who doesn’t need a MAN to tell her what to do, and she hates skirts and much prefers pants! I really wanted to like Elle, but it felt like her dream to own her own shipping fleet just feels more like she’s trying to be a Strong Female Character rather than exploring what that would mean in this society. And I also hated that Elle basically becomes a damsel in the end. She gets kidnapped and really doesn’t think of trying to escape until the last minute, and even though she saves the day, it’s more thanks to her powers forcing themselves into being rather than Elle being proactive. We spend half of the opening with nearly every male character going “Ugh a female pilot. You can’t handle the dangers of the job,” and Elle going “Oh, no! My father gave me a pistol! I can handle myself!” and she really can’t.
The entire plot of the book doesn’t make sense to me either because it’s completely underused. We’re set up that the world is divided into Light (science and alchemy) and Shadow (magic and other supernatural beings) and that because of this Division, magic is slowly disappearing from the world. We’ve also got absinthe fairies and Nightwalkers (vampires) and a bevy of other supernatural creatures. They do absolutely nothing. The main conflict is basically started because the Alchemists are bound to the Nightwalkers, and they hate this arrangement, which is why they need an Oracle to rip open a dimensional portal. But the only thing that the main villain Nightwalker does is brood around and complain about how slowly the plan is going. (The only—ONLY—thing that I liked in this book was the scene on the Orient Express where Elle meets a Nightwalker named Loisa who’s visiting her uncle in Transylvania. “Oh yes, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about him, after that business in Whitby with the lawyer’s wife.”) The book opens with narration from an absinthe fairy named Adele, who’s stuck being a muse and runs off with Elle. Why? We don’t know! Adele doesn’t do anything until Elle’s kidnapped; she spends most of the book providing unnecessary narration! Again, it feels like there was a checklist employed in “What can I use for steampunk fantasy?” but there’s never anything done with it.
This would be a passable albeit underwhelming book overall. But given the unnecessary racism and Marsh’s treatment towards Elle, it incredibly soured my reading of it. It’s not needed, and there’s an undercurrent of “But HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!” to it, which again, you’ve got magicians and vampires in an alternate history. You can list off your research credentials as much as you want at the end, but there’s so much that can be done in steampunk without needing to adhere to incredibly outdated viewpoints of the area. Needless to say, I will not be picking up The Clockwork Heart after all.