Tag Archives: Carriger

Changeless, Gail Carriger

Posted by Pip Hunn on January 7, 2011 Comments Off


Changeless, by Gail Carriger (Book 2 of the Parasol Protectorate)
Orbit Books, Fantasy / Romance, 374 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Clever, fast, light-hearted, model Steampunk.
Cons: Occasionally fripperish, naughty cliffhanger ending.
In a line: Unnatural disaster demands investigation, complicated by unknown dangers.
“Ivy, I am hanging on for dear life on the side of a floating dirigible, leagues up in the aether. Even you must admit there are some circumstances wherein protocol should be relaxed.”
Score: 8/10

When we left off Soulless, Carriger’s first book of the Parasol Protectorate series, Alexia Maccon had just been married to the Earl of Woosley. The opening scene lays out a picture of matrimonial bliss, lots of gruff sex, and delightfully barbed bickering. Something goes instantly awry, though, when the Earl disappears on a mission, leaving chaos in his wake and confused and angry Alexia.

Soulless introduced us to Carriger’s delightful neo-Victorian world, replete with gentlemanly vampires, artistic werewolves, a friend with a penchant for ridiculous hats, and enough breaches of social mores to fill a week’s worth of gossip pages. In Changeless, we head outside the confines of London to the wild highlands of Scotland, where something is going very awry indeed.

Assigned to Queen Victoria as part of her ‘Shadow Council’, reporting on all things supernatural, Alexia is tasked to investigate a most disturbing phenomenon. Supernaturals all around London have lost their abilities and become mortal, without explanation or precedent. Naturally enough, this throws everyone into a bit of a tizzy.

Alexia delves into the mystery, aided by the mysterious Madame LeFoux, a Frenchwoman, who, while masquerading as a hat-seller, is actually an inventor of the highest quality. In short order, Alexia is fitted out with enough gadgets to make James Bond’s Q section blush with embarrassment. Alexia’s most exquisite accoutrement is, in true Steampunk style, a custom-made parasol with more esoteric mechanism than a Japanese smartphone.

Rollicking
Soulless was a fantastic introduction to the series, taking its time to build characters before leaping into action. Changeless doesn’t bother dallying about with such nonsense. We dive into the plot from the first page and get to enjoy a fantastic romp, almost without let-up.

Carriger expands from her previous style to include more regular perspectives of narration from characters other than Alexia, which keeps everything moving along nicely. With the action taking place in more than one locale across Europe, it’s enjoyable to be able to watch everything unfold as it happens.

A Bigger World
It’s nice to see Carriger stretching her arms a little in the second book of the Parasol Protectorate series. While her language and wit remain much unchanged (a good thing, by the way), Carriger adds more characters and complexity to her plot, weaving the additional threads with confidence into a much richer tapestry than Soulless. Having some new perspectives certainly enlivens things.

Of particular interest and, judging by other reviews, popularity, is Carriger’s newest significant character, Madame Lefoux. An enigmatic inventor, Lefoux is both French and female, making her most unique in this world, as she is intelligent and capable, independently running her own business and providing services on the side. She also has the charming peccadillo of dressing in men’s clothing. Her loyalties come into question throughout the book, but perhaps some of her oddness could be attributed to her not-so-gentle hintings that she is interested in Alexia for more than companionable friendship.

The most minor of my quibbles, and this is really the only concern I have with the book, is Carriger finishes Changeless in a very teasing fashion. A startling revelation with potentially shattering consequences is revealed only in the last few moments of the book, leaving one desperate for Blameless, the third book in the series. Luckily, said book has already been released, and I shall take great pleasure in reviewing it shortly.

Dash of Lemon
Overall, Carriger’s Soulless is like a strong dash of lemon in the Earl Grey of Steampunk romances. Delightfully original, deliciously witty, and delectably fresh. A worthwhile successor to the excellent Soulless, Changeless earns eight raised parasols.

Win Copies of Soulless and Changeless
As excellent as the first two books in the Parasol Protectorate are, I can’t justify keeping multiple copies to myself. Thanks to some well-meaning relatives at Christmas, I have a copy of both books to give away. I am running a creative writing competition, which will be open to all entrants until the 30th of January. Please go check it out!

Cheers;
Pip

Soulless, by Gail Carriger

Posted by Pip Hunn on November 8, 2010 1 comments

In short:
Soulless, by Gail Carriger (Book 1 of the Parasol Protectorate)
Orbit Books, Fantasy / Romance, 373 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Witty, charming, rompish.
Cons: Makes one painfully aware of one’s bad posture and slovenly speech.
In a line: Soulless spinstress battles supernatural antagonists while investigating in Victorian London.
“I say!”, said Alexia to the vampire. “We have not even been introduced!”
Score: 8/10

Soulless is, like so many books, best enjoyed alongside a nice biscuit and a cup of tea whilst sitting in a comfortable armchair. So, while I sit here, supping at a nice Rooibos and nibbling on a milk arrowroot, paperback in hand, notepad in the other, let us delve into this glorious world of manners, maladies and maleficence.

