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A review by sausome
Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia
3.0
Russian history, industrialization, Russia+China, English=traitors, and one "unruly" recently debuted girl attending university for the first time that women are allowed to attend, in St. Petersburg, due to her unconventional, strong-willed "spinster" aunt 'bullying' Emperor Constantine in front of his countrymen. Add to this a handful of 'Chinamen' also attending the university, who begin to go missing, while sneaky plainclothes Russian secret police hang out near their quarters. Also, Sasha (girl previously mentioned) befriends the 'Chinamen' and learns all about their country's conflicts, between Manchus and Taipings, and hates the unfairness of the haughty male professors insisting all races not caucasian and also all women have brains and intelligence far below their fellow white male.
One night Sasha gets nabbed along with her Chinese friends by the secret police, and an Englishman inexplicably falls from the sky and manages to get her free. Thus begins Sasha's mission to make sure her Chinese friends are safe, uncover secret spies and untrue alliances between countries, and convince the Chinese emperor to align with the Russian Emperor (and vice versa) in a coming war with the English and Turkish. She rides a train all the way to Beijing, through Siberia, dressed as a Russian male "hussar" in the military, complete with mustache, to do what she must, along with her sympathetic, traitor-to-his-country Englishman with crazy jumping powers, making friends along the way with Chinese fur traders and a group of Russian military guys.
All that being said, this book was pretty cool, and like all Ekaterina Sedia novels, so well described and painted with words.
One night Sasha gets nabbed along with her Chinese friends by the secret police, and an Englishman inexplicably falls from the sky and manages to get her free. Thus begins Sasha's mission to make sure her Chinese friends are safe, uncover secret spies and untrue alliances between countries, and convince the Chinese emperor to align with the Russian Emperor (and vice versa) in a coming war with the English and Turkish. She rides a train all the way to Beijing, through Siberia, dressed as a Russian male "hussar" in the military, complete with mustache, to do what she must, along with her sympathetic, traitor-to-his-country Englishman with crazy jumping powers, making friends along the way with Chinese fur traders and a group of Russian military guys.
All that being said, this book was pretty cool, and like all Ekaterina Sedia novels, so well described and painted with words.