A review by marimoose
Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter
2.0
Ugh. My review didn't save properly so now I'm just going to summarize what I'd said:
The book is the epitome of steampunk, which the author and his colleagues kind of coined as a term years ago. It has everything from mad scientists to explosions to adventures to automatons and clockwork mechanisms. It has religious idealists, anti-religious idealists, suffragists, lewd folk, and the poor tinker main character. Stylistically, I didn't think there was anything wrong. Heck, I respect Jeter the work and thank him for giving name to a literary sub-genre that's gotten more and more mainstream these days.
My low rating is mostly due to my disinterest and lack of mood to read the dated narration. Infernal Devices was classically written, much in the same manner Frankenstein was (which also--sadly--put me off, even though Frankenstein is the must-read of all sci-fi reads on my list). The characters weren't endearing (the most amused I was had been Creff's paranoia), and I found myself bouncing from one catastrophe to another without caring about whether or not the main character (Dower? Dowers?) came out unscathed.
So there it is. It's mostly my fault.
The book is the epitome of steampunk, which the author and his colleagues kind of coined as a term years ago. It has everything from mad scientists to explosions to adventures to automatons and clockwork mechanisms. It has religious idealists, anti-religious idealists, suffragists, lewd folk, and the poor tinker main character. Stylistically, I didn't think there was anything wrong. Heck, I respect Jeter the work and thank him for giving name to a literary sub-genre that's gotten more and more mainstream these days.
My low rating is mostly due to my disinterest and lack of mood to read the dated narration. Infernal Devices was classically written, much in the same manner Frankenstein was (which also--sadly--put me off, even though Frankenstein is the must-read of all sci-fi reads on my list). The characters weren't endearing (the most amused I was had been Creff's paranoia), and I found myself bouncing from one catastrophe to another without caring about whether or not the main character (Dower? Dowers?) came out unscathed.
So there it is. It's mostly my fault.