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moviebuffkt's review against another edition
2.0
uh oh.... Alex gave it one star and Ang gave it 5! I like it so far, but we'll see at Book Club!
Meh. I never quite knew who to root for. There were one too many story lines... Automatons gaining independence. Cool. Saving the gargoyles. Ok. Mechanics vs. Alchemists. Sure. Revolution of coal miners... Fine. Pick one cause for me to be invested in and I'll get behind it. But with so many competitions, I ended up being indifferent to all of them.
Meh. I never quite knew who to root for. There were one too many story lines... Automatons gaining independence. Cool. Saving the gargoyles. Ok. Mechanics vs. Alchemists. Sure. Revolution of coal miners... Fine. Pick one cause for me to be invested in and I'll get behind it. But with so many competitions, I ended up being indifferent to all of them.
andrewliptak's review against another edition
4.0
This was a surprise in my mail earlier yesterday - I’ve been trying to get a hold of this book, The Alchemy of Stone, for a little while now, and had some problems. This third book by Ekaterina Sedia was one that I was really looking forwards to reading, and it was a fun book to read - While I waited for my computer to restart, I finished the last 150 pages in about an hour.
The story follows Mattie, an intelligent automation in a world that is very steampunkish. Mattie is an alchemist, trying to discover a way to prevent the gargoyles in the city from turning to stone and dying out. They seem to predate the human inhabitants of the city, and are responsible for its construction and character. At the point in the story, the city is overcrowded, and divided. There’s a political rivalry between the Alchemists and machinists, which spills over into violence with the Duke of the city and his family is attacked and killed, culminating in civil war between classes. Mattie is at the center of this, as an Alchemist, but her creator, whom she is bound to, is a fairly cruel machinist who will not let her stray too far from needing him.
This was a fun read, but not as good as I’d hoped it would be. It felt like a quick look into a vastly complex and interesting world and I didn’t get the depth that I would have liked, and that easily could have been there. That being said, what I got was still a very good, engaging read. Where the story is somewhat lacking, it is made up for with the character of Mattie and the various struggles that she comes across in the story. Where most people would think of a robotic being as fairly robust and durable – watching any sort of movie about robots will tell you this – Mattie is weak, timid, and fragile, both physically and mentally. At several points, she is easily broken after being attacked, and must be rewound by her creator in order to function. She is shy, and eager to please her master, Loharri, while at the same time despising him and yearning to be completely free from his grasp, which is not possible, as he literally owns the key to her heart.
There are many themes which run through this book that all intersect with Mattie, but the dominant one can be considered one of transitions. The city is changing, physically as there is a boom in construction and the machinists are taking over, building new things daily, which precipitate in a sort of political change. Between the Machinists and the Alchemists, there is a duel nature to Mattie as well, who was built by a machinist, but rejected that way in life, instead focusing on life. While the exact roles of the machinists and alchemists in this society aren’t entirely clear, they do bring up another duality, one of life and death, or fulfillment vs. automation, role vs. job and emotions vs. logic. There is a class system, we see, as angry coal workers, forced off their fields by robots, are tasked with mining coal, while the machinists are content to blindly follow another sentient automation, the calculator.
This, to me, is an interesting theme, as it relates to themes that went on during the Renaissance period, a period of much change, but without the magic and fantasy elements. To some extent, the book has several issues that are still highly relevant today, if not more so. To what extent is a culture vibrant and full of life when it overwhelmingly utilizes machines and devices? At one point, a character that Mattie befriends, Naobi, an outsider, notes that the people of this city aren’t happy or content, they just exist. When reading that, I had to wonder how much of that was a sort of social commentary on today’s society, where the television, computers, mobile phones, MP3 players are the dominant forms of entertainment and recreation, rather than something that might be more fulfilling. It’s certainly something that I have thought about often.
Another dominant theme that the book approaches is the city’s response to the death of their Duke, where foreigners were rounded up, harassed and at times, had their souls removed or were threatened as such if they weren’t cooperative. This was a somewhat chilling, if very unsubtle point in the book that is extremely relevant in today’s society after 9-11. Thankfully, this isn’t an overwhelming point in the novel. While it doesn’t detract from the reading, I always get nervous when any artist, whether it be a writer, singer or painter, uses their material as a soapbox, for it dates and lessens the material that they are releasing.