I stumbled across Carriger’s first book whilst browsing some stacks, desperate for something to buy and devour in an afternoon when I had a particularly boring aeroplane flight ahead of me. A scouring of my RSS feeds had Carriger’s name popping up all over the place. The phrases ‘witty’, ‘enjoyable’, and ‘steampunk’ had stuck in my head. So, I bought the book and leapt onto the plane.

About two and a half hours later, we touched down. I hadn’t stopped reading the entire time, apart from to order a cheese and lettuce sandwich and a refreshing soda water from the darling attendants. As the plane taxied to the arrivals lounge, I finished the book and immediately set out to buy the sequel.

What ambushed me in the pages to entice such a strong reaction? Firstly, Soulless was a breath of fresh air from my normal reading habits. Modelled more closely after JP Donleavy’s The Unexpurgated Code in both wittish style and substance. A sprinkling of sparkly-polite vampires and ruggedly handsome werewolves make Soulless an enjoyable romp, avoiding falling into the slow-motion starry-eyed silliness that makes all the tweenage vampire romances such a drag.

Alexia Tarabotti is an enjoyably robust heroine in a Victorian England. Comfortably removed from the social scene due to her unfortunately forward character (one might blame her Italian father’s legacy for that), Alexia is a spinster and quite comfortable with that fact. Born without a soul into a world quite excited about them, Alexia is a phenomenon in a phenomenal world. A ‘preternatural’, Alexia’s soullessness means that physical contact with her negates all the supernatural effects of both vampirism and lycanthropy. This turns out to be handy, as Alexia soon finds herself entangled in a plot including both. Along the way she is hampered both hampered and and inelegantly assisted by her family and friends. Being forced to labour under the strict mores of the Victorian times makes for some enjoyable situations. Any society where it is more scandalous to be unchaperoned in a library than being attacked by a bloodthirsty vampire is twisted enough to make me laugh aloud as I read.

Carriger has, in addition to the enjoyable independent Alexia, crafted a whole host of characters. Her immediate family, the Loontwills, have been hauled directly out of the Cliff’s Notes for Period Sitting Room Drama #11, instantly recognisable and endearing in their foibles. Floote, the butler, hovers both attentively and competently in every scene he appears in, raising eyebrows with reservation enough to earn Wodehouse’s endorsement. Lord Akeldama, one of the more ostentatious characters in a cadre that defy all mores of expectation, is an instant fan-favourite, and if there isn’t some very dirty fan-fiction floating around the internet already between him and some of his dandified younger vampires (‘drones’), then, by Jove, I’ll eat my hat!

And let me just aside, rudely elbowing the main review’s narrative out of the way, what an absolute delight the vampires and werewolves that inherit Carriger’s London are. Blessed (or ‘cursed’) with an excess of soul, both werewolves and vampires undergo transformation at death to their supernatural forms. They both share some common tropes with their ordinary selves: vampires are exceptionally well-dressed, enforcedly nocturnal, and generally quite polite. Werewolves can shape-shift at will, metamorphose involuntarily at full moon, and are generally more boisterous than the reserved and foppish vampires.

What makes these two supernatural breeds stand out is the relentless indoctrination into the world that Carriger has undertaken. These creatures aren’t simply plopped down into Victorian England with some hand-waving and an apologetic shrug. Far more cleverly, Carriger has laid out some quite rational explanations for both the existence and integration into society of the supernatural set.

Both the vampires and werewolves are, it is revealed, key players in the expansion of the British Empire, and in fact consulted regularly by Victoria herself in matters of state. This exquisitely justifies one of history’s oddities. With werewolves and vampires assisting in military ventures and political manoeuvring respectively, and with hundreds of years’ experience in the factions, it is less surprising that a tiny island off the side of Europe could grow to be such a dominant force throughout the world at that time.

Any good heroine needs both some secondary protagonists and some antagonists to match wits and hearts with, and Carriger doesn’t disappoint. First cab off the rank is the aforementioned Lord Akeldama, whose delightful foppishness is punctuated with such limp-wristed goodnaturedness one can’t help but love him. And I’ve never read someone use such italicised language with such flowery descriptions of darling delicates, my dear reader-poos. Under his rather alarming habits – (not to mention his outrageous dress sense – I’ll leave you to discover that joy for yourself) lurks a delightfully dark past, which we will no doubt explore further in the future.

Not all the characters in the book are supernaturals, of course – Ivy Hisselpenny, Miss Tarabotti’s bosom companion, is refreshingly thick, vapid and good-natured, as all good spinster’s friends should be. Her peculiar peccadillo is hats, and if I might accuse Gail Carriger of being a little bit mean to one of her characters, or belabouring a point with the subtlety of a silver-tipped parasol to the head, it is her unchallengable narrator’s heartless deconstruction of the rapacious ugliness that is Ivy’s hat collection. There are more books to come in the series, and without spoiling anything, I can safely tell you that Miss Hisselpenny’s millinerial misadventures continue. Does her taste improve over time? We await the resolution of the Parasol Protectorate with bated breath.

