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A review by mamthew42
Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter
4.0
I picked up Infernal Devices at random - literally. I sorted our Libby selection randomly and chose the first book that looked interesting. It's a 1986 steampunk novel by K. W. Jeter, the guy who coined the term "steampunk" the very next year. Jeter didn't invent the genre, exactly - he was using the term to describe works by himself and a few of his contemporaries, and many of the aspects of the genre were common in works predating Jeter by decades if not centuries. That said, while I was expecting an early clockwork, steam, and airships romp, I taken by surprise at just how much is going on in this book.
Infernal Devices uses the frame device of publicly disgraced protagonist George Dower writing his side of recent events to publish in an effort to clear his name. While this would normally mean the novel has an unreliable narrator, Mr. Dower is guileless and bland enough that he doesn't come across as having the creativity necessary to conceive of a story like this. The narrator's own simplicity is very funny and also functions as a plot device, in what I read as a parody of the plodding, information-heavy narrative voices common in 19th century novels. His own bland racism, classism, and misogyny even while viewing himself as being too enlightened for such bigotries functions similarly; it's a pretty similar narrative voice to Watson in Sherlock Holmes or any given protagonist in Dracula, which makes the batshit 80s-ness of the events around him stand out as so much funnier than they might have been from a more contemporary voice - or even a more self-aware one.
As it is, Infernal Devices runs the gamut of absolutely wild plot points. It draws heavily from Lovecraft with its own take on the Innsmouth People, and that's just the opening act. It also brings in time travelers, doomsday devices, warring secret societies, musical automatons and more, all using clockwork devices as a stand-in for technology. It's genuinely best described as "madcap" - at one point, Dower finds himself running from three different zany mobs at once, Scooby-Doo style. It's a very funny book.
I was a little surprised that the book has much less to say about politics and social issues than contemporary steampunk books, or its own contemporaries in the genre steampunk was named after, cyberpunk. Victorian England isn't really used for its issues of class or colonialism, but more a playground for the author to play in. The most interesting insight it has on politics isn't about the protagonist's time at all, but instead comes from a time traveler about the late 20th century, where he says a world-destroying device didn't really even register to him as something to be frightened of because everyone in a hundred years will be constantly trying to destroy the world for clout anyway. It's a good moment, but it seems to be there partly to keep the doomsday machine from actually functioning as a nuclear analogue. Jeter wants to assure the reader that this world destroyer is just here for fun, not to remind the reader of the grim reality of their own life.
Despite its being pretty light on substance, though, I had a ton of fun with this book. Each new wrinkle in the story was a fun and unexpected surprise that kept me guessing and kept me laughing. Can't ask for much more than that.
Infernal Devices uses the frame device of publicly disgraced protagonist George Dower writing his side of recent events to publish in an effort to clear his name. While this would normally mean the novel has an unreliable narrator, Mr. Dower is guileless and bland enough that he doesn't come across as having the creativity necessary to conceive of a story like this. The narrator's own simplicity is very funny and also functions as a plot device, in what I read as a parody of the plodding, information-heavy narrative voices common in 19th century novels. His own bland racism, classism, and misogyny even while viewing himself as being too enlightened for such bigotries functions similarly; it's a pretty similar narrative voice to Watson in Sherlock Holmes or any given protagonist in Dracula, which makes the batshit 80s-ness of the events around him stand out as so much funnier than they might have been from a more contemporary voice - or even a more self-aware one.
As it is, Infernal Devices runs the gamut of absolutely wild plot points. It draws heavily from Lovecraft with its own take on the Innsmouth People, and that's just the opening act. It also brings in time travelers, doomsday devices, warring secret societies, musical automatons and more, all using clockwork devices as a stand-in for technology. It's genuinely best described as "madcap" - at one point, Dower finds himself running from three different zany mobs at once, Scooby-Doo style. It's a very funny book.
I was a little surprised that the book has much less to say about politics and social issues than contemporary steampunk books, or its own contemporaries in the genre steampunk was named after, cyberpunk. Victorian England isn't really used for its issues of class or colonialism, but more a playground for the author to play in. The most interesting insight it has on politics isn't about the protagonist's time at all, but instead comes from a time traveler about the late 20th century, where he says a world-destroying device didn't really even register to him as something to be frightened of because everyone in a hundred years will be constantly trying to destroy the world for clout anyway. It's a good moment, but it seems to be there partly to keep the doomsday machine from actually functioning as a nuclear analogue. Jeter wants to assure the reader that this world destroyer is just here for fun, not to remind the reader of the grim reality of their own life.
Despite its being pretty light on substance, though, I had a ton of fun with this book. Each new wrinkle in the story was a fun and unexpected surprise that kept me guessing and kept me laughing. Can't ask for much more than that.