The final big theme of the book is that of life and death. This is prevalent everywhere, from the machinists who create life from nothing, to the alchemists who preserve life, to the soul seeker who seeks to prevent it, while the gargoyles are slowly dying out. It seems fitting that Mattie, an automation, relates to all of those fields, while not alive herself, is a conscious being, actively seeking to preserve the gargoyles who still remain. More ironic, she is unable to remain alive without her human maker, who holds her fate based on his whims.
This isn’t really a positive book when it comes to tone – it’s dark, gritty and at times, downright depressing, which came as a real surprise to me, especially at the end, when things came together. I can’t really remember a book that has done this, one that really puts the characters into place.
Mattie is the true center of the novel, and is a brilliantly conceived character from the start, one who is curious, afraid, at times strong, and one who changes over the course of the story. While she is built, automated, I never once thought of her as a robot, but as an organic being – at times, I was trying to imagine her as a robot, and had a hard time doing so, which is absolutely fantastic, given what type of character she is – this is something that few authors that I’ve come across have been able to do, turn a machine into a character that you can really and truly care for, one where you don’t have to stretch your imagination to imagine her being hurt or having feelings.
At the end of the book, I was happy to have gotten into a book and finished it in a day. The Alchemy of Stone was a fun read, engaging and interesting. I’d highly recommend it.
(Originally Posted: http://jeditrilobite.wordpress.com)
The story follows Mattie, an intelligent automation in a world that is very steampunkish. Mattie is an alchemist, trying to discover a way to prevent the gargoyles in the city from turning to stone and dying out. They seem to predate the human inhabitants of the city, and are responsible for its construction and character. At the point in the story, the city is overcrowded, and divided. There’s a political rivalry between the Alchemists and machinists, which spills over into violence with the Duke of the city and his family is attacked and killed, culminating in civil war between classes. Mattie is at the center of this, as an Alchemist, but her creator, whom she is bound to, is a fairly cruel machinist who will not let her stray too far from needing him.
This was a fun read, but not as good as I’d hoped it would be. It felt like a quick look into a vastly complex and interesting world and I didn’t get the depth that I would have liked, and that easily could have been there. That being said, what I got was still a very good, engaging read. Where the story is somewhat lacking, it is made up for with the character of Mattie and the various struggles that she comes across in the story. Where most people would think of a robotic being as fairly robust and durable – watching any sort of movie about robots will tell you this – Mattie is weak, timid, and fragile, both physically and mentally. At several points, she is easily broken after being attacked, and must be rewound by her creator in order to function. She is shy, and eager to please her master, Loharri, while at the same time despising him and yearning to be completely free from his grasp, which is not possible, as he literally owns the key to her heart.
There are many themes which run through this book that all intersect with Mattie, but the dominant one can be considered one of transitions. The city is changing, physically as there is a boom in construction and the machinists are taking over, building new things daily, which precipitate in a sort of political change. Between the Machinists and the Alchemists, there is a duel nature to Mattie as well, who was built by a machinist, but rejected that way in life, instead focusing on life. While the exact roles of the machinists and alchemists in this society aren’t entirely clear, they do bring up another duality, one of life and death, or fulfillment vs. automation, role vs. job and emotions vs. logic. There is a class system, we see, as angry coal workers, forced off their fields by robots, are tasked with mining coal, while the machinists are content to blindly follow another sentient automation, the calculator.
This, to me, is an interesting theme, as it relates to themes that went on during the Renaissance period, a period of much change, but without the magic and fantasy elements. To some extent, the book has several issues that are still highly relevant today, if not more so. To what extent is a culture vibrant and full of life when it overwhelmingly utilizes machines and devices? At one point, a character that Mattie befriends, Naobi, an outsider, notes that the people of this city aren’t happy or content, they just exist. When reading that, I had to wonder how much of that was a sort of social commentary on today’s society, where the television, computers, mobile phones, MP3 players are the dominant forms of entertainment and recreation, rather than something that might be more fulfilling. It’s certainly something that I have thought about often.
Another dominant theme that the book approaches is the city’s response to the death of their Duke, where foreigners were rounded up, harassed and at times, had their souls removed or were threatened as such if they weren’t cooperative. This was a somewhat chilling, if very unsubtle point in the book that is extremely relevant in today’s society after 9-11. Thankfully, this isn’t an overwhelming point in the novel. While it doesn’t detract from the reading, I always get nervous when any artist, whether it be a writer, singer or painter, uses their material as a soapbox, for it dates and lessens the material that they are releasing.
