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A review by incarnationblues
Mainspring by Jay Lake
3.0
I have to say, the opening chapter put me off. Especially the last page or so, I was like really? Really? Not only do the apprentice’s master’s sons hate him, but one happens to beat him up and steal the last of his father’s money on the way out of town? Ugh. Are we back here again? I get that this is probably a retelling of the classic poor/apprentice/beggar boy rises to the task of being a hero via steampunk BUT don’t overdo it. Please. There are other ways to stack the deck that aren’t so obvious.
Anyway, that aside, I enjoyed the book. It wasn’t awesome, but it did pull me through it – and that’s the real test. The characters were engaging enough to keep me reading – although there was really only 1 actual character – the others all lacked in depth. We don’t even get a proper motivation for the semi-villain other than a general philosophy (an actual philosophy) that he ascribes to that, by definition, is against what the hero is trying to do.
The world Lake paints here though is crazy interesting. I mean, the Earth literally moves through space along a GIANT track….the gear teeth form a wall miles (?) high along the equator. That wall divides the Earth in half (how could it not?) – the north is the more “steampunky” side, complete with dirigible airships, clocks and a funky religion that’s a mashup up of Victorian Christianity and uhh… gears. Or something. And the south is the more “magical” side, peopled with a ton of not-exactly-human humanoids, functional magic and other bits and pieces. So yeah, very visually interesting.
There is a scene or two that wow umm, some people will not be cool with. Maybe because they are old fashioned or maybe because [SPOILER]. It surprised me, I’ll admit. But maybe I’m just a [SPOILER]. At the core, it’s a simple journey/quest story. That’s it. But the journey takes the lead through interesting terrain… potentially interesting terrain at least. Much of it is just skipped/skimmed/flown over and ignored. Lake throws out so much stuff here that the majority of it gets basically ignored, and we’re left none the wiser.
The ending was… to be expected I suppose given the angelic/deity involvement but still… it was kinda lame.
THREE STARS
I wanted more than it had to give, but what it had was ok.
Anyway, that aside, I enjoyed the book. It wasn’t awesome, but it did pull me through it – and that’s the real test. The characters were engaging enough to keep me reading – although there was really only 1 actual character – the others all lacked in depth. We don’t even get a proper motivation for the semi-villain other than a general philosophy (an actual philosophy) that he ascribes to that, by definition, is against what the hero is trying to do.
The world Lake paints here though is crazy interesting. I mean, the Earth literally moves through space along a GIANT track….the gear teeth form a wall miles (?) high along the equator. That wall divides the Earth in half (how could it not?) – the north is the more “steampunky” side, complete with dirigible airships, clocks and a funky religion that’s a mashup up of Victorian Christianity and uhh… gears. Or something. And the south is the more “magical” side, peopled with a ton of not-exactly-human humanoids, functional magic and other bits and pieces. So yeah, very visually interesting.
There is a scene or two that wow umm, some people will not be cool with. Maybe because they are old fashioned or maybe because [SPOILER]. It surprised me, I’ll admit. But maybe I’m just a [SPOILER]. At the core, it’s a simple journey/quest story. That’s it. But the journey takes the lead through interesting terrain… potentially interesting terrain at least. Much of it is just skipped/skimmed/flown over and ignored. Lake throws out so much stuff here that the majority of it gets basically ignored, and we’re left none the wiser.
The ending was… to be expected I suppose given the angelic/deity involvement but still… it was kinda lame.
THREE STARS
I wanted more than it had to give, but what it had was ok.