Next up in the range of mortals we have are the bevy of English scientists. Set in a period of flourishing scientific study, Carriger has not discounted the natural inquisitiveness that has marked so much of human progression from her story. Not only Soulless but the following books in the series feature scientific developments, discoveries and inventions with an enjoyable closeness. With a delightful steampunk bent to this alternate history, Carriger has introduced a new scientific area of study – the æther – which will be immediately familiar to readers of the genre and comfortably irrelevant to those disinterested.

Some very-steampunkish-indeed pseudo-scientific conversation takes place, delightfully brief and hinting at a much wider world of inventions. All this malarking about with inventions leads us, inevitably, to the great joy of refined steampunk, the joy of the gadget. Rest assured that Soulless is brimming with delightful gadgets both new and familiar, practical and impractical. Carriger has clearly given most of the inventors in her world Douglas Adams’ philosophy on invention. If one could spent dozens of hours and pounds designing and producing a complex device to automate a task which could be accomplished with a minimum of manual effort, then clearly the device is both laudable and worthwhile. Bauhaus would have a fit over self-unfolding carriage-bound parasols, steam-powered tent-pole planting devices and acid-etching note-taking devices. So, needless to say, there is a bunch of scientists appearing in the story, both local and from Across The Pond. As to their nature and temperament, I shall bite my tongue and move on.

And for our final and most enjoyably wholesome character of the review, let us turn our glassicals (don’t ask) upon the figure of Lord Conall Maccon, Alpha werewolf and chief paranormal peacemaker. Unfortunately Scottish in temperament and character, he is regularly flanked by Professor Lyall, a straight man who relishes the role if there ever was one. Maccon and Tarabotti share some unfortunately under-described history involving a hedgehog, and an altercation at the outset of the novel involving a vampire attack entangles them in an investigation into a most serious disturbance. As we get to spend more time with Lord Maccon, we realise that his initial appearance may be a little unfair to the man. Within the first few chapters of Soulless, I had formed the immutable opinion that Maccon was a little bumbling, a smidgeon overbearing, somewhat bombastic, and occasionally out of his depth in dealing with the fairer sex or, to be just, anyone who had any sensitivity whatsoever.

As the story progressed, though, I had to revise my opinion – Maccon is all of those things and more. His bellows, gesticulation, fierceness, thick-headedness and general social and romantic incompetence is simultaneously hilarious and endearing. In the wild hope that this book is eventually televised, I would bet money on whoever plays Lord Maccon to strongly resemble Brian Blessed in both size and volume. Luckily for us all, Alexia Tarabotti is no wilting flower, and their friendship is a fiery and at times painful one.

Let me begin my summing up by admitting that I have carefully skirted around the meat of the story. This is because if one starts to look at the story with any form of critical eye, it is a relatively straightforward romance/adventure, and too much deconstruction would simply spoil the fun. It reads rather like the more biting passages of Pratchett in places, with Carriger taking great delight in setting up elegantly deconstructed situations, usually falling down at some social gaffe or blunder which carries us precipitously to the next misadventure. This is helped along by the general understanding that nothing really bad can happen – even the antagonists are quite well-mannered in their villainy – and the story is carried along without too much swearing or genuine nastiness, which would detract from the witty, warm relationships, the genuine mystery, and the expert unfurling of a lavish new world to explore.

Carriger’s writing is crisp and light, indulging occasionally in a loquacious phrase or some flowery descriptions. The pace quivers like an indignant bosom, swinging between quickly-flowing action scenes with the occasional treacley slowing for some worldbuilding or elegant descriptions. Once you fall into the rhythm, it’s really quite pleasant. I will admit it took me a few pages to appreciate Carriger’s style, and committed the cardinal sin of skimping over her more flowery phrases to get to the meat of the story. Try and resist the temptation, because it’s all very worthwhile.

I happily can give Soulless 8 raised parasols.

Exquisite Bonus Section – Give-away!
I have one copy of Soulless to give away. I foolishly failed to take my copy to Gail’s signing, so I had to buy one there. SNow you may profit from my foolishness! Glory! You could read this excellent book without having to pay anything for it! What delight! So many ways to enter this competition, all easy.

– Give-away is open until midnight AEST Sunday 14 November. Entries will be compiled and selected at random by an awesome impartial robot.
– Give-away is open internationally. I will pay postage.
– Your information is kept private, never given to anyone, ever, and deleted after the competition closes.
– Enter by doing any number of the activities below.

1 entry: RT any tweet mentioning the review
1 entry: Email editor@write-thing.com with your mailing address (don’t forget to include country!)
2 entries: Comment below! Prompts: What is your favourite food to accompany books like this one? What steampunk accessory would you carry with you with the most pride? (only first comment counted.)
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4 entries: Mention this post on your blog!
5 entries: Subscribe to Write-Thing’s RSS feed!

If you subscribe to Write-Thing or mention the blog on your website, then make sure you email me so I can count your entry. editor@write-thing.com
Winner will be notified directly.
Good luck!