The final big theme of the book is that of life and death. This is prevalent everywhere, from the machinists who create life from nothing, to the alchemists who preserve life, to the soul seeker who seeks to prevent it, while the gargoyles are slowly dying out. It seems fitting that Mattie, an automation, relates to all of those fields, while not alive herself, is a conscious being, actively seeking to preserve the gargoyles who still remain. More ironic, she is unable to remain alive without her human maker, who holds her fate based on his whims.
This isn’t really a positive book when it comes to tone – it’s dark, gritty and at times, downright depressing, which came as a real surprise to me, especially at the end, when things came together. I can’t really remember a book that has done this, one that really puts the characters into place.
Mattie is the true center of the novel, and is a brilliantly conceived character from the start, one who is curious, afraid, at times strong, and one who changes over the course of the story. While she is built, automated, I never once thought of her as a robot, but as an organic being – at times, I was trying to imagine her as a robot, and had a hard time doing so, which is absolutely fantastic, given what type of character she is – this is something that few authors that I’ve come across have been able to do, turn a machine into a character that you can really and truly care for, one where you don’t have to stretch your imagination to imagine her being hurt or having feelings.
At the end of the book, I was happy to have gotten into a book and finished it in a day. The Alchemy of Stone was a fun read, engaging and interesting. I’d highly recommend it.
(Originally Posted: http://jeditrilobite.wordpress.com)
fantastiskfiktion's review against another edition
4.0
https://fantastiskfiktion.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-alchemy-of-stone/
sausome's review against another edition
4.0
This book was really fascinating. Some awesome things about this book: female author; strong female main character; sci-fi/urban fantasy; author is Russian (not too many female sci-fi/fantasy Russian authors); great imagery; compelling.
The main character is Mattie, an automaton with a mind of her own, who has gained emancipation from her maker (except her refuses to give her the key needed to wind her heart when it runs low on juice). She is passionate about alchemy, and the stone gargoyles of the city have come to her for help -- they need a cure to turning into stone. They are mysterious watchers of the city; they've built the city from stone, they command stone, they are not often seen to the public eye.
Then there's the Soul-Smoker -- the person responsible for keeping all of the souls that have left their bodies when the bodies die. He is tortured by thousands of souls within his mind and body, and he is only free when he dies. He is also feared by people because the souls within him call to other souls to join them in companionship and could choose to leave a body to enter into his.
In any case, the whole thing is fanciful and just great. I really enjoyed this book of Ekaterina Sedia's. I read the Secret History of Moscow, and I think I like this one even better.
The main character is Mattie, an automaton with a mind of her own, who has gained emancipation from her maker (except her refuses to give her the key needed to wind her heart when it runs low on juice). She is passionate about alchemy, and the stone gargoyles of the city have come to her for help -- they need a cure to turning into stone. They are mysterious watchers of the city; they've built the city from stone, they command stone, they are not often seen to the public eye.
Then there's the Soul-Smoker -- the person responsible for keeping all of the souls that have left their bodies when the bodies die. He is tortured by thousands of souls within his mind and body, and he is only free when he dies. He is also feared by people because the souls within him call to other souls to join them in companionship and could choose to leave a body to enter into his.
In any case, the whole thing is fanciful and just great. I really enjoyed this book of Ekaterina Sedia's. I read the Secret History of Moscow, and I think I like this one even better.
jvar's review against another edition
5.0
This story flowed. I loved that it wasn't conventionally told. It never went where you expected it to go. I would love a sequel, but I understand and except if just as told.
brdgtc's review against another edition
3.0
I was intrigued by the steampunk setting of this novel, but I was disappointed by it overall. Many issues related to class, gender, and sexuality were touched upon, but it was like the author didn't really want to take a stand on them.
wwrlad's review against another edition
3.0
I just could not get into this book. Granted it was due to the library the next day so I skimmed most of it.
ivyloaf's review against another edition
3.0
This was a book of that I picked up at random, and I think it is written for a different audience. I see this book like I see salad: I like lettuce; I like ranch; I like carrots. So I should like salad, but I just don't. Same for this book: the whole book was well written, characters consistent and rounded, themes galore, and a world ghostly atmospheric. No technical issues that you could see! I still walked away feeling like I would have liked to have read something else.
All that being said, other people would probably eat this book up, so give it a shot if you want. Don't let my personal taste get in the way.
All that being said, other people would probably eat this book up, so give it a shot if you want. Don't let my personal taste get in the way.
charlotekerstenauthor's review against another edition
“Helping others is the only way we can prove we still matter.”
So What’s It About?
Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets -- secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart -- literally! A steampunk novel of romance, political intrigue, and alchemy, The Alchemy of Stone represents a new and intriguing direction by the author of the critically-acclaimed The Secret History of Moscow.
What I Thought
I have been lucky enough to discover a number of new favorite books this year, and The Alchemy of Stone is one of them. I’ve never read anything quite like this before, and I would count myself lucky to read something like it again!
First and foremost among the reasons that I love this book is Mattie herself. She is one of my favorite protagonists of all time - I just love her so much. She is basically the biggest, most adorable sweetheart in the whole world who sees the good in others, always tries to be helpful and kind, and is particularly compassionate to fellow outcasts. She is curious and smart and determined to make her own way in the world, and her perspective as an automaton is so well written. I mean that in the sense that Sedia uses Mattie’s identity to explore notions of humanity and being othered, but also in the sense that there are so many unique details that really develop a complete sense of what it is like for her to have a mechanical body that can break down and functions so differently from a living body. A tiny detail that charmed me so much I still think about it all the time: “On the way, Niobe relented under Mattie’s pitiful stare (she extended her eyestalks for that purpose).”
Mattie’s complex, toxic relationship with her creator Loharri is another of the book’s strong points. Loharri is a really interesting and magnetic character, and it’s clear why Mattie is so confused about her feelings about him - on one hand he is a brilliant, charming man who literally gave her life and often treats her kindly, but on the other hand, he is capricious and selfish and full of an underlying darkness that manifests in how he is ultimately unwilling to see Mattie as a real person or relinquish his control over her life. The book states it really well: “he occasionally enjoyed making a show out of capitulating to her, but only because they both knew he held more power.” His benevolence and pet names only go so far - he’s willing to be nice while she does what he wants, but when she starts to exert her free will in ways that he doesn’t like, all bets are off and he reverts to treating her like an object, taking her apart and controlling her utterly.
Beyond the fact of Mattie’s creation, I love a lot of the other fantasy elements present - the mysterious, ancient gargoyles that are intrinsically tied to the city, the man who is fated to smoke opium to encompass the souls of the dead and live with them in his mind forever, the little blood homunculi that Mattie learns how to make with blood magic thanks to a friend from a different country…I could go on, but there are so many genuinely interesting and inventive elements that set this story apart from the other steampunk books I’ve read.
Speaking of the steampunk elements, The Alchemy of Stone also does a great job of capturing and exploring some of the themes that are central to the kind of gaslamp/steampunk books that I like. The book’s central conflict hinges on the rapid transformation of Mattie’s city through industrialization and the problems that arise because of it, the exploitation of the poor, and racist hostility towards outsiders from other lands. As I mentioned before, Mattie’s identity as an outsider is a great way of exploring the idea of who counts as a person, and that exploration is augmented by the struggles of race, class and modernization that are present too.
Only a few things didn’t work for me. It feels like there are a lot of conveniences to the story - everyone seems to know everyone important and relevant to the plot, and Mattie is constantly bumping into the characters who will best further the plot at any given time instead of deliberately seeking them out. I also think that the weakest part of the story altogether is the “romance” between Sebastian and Mattie. There is almost no buildup to the notion that they have feelings for each other, and it feels a lot to me like Sebastian doesn’t really care about Mattie at all and is instead just using her to stay safe during a volatile time. The sex scene is pretty unique, I will say, in that there is KEYHOLE ORAL. I actually like this scene a lot for the fact that it’s about Mattie reclaiming the pleasure that Loharri built into her without her consent; even disregarding the pleasure that he built into the process, Mattie finds Loharri using her key to wind her up to be a violation, and this is augmented by the fact that he will not give her the key so that she can be truly be free of him. So I like what the sex scene is all about, but I remain staunch in my opinion that Sebastian does not seem like he really cares about Mattie at all, and the romance was a big disappointment to me.
I simultaneously love and hate the ending, where Loharri dies and Mattie’s key is lost during his death, meaning that she knows that she is eventually going to shut down unless she can find the key. In the epilogue, narrated by the gargoyles who Mattie saved, she has shut down and the gargoyles are hunting relentlessly for the key. It’s like a knife to the heart!!!! But they’re 100% going to find the key and bring Mattie back to life and she’s going to be happy and free forever, okay???? OKAY.
So What’s It About?
Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets -- secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart -- literally! A steampunk novel of romance, political intrigue, and alchemy, The Alchemy of Stone represents a new and intriguing direction by the author of the critically-acclaimed The Secret History of Moscow.
