Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher: Hachette
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
I read this novel some time ago and was quite thrilled with the opportunity to read it in ebook form. The ebook version (epub format) for Adobe Digital Editions was beautifully laid out and eminently readable, which was a pleasant experience, and it's only some 200 pages, so it's a fast read.
This novel is the first in a series:
Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny
Fourteen year old Sophronia is sent to a finishing school, where finishing means exactly that: finishing off people, as in assassination! It's also a school for spies. I'm completely in love with Gail Carriger's sense of humor, if not Carriger herself (And I reserve judgment there!). How can you argue with a line like: "Who wouldn't want an exploding wicker chicken?"?!
The author spent some time in Britain, where this novel is set, and it shows very commendably. She has an amazing eye for the absurd, for the quirks of British life, and for the square peg in a round hole kind of person which Sophronia inescapably is. This novel is Harry Potter on steroids, but minus the too-cute and the magic, that being replaced with a liberal helping of steam-punk and intrigue, along with a sneaky and hilarious sense of humor.
In leading her main character on a merry dance in pursuit of her objective, the author goes through a humbling (for other writers like me!) repertoire of exquisitely-drawn characters, all of whom have quirks and foibles to both hate and love. The adventure begins with Sophronia's escapades at home, which lead directly to her being consigned (some might say exiled) to a finishing school suited to her disposition and talents.
I adore the playfulness of these stories, and the names which the author invents for her characters are exquisite: Bumbersnoot, Lord Dingleproops, Madame Spetunia, Sophronia Angelina Temminick, Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott, Pillover, Preshea, Bunson's, Duke Hematol, Mrs Barnaclegoose, Frowbritcher. They alone are worth reading the novel for,but the writing is exquisite, the plotting very well done, and the execution remarkable.
After saving herself, the girl who is to become her best friend, her best friend-to-be's younger brother (who is going to a different school to train as an evil genius) and the schoolmate who is in disguise as an older woman and who is highly suspicious, from flywaymen, life at school seems like it will be a let-down for Soph, but she discovers that an associate of the school, who helps them get aboard, is a werewolf, and one of their teachers is a vampire. Oh, and the topics at school are entirely to do with spying. Indeed, when Soph is called to the office after being reported climbing around on the exterior of the airship during one of her snooping forays, she isn't punished at all; she's merely dressed-down for allowing herself to be seen!
So Sophronia has to find her way in this finishing school to which she did not expect to go, and to which she was dispatched with unladylike speed, and find it she certainly does, and quite literally, too. The school is aboard a gigantic airship, which is subject to raids by flywaymen (sky pirates who are seeking something very specific from the school, and Soph is determined to discover what it is they're after).
During one of the sky pirate assaults, Soph actually ends up accidentally acquiring a brass steam dog from the pirates, which she promptly names Bumbersnoot, illicitly secreting him in her room, and feeding him coal! This is much to the disgust of her worst enemy (with whom she's forced to room along with her now best friend Dimity, a rather shy, retiring sort (but who's game for anything, it turns out), and a lanky Scots lass who also joins her troublesome trio. Along with aid from a precocious and amusing child of one of the teachers, and a likely lad from the engine room, as well as some assistance from Dimity's brother, Soph begins making herself very much at home - and very much a handful - on the airship.
In the end she saves the day of course, and I adored this novel. I was immediately, and very much looking forward to the sequel, Curtsies & Conspiracies which I also reviewed favorably. Carriger also has a series set twenty five years after this time period called "The Parasol Protectorate" which, rest assured, I shall be tracking down post-haste.
