A review by eoghann
Blameless by Gail Carriger
4.0
Gail Carriger continues her light and frothy urban fantasy pastiche of victoriana with Blameless, the third book in the series.
It's usually somewhere around this point that I start to run out of interesting things to say because the author has generally found their groove and all the main characters have been introduced. All of which is certainly true for Blameless.
There's nothing radically new going on here. Carriger does shake up the status-quo a little bit with a falling out between Alexia Maccon and her husband but you know perfectly well it will all be nicely resolved by the novel's end.
Perhaps more interesting here is the continued expansion of the steam punk elements, particularly with the use of the mechanical ladybugs. A nice, if particularly fantastical touch. And also the gradual introduction of the rest of the world. Up until now we've really only seen Britain, which it turns out is far more accommodating to the supernatural than pretty much anywhere else. Now we get to sample a little bit of the Continent.
That certainly helps to give the formula a new coat of paint without risking any of the elements that fans of the series will be looking for.
So basically it's a light, easy read, in the style of the earlier novels with most of your favorite characters putting in at least some sort of appearance again.
It's usually somewhere around this point that I start to run out of interesting things to say because the author has generally found their groove and all the main characters have been introduced. All of which is certainly true for Blameless.
There's nothing radically new going on here. Carriger does shake up the status-quo a little bit with a falling out between Alexia Maccon and her husband but you know perfectly well it will all be nicely resolved by the novel's end.
Perhaps more interesting here is the continued expansion of the steam punk elements, particularly with the use of the mechanical ladybugs. A nice, if particularly fantastical touch. And also the gradual introduction of the rest of the world. Up until now we've really only seen Britain, which it turns out is far more accommodating to the supernatural than pretty much anywhere else. Now we get to sample a little bit of the Continent.
That certainly helps to give the formula a new coat of paint without risking any of the elements that fans of the series will be looking for.
So basically it's a light, easy read, in the style of the earlier novels with most of your favorite characters putting in at least some sort of appearance again.