A review by marlan
Clockwork Heart: Book One of the Clockwork Heart Trilogy by Dru Pagliassotti

3.0

My favorite of all the steampunk novels I've read. The world was carefully created without having the style-before-substance feeling found in a lot of steampunkery. In other books, it seems as though the exposition had to perform gymnastics in order to explain why everyone is wearing goggles. Here, the world makes a reasonable amount of sense, considering it's fantasy.

Unfortunately, the characters didn't have the depth I would have liked. The characters don't have significant arcs, ending pretty much as they started. The protagonist is enjoyable, but the other characters either feel interchangable or a little too similar to other YA books (one romantic lead bears a striking resemblance to Snape, both in appearance and personality).

The pacing is a bit off, the main climax occurring about 100 pages before the end, so it feels like a shorter book with a *very* long wrap-up.

Still, this was a light and enjoyable book. The use of early computers (with punch cards!) added an interesting element. Worth checking out if this flavor of fantasy is your thing.