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A review by rbreade
The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis
Most of the book is told from the POV of Ray Cobb, an orphan of 12, with occasional flashes of omniscience, although I can't tell if these were intentional or the result of a first-time writer losing momentary control of viewpoint. This is enjoyable steampunk fantasy for a middle-grade audience, and a great way to introduce that audience to characters, such as John Henry, from the pages of America's tall tales.
The premise is that those tall-tale legends were a loosely organized group called the Ramblers, who drew their power from America's wilderness and protected people from malevolent forces. As the book opens, the Ramblers are all dead or presumed dead after a battle with their arch-enemy, the Gog. The story shows a new generation of future Ramblers, including John Henry's son, coalescing around a traveling medicine show as the Gog rises again.
This villain can be thought of as the personification of greed and of capitalism's dark underbelly--the use of machines and timetables, not to help people and make their lives better, but for the opulence and wealth and power of a few. Thus, sweatshops and child labor and dangerous working conditions and so forth. There are some terrific action scenes involving a biomechanical Hoarhound, imaginative use of Americana such as nation sacks, bottle trees, and root work, and enough good character development to carry a reader past the sometimes clunky prose and make it worthwhile to pick up the second book of Bemis's Clockwork Dark series.
The premise is that those tall-tale legends were a loosely organized group called the Ramblers, who drew their power from America's wilderness and protected people from malevolent forces. As the book opens, the Ramblers are all dead or presumed dead after a battle with their arch-enemy, the Gog. The story shows a new generation of future Ramblers, including John Henry's son, coalescing around a traveling medicine show as the Gog rises again.
This villain can be thought of as the personification of greed and of capitalism's dark underbelly--the use of machines and timetables, not to help people and make their lives better, but for the opulence and wealth and power of a few. Thus, sweatshops and child labor and dangerous working conditions and so forth. There are some terrific action scenes involving a biomechanical Hoarhound, imaginative use of Americana such as nation sacks, bottle trees, and root work, and enough good character development to carry a reader past the sometimes clunky prose and make it worthwhile to pick up the second book of Bemis's Clockwork Dark series.