What I Thought
I have been lucky enough to discover a number of new favorite books this year, and The Alchemy of Stone is one of them. I’ve never read anything quite like this before, and I would count myself lucky to read something like it again!
First and foremost among the reasons that I love this book is Mattie herself. She is one of my favorite protagonists of all time - I just love her so much. She is basically the biggest, most adorable sweetheart in the whole world who sees the good in others, always tries to be helpful and kind, and is particularly compassionate to fellow outcasts. She is curious and smart and determined to make her own way in the world, and her perspective as an automaton is so well written. I mean that in the sense that Sedia uses Mattie’s identity to explore notions of humanity and being othered, but also in the sense that there are so many unique details that really develop a complete sense of what it is like for her to have a mechanical body that can break down and functions so differently from a living body. A tiny detail that charmed me so much I still think about it all the time: “On the way, Niobe relented under Mattie’s pitiful stare (she extended her eyestalks for that purpose).”
Mattie’s complex, toxic relationship with her creator Loharri is another of the book’s strong points. Loharri is a really interesting and magnetic character, and it’s clear why Mattie is so confused about her feelings about him - on one hand he is a brilliant, charming man who literally gave her life and often treats her kindly, but on the other hand, he is capricious and selfish and full of an underlying darkness that manifests in how he is ultimately unwilling to see Mattie as a real person or relinquish his control over her life. The book states it really well: “he occasionally enjoyed making a show out of capitulating to her, but only because they both knew he held more power.” His benevolence and pet names only go so far - he’s willing to be nice while she does what he wants, but when she starts to exert her free will in ways that he doesn’t like, all bets are off and he reverts to treating her like an object, taking her apart and controlling her utterly.
Beyond the fact of Mattie’s creation, I love a lot of the other fantasy elements present - the mysterious, ancient gargoyles that are intrinsically tied to the city, the man who is fated to smoke opium to encompass the souls of the dead and live with them in his mind forever, the little blood homunculi that Mattie learns how to make with blood magic thanks to a friend from a different country…I could go on, but there are so many genuinely interesting and inventive elements that set this story apart from the other steampunk books I’ve read.
Speaking of the steampunk elements, The Alchemy of Stone also does a great job of capturing and exploring some of the themes that are central to the kind of gaslamp/steampunk books that I like. The book’s central conflict hinges on the rapid transformation of Mattie’s city through industrialization and the problems that arise because of it, the exploitation of the poor, and racist hostility towards outsiders from other lands. As I mentioned before, Mattie’s identity as an outsider is a great way of exploring the idea of who counts as a person, and that exploration is augmented by the struggles of race, class and modernization that are present too.
Only a few things didn’t work for me. It feels like there are a lot of conveniences to the story - everyone seems to know everyone important and relevant to the plot, and Mattie is constantly bumping into the characters who will best further the plot at any given time instead of deliberately seeking them out. I also think that the weakest part of the story altogether is the “romance” between Sebastian and Mattie. There is almost no buildup to the notion that they have feelings for each other, and it feels a lot to me like Sebastian doesn’t really care about Mattie at all and is instead just using her to stay safe during a volatile time. The sex scene is pretty unique, I will say, in that there is KEYHOLE ORAL. I actually like this scene a lot for the fact that it’s about Mattie reclaiming the pleasure that Loharri built into her without her consent; even disregarding the pleasure that he built into the process, Mattie finds Loharri using her key to wind her up to be a violation, and this is augmented by the fact that he will not give her the key so that she can be truly be free of him. So I like what the sex scene is all about, but I remain staunch in my opinion that Sebastian does not seem like he really cares about Mattie at all, and the romance was a big disappointment to me.
I simultaneously love and hate the ending, where Loharri dies and Mattie’s key is lost during his death, meaning that she knows that she is eventually going to shut down unless she can find the key. In the epilogue, narrated by the gargoyles who Mattie saved, she has shut down and the gargoyles are hunting relentlessly for the key. It’s like a knife to the heart!!!! But they’re 100% going to find the key and bring Mattie back to life and she’s going to be happy and free forever, okay???? OKAY.
eososray's review against another edition
4.0
What a quirky little book.
I love the little robot and her evolution into almost an independent person. If only her creator would give her the key.
Simple in writing style and easy to read, it was fun and cute with a bittersweet ending.
I love the little robot and her evolution into almost an independent person. If only her creator would give her the key.
Simple in writing style and easy to read, it was fun and cute with a bittersweet ending.