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A review by selfwinding
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine
4.0
Arabella is my kind of Regency heroine. As soon as I saw the cover and title, I knew I had to read this book. Something that mixes my love of the nineteenth century with space travel? Sign me up!
Overall the story did not disappoint, though it only gets 4 stars from me and not 5 because there were a few notes that I felt were a little weaker than I would have liked. (Believe it or not, not the laughable science! Obviously the space travel described in this is cockamamie but it describes physics and phenomena that exist in this specific world and they are so delightful and inventive that I had no trouble ignoring my usual inclination to cry about how science works.) My main complaint is that in the middle third of the book while Arabella is making her passage on the Diana, we lose focus of her motivation for getting to Mars. I got so wrapped up in life on the ship (which is amazing, don't get me wrong), that it was jarring to finally remember that she had a driving and time-sensitive reason for getting to Mars.
Speaking of Mars, I really enjoyed the way Levine constructed the Martian world and juxtaposed British colonialism against this sci-fi setting. Because the Martians are filling in for actual abused people, I would have liked to see a few more people of color in the novel, but Captain Singh is wonderful and I really appreciated the mutiny subplot. Even though this is very much a space opera, it is also a novel that is aware of its historical context and uses that context to heighten the conflict and tension.
Arabella is a fantastic character—and actually all of the characters are fully developed and three-dimensional, including some of the villains who could have easily been one-note caricatures. The complexity, depth, and detail in this novel are three of the things that make it so wonderful. I can't wait to pick up the second book in the series.
Overall the story did not disappoint, though it only gets 4 stars from me and not 5 because there were a few notes that I felt were a little weaker than I would have liked. (Believe it or not, not the laughable science! Obviously the space travel described in this is cockamamie but it describes physics and phenomena that exist in this specific world and they are so delightful and inventive that I had no trouble ignoring my usual inclination to cry about how science works.) My main complaint is that in the middle third of the book while Arabella is making her passage on the Diana, we lose focus of her motivation for getting to Mars. I got so wrapped up in life on the ship (which is amazing, don't get me wrong), that it was jarring to finally remember that she had a driving and time-sensitive reason for getting to Mars.
Speaking of Mars, I really enjoyed the way Levine constructed the Martian world and juxtaposed British colonialism against this sci-fi setting. Because the Martians are filling in for actual abused people, I would have liked to see a few more people of color in the novel, but Captain Singh is wonderful and I really appreciated the mutiny subplot. Even though this is very much a space opera, it is also a novel that is aware of its historical context and uses that context to heighten the conflict and tension.
Arabella is a fantastic character—and actually all of the characters are fully developed and three-dimensional, including some of the villains who could have easily been one-note caricatures. The complexity, depth, and detail in this novel are three of the things that make it so wonderful. I can't wait to pick up the second book in the series.