A review by paladinboy
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine

3.0

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