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A review by tmdavis
The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson
3.0
This was another Cybil nominee but this was by far one of the strangest things I've read in a while. It might have served the author and reader better to have the author's note placed before the story rather than after as she explains what parts of the story are reworked to create her alternate version of Edinburgh in the 1930s instead of the reader wondering throughout the entire book.
Sophie, a 15 year old girl attending a school for young ladies lives with her Great Aunt Tabitha on the weekends. Scotland is on the brink of war and bombs are being set off by suicide bombers in the city of Edinburgh--even one at Sophie's school. When Sophie (whose great aunt is very much into spiritualism and seances) receives a message from the other side and begins to try to find out more about the conscription process of 16 year old girls (using a method of electroshock and brain surgery) that her great aunt advocates, she learns more than she ever wanted to know. Add to that the mysterious murder of the medium that passed along Sophie's other worldly message and Sophie and her friend Mikael are investigating a murder too.
Not really realizing that I was entering into an alternate version of history, I found the fact that Sophie could talk to the dead almost at will a little offputting. I remember thinking "Yeah, right. Wow, that was easy--just build a transistor radio and tune into the right station and presto, you can speak to the dead." Not to mention the fact that her great aunt is an advocate of the conscription of young girls (even at the risk of losing her niece) knowing that they will only be former shells of themselves in order to be "empty vessels" for the men they work for (so that the mens' emotions don't get in the way of their job--they fill the girls with their emotions but the girls must have their emotions removed initially for this process to work) made it harder for me to suspend belief--instead it removed me from the story instead of drawing me in.
Upon reflection, a very strange tale that is of course left open for a sequel--which I might read now that I know we are dealing with an alternate version of history (not that I know enough about Scottish history to be able to tell the difference).
Sophie, a 15 year old girl attending a school for young ladies lives with her Great Aunt Tabitha on the weekends. Scotland is on the brink of war and bombs are being set off by suicide bombers in the city of Edinburgh--even one at Sophie's school. When Sophie (whose great aunt is very much into spiritualism and seances) receives a message from the other side and begins to try to find out more about the conscription process of 16 year old girls (using a method of electroshock and brain surgery) that her great aunt advocates, she learns more than she ever wanted to know. Add to that the mysterious murder of the medium that passed along Sophie's other worldly message and Sophie and her friend Mikael are investigating a murder too.
Not really realizing that I was entering into an alternate version of history, I found the fact that Sophie could talk to the dead almost at will a little offputting. I remember thinking "Yeah, right. Wow, that was easy--just build a transistor radio and tune into the right station and presto, you can speak to the dead." Not to mention the fact that her great aunt is an advocate of the conscription of young girls (even at the risk of losing her niece) knowing that they will only be former shells of themselves in order to be "empty vessels" for the men they work for (so that the mens' emotions don't get in the way of their job--they fill the girls with their emotions but the girls must have their emotions removed initially for this process to work) made it harder for me to suspend belief--instead it removed me from the story instead of drawing me in.
Upon reflection, a very strange tale that is of course left open for a sequel--which I might read now that I know we are dealing with an alternate version of history (not that I know enough about Scottish history to be able to tell the difference).