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A review by libra17
The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter by Rod Duncan
5.0
I found The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter while browsing in my local library. I haven't read any steampunk in a while and I thought to give it a whirl. I was beyond impressed with the book for a few reasons.
First: the protagonist. Elizabeth is a likeable, empathic character who is not overly stereotypical Mary Sue and not a stereotyped pseudo-victorian lady. Her character struck a balance that I adored, and I'm actually very impressed that she was written by a guy (there are female authors who don't write female characters this well).
Second: the lack of romance. Though marriage is mentioned a few times in TBCD, it is not front-and-center as is common for books set in victorian or pseudo-victorian times. There is literally no romance in this book. It is a story about Elizabeth struggling to save herself; she has no time for romance and the plot reflects that, for which I was both grateful and impressed.
Third: the sheer amount of detail in the worldbuilding. Duncan went out of his way to create a believable alternate history for the series to exist in, complete with built-in explanations beyond 'because no one ever invented or thought about _____, and you've just gotta believe that.'
Fourth: that there was no clear good or bad country. Both the Republic and the Kingdom have their faults. Just like any culture in any time, neither is perfect; one still has de facto slavery and the other has no womens' rights (also making a kind of de facto slavery, if you're a woman with no ethically behaving male extension - be he husband, brother, or father - to help one navigate the world). Even the Patent Office is not a clear villain, though it clearly has its issues and faults. All of this acts as a stand-in for real-life issues with power and corruption, and adds to the believability of the world.
Fifth: the not-pretty parts. It's been a while since I've read steampunk, but I remember a common problem with the genre being that writers tend to focus on the pretty parts of victorian society - the titles, the manners, the aesthetics of fashion - and either update wholesale or downplay the not-pretty parts of victorian society. There were effectively no women's rights in victorian society? That's not a problem, because the protagonist has a love interest who doesn't think she's property. Indoor plumbing doesn't exist/isn't widespread yet? That's ok, because in this story nobody has bodily functions or they're rich enough to have one of the few early installations. And so on and so forth. It's just a fact that most of victorian society would be repugnant to the 21st century who's actually confronted with it presented seriously, so it tends to get either glossed over or updated with so much liberty as to be unrecognizable. And, for the most part, that's not really a problem (I think, for most readers, if they wanted an actual presentation of the victorian era they'd be reading nonfiction), but it is still refreshing to read a book that tries to be true to the era. Elizabeth runs into major issues due to her biological sex, and her only way around those issues (without acquiring a husband, at least) is to pretend to be her own male twin. She gets locked in a room for several days with a stinking chamber pot, and makes sure the reader knows just how bad the smell was and how not okay she was with the action. She is chased repeatedly by the private army a man who legally owns her and wants her captured to be his sex slave. This is not a pretty victorian world, although it is a semi-realistic one, and it made for a more interesting read than if those issues had been glossed over or did not exist.
Overall, I very much enjoyed The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter, will read the next book (Unseemly Science), and would reccomend it.
First: the protagonist. Elizabeth is a likeable, empathic character who is not overly stereotypical Mary Sue and not a stereotyped pseudo-victorian lady. Her character struck a balance that I adored, and I'm actually very impressed that she was written by a guy (there are female authors who don't write female characters this well).
Second: the lack of romance. Though marriage is mentioned a few times in TBCD, it is not front-and-center as is common for books set in victorian or pseudo-victorian times. There is literally no romance in this book. It is a story about Elizabeth struggling to save herself; she has no time for romance and the plot reflects that, for which I was both grateful and impressed.
Third: the sheer amount of detail in the worldbuilding. Duncan went out of his way to create a believable alternate history for the series to exist in, complete with built-in explanations beyond 'because no one ever invented or thought about _____, and you've just gotta believe that.'
Fourth: that there was no clear good or bad country. Both the Republic and the Kingdom have their faults. Just like any culture in any time, neither is perfect; one still has de facto slavery and the other has no womens' rights (also making a kind of de facto slavery, if you're a woman with no ethically behaving male extension - be he husband, brother, or father - to help one navigate the world). Even the Patent Office is not a clear villain, though it clearly has its issues and faults. All of this acts as a stand-in for real-life issues with power and corruption, and adds to the believability of the world.
Fifth: the not-pretty parts. It's been a while since I've read steampunk, but I remember a common problem with the genre being that writers tend to focus on the pretty parts of victorian society - the titles, the manners, the aesthetics of fashion - and either update wholesale or downplay the not-pretty parts of victorian society. There were effectively no women's rights in victorian society? That's not a problem, because the protagonist has a love interest who doesn't think she's property. Indoor plumbing doesn't exist/isn't widespread yet? That's ok, because in this story nobody has bodily functions or they're rich enough to have one of the few early installations. And so on and so forth. It's just a fact that most of victorian society would be repugnant to the 21st century who's actually confronted with it presented seriously, so it tends to get either glossed over or updated with so much liberty as to be unrecognizable. And, for the most part, that's not really a problem (I think, for most readers, if they wanted an actual presentation of the victorian era they'd be reading nonfiction), but it is still refreshing to read a book that tries to be true to the era. Elizabeth runs into major issues due to her biological sex, and her only way around those issues (without acquiring a husband, at least) is to pretend to be her own male twin. She gets locked in a room for several days with a stinking chamber pot, and makes sure the reader knows just how bad the smell was and how not okay she was with the action. She is chased repeatedly by the private army a man who legally owns her and wants her captured to be his sex slave. This is not a pretty victorian world, although it is a semi-realistic one, and it made for a more interesting read than if those issues had been glossed over or did not exist.
Overall, I very much enjoyed The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter, will read the next book (Unseemly Science), and would reccomend it.