Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher: Little Brown
Rating: WARTY!
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. The chance to read a new book is often reward aplenty!
Errata
p180 "Because we both know you've got my best interests at heart?" is not something a Victorian lady of breeding would say. "…you have my best interests…"
p197 There's a bullet in the side of his chest, then it's in his gut? Where is it really?!
p137 "I guess I do, don’t I?" sounds awfully American for a Victorian woman of British birth to say. More likely would be something like, "I suppose I have, haven’t I?"
And we’re back. I was really been looking forward to this, the next volume in what is now a trilogy. Sophronia Angelina Temminnick, Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott, Agatha Woosmoss, and Sidheag Maccon are returned with more steam-punk and espionage as they travel over the emerald green countryside of southern England in 1853 in their dirigible finishing school along with designated villain, Preshea Buss.
I was surprised that I didn’t immediately warm to this volume. The last two drew me in at once and held my interest effortlessly. This one felt more like I was pushing myself to read it, rather than being hypnotically led by it. That's the problem with a series - you have to give more of the same, but you also have to change it. It works well when an author can deliver enough familiarity that it feels like a story continuation, but with sufficient difference that it doesn’t feel like it's really the same story you read before, warmed over.
This felt like too much more of the same as we joined the girls watching a vampire teacher dancing with a flowerpot on his head, then had to meet with one corner of Sophronia's limp love triangle - Soap, the lower class lackey in the engine room, then went to an engagement ball where Sophronia meets the other corner of her triangle - Lord Mersey.
I honestly have zero liking for either of these guys, and I have no idea what the attraction is for Sophronia, either. Oh, and we now learn that Sophronia is nick-named Ria! An unfortunate name given that it sounds like 'rear' and she does behave all-too-often like an ass, primarily with these two unlikeable and inappropriate boys.
Eventually the adventure begins when Sidheag - an honorary member of a werewolf pack - discovers that the leader of her pack has killed his number two and left Scotland. The pack is apparently in rebellion against the Queen, and now Sidheag feels compelled to go take over the pack - even though she is not and never has been a wolf - and tell them all what to do. Naturally Sophronia, Dimity, Agatha, Lord Mersey, and Soap go along. Naturally? Hardly!
It was at this point that the plot became quite unbelievable to me. I get that when you have made the mistake of embarking upon a series to milk your characters (and your sales) for all they're worth, you have to stir things up and change things around not because it’s makes for good story telling, but because you have to prevent your readers from becoming bored and disillusioned, and abandoning you in droves, but when the change isn’t organic - when it’s quite obviously manufactured, as this one clearly is, it just doesn’t work well at all.
In this case, it’s actually worse, for me, because I have a real aversion to and detestation of werewolf stories - even more so than I do to vampire stories, so this abandonment of everything I've grown to love from the first two books to head to Scotland (which is actually a place I love) with the apparent intention of relating a sorry tale of werewolves isn't exactly a charmed idea in my book.
Since this isn't my book, but Carriger's book, I decided to press on and see how it worked or even if it worked, and fortunately they don’t make it to Scotland; they become, how shall I put it? Derailed? The novel is very short - only a couple of hundred pages, so "How bad could it get?" I asked myself lightly…. Well it became boring - that's how bad it got.
The train journey really didn't offer anything interesting or exciting, and it did offer large measures of
There's a really odd sentence fragment on page 19 in the eighth paragraph at the start of chapter two:
Over a year and a half's association and Sophronia would have described the other three as confidantes extraordinaire.
I can see what the author is trying to say but it could have been said a whole lot better - like by replacing the 'and' with a comma, and starting the sentence with 'After'.
This same kind of thing occurs on page 47, where we read, almost at the bottom of the page, "Not all sudden, you just never asked." I think that comma ought to be a semi-colon at least.
On the other hand, there were some touches of hilarity of the fine vintage that I fondly remember from the earlier books, such as on page 115, where we read, "It was an instinct ill-suited to Dimity, like watching a duck eat custard." which was delightful. It will never beat "Who wouldn't want an exploding wicker chicken?" from the first book, but that one was so wonderful I doubt it will ever be beaten.
On balance I have to say that the bad far outweighed the good. This felt like the stereotypical second novel in a trilogy - the one which is typically weak - instead of the third in what, until this volume had been a cracking good yarn. Consequently, I can't recommend this one.
However, in my slightly improving aim of providing a parody song to ease the pain when I tender a warty review, here's my effort for this one. To the tune of All Kinds of Everything as sung by Dana:
Airdrops and abseiling, steam-dogs, no fleas,
Dirigibles and carriages, crumpets and tea,
Secrecy and high intrigue, early morning school,
Waistcoats & Weaponry used to be cool.
Steam trains and aeroplanes, now have gone by,
Both volumes one and two left me with sighs,
Sophronia and Dimity, and Agatha too,
Waistcoats & Weaponry used to be cool.
Evening or school time, on land and in air,
These three and Sidheag, or Lady Kingair.
Dances, no romances, soirees and secrets,
winning, never losing, these girls won my bets.
Cool jokes, British blokes, and some frou-frou,
Waistcoats & Weaponry can't remind me of you.
Now it's all wall to wall boredom and dull.
The third one in the series has hit a big lull.
Excitement and fun are a thing of the past.
I guess I should know that such fun cannot last,
Reading this, feeling pissed, I am such a fool.
O waistcoats & weaponry please go back to school!
