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Mainspring
Just finished Mainspring, by Jay Lake. It's being held to very high expectations, so forgive me if I'm harsh. :-) It also made me think a lot about my own work (like all good books, which make me want to understand how they work)
Overall, I'll say that while I enjoyed his other book, Rocket Science, more, I respected this one more.
About a hundred pages from the end, I had a head-smacking realization. Gene Wolfe! That explains everything that bugs me about Mainspring. I know Lake loves Wolfe; he said his favorite book is the one Gene Wolfe book I've read so far (Shadow of the Torturer, which I <3 ), and I had similar problems with that book. Namely, awesome world, hard to connect to character. Of course,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake does some things better-- I liked Arellya way better than the coma girl whose name I can't remember. So, Jay Lake, if you wanted to write something similar to Wolfe, I think you've succeeded. :-)
Anyway, putting aside the OCD worldbuilder in me, there are some things that bug me, mainly that a lot of the character development is told rather than shown. It's not the case with all of them. Some, like Librarian Childress and Captain Smallwood, were drawn in a few swift, sharp strokes. But after one brief scene with Malgus, Hethor tells us he doesn't trust him, and I'm like, "um... why?" Hethor had received help from people both mysterious and mundane, and I saw no reason why Malgus shouldn't be another. Even just a "there was something unearthly in the way he moved." or "the fact that Simeon Malgus sounded so damn much like that "Simon Magus" creep in the Bible disturbed him. But Hethor didn't want to be biased against names. He sounded like an Egyptian cow love goddess, after all..." Maybe I just need to reread it.
Otherwise, I agree withrosefox on points #4 and after.
I haven't actually read much steampunk (he calls it clockpunk, but at the moment, it all blends together for me). Unlike Perdido Street Station (the other steampunk-ish thing I've read) this takes place on an alternate earth. The fact that Lake dares to do what he does makes him awesome. But I'm faced with the strange phenomenon of having to suspend my disbelief in a way I'm not used to. It's a problem I'm having in my current work, and a reason I prefer secondary world fantasy. While it is fun to speculate on what would happen to earth if X were the case, I suspect that anything we came up with would be wrong.
In my own work, I've got "what would happen in Hell opened up fifty years ago and opened diplomatic relations with humanity?" I'm pretty sure there are variables I've missed, and I'm pretty sure there are huge issues I'm not seeing/willfully ignoring. I'm a control freak when it comes to worldbuilding. I want to know exactly how those mountains formed, and what drainage patterns there are before I send my heroes across them. Usually, I'm able to curb my OCD with frantic mutterings of "don't think about it don't look too close no one cares people do wierder shit all the time...arghh!"
When the Blood Rose Devouring was just smut, it was easier for me to brush off the lack of detail in the dark corners. Now that it's turning into something more serious, I have to tell myself that the rest of it is so damn awesome (I hope), no one will care.
Mainspring is like that for me. With such a fundamental difference in the universe, the world would be even less like Victorian Britain than it is in his book. But of course, to say that would be to miss out on the unadulterated, fantastic glee of it all. If it were a secondary world, likely none of this would bug me. But again, to dwell on that is to ignore the unique joy of this book.
None of this is to say I don't love the book. But I'm particularly looking forward to watching Lake develop as an author and seeing the rough spots smoothed away.
Overall, I'll say that while I enjoyed his other book, Rocket Science, more, I respected this one more.
About a hundred pages from the end, I had a head-smacking realization. Gene Wolfe! That explains everything that bugs me about Mainspring. I know Lake loves Wolfe; he said his favorite book is the one Gene Wolfe book I've read so far (Shadow of the Torturer, which I <3 ), and I had similar problems with that book. Namely, awesome world, hard to connect to character. Of course,
jaylake does some things better-- I liked Arellya way better than the coma girl whose name I can't remember. So, Jay Lake, if you wanted to write something similar to Wolfe, I think you've succeeded. :-)Anyway, putting aside the OCD worldbuilder in me, there are some things that bug me, mainly that a lot of the character development is told rather than shown. It's not the case with all of them. Some, like Librarian Childress and Captain Smallwood, were drawn in a few swift, sharp strokes. But after one brief scene with Malgus, Hethor tells us he doesn't trust him, and I'm like, "um... why?" Hethor had received help from people both mysterious and mundane, and I saw no reason why Malgus shouldn't be another. Even just a "there was something unearthly in the way he moved." or "the fact that Simeon Malgus sounded so damn much like that "Simon Magus" creep in the Bible disturbed him. But Hethor didn't want to be biased against names. He sounded like an Egyptian cow love goddess, after all..." Maybe I just need to reread it.
Otherwise, I agree with
rosefox on points #4 and after.I haven't actually read much steampunk (he calls it clockpunk, but at the moment, it all blends together for me). Unlike Perdido Street Station (the other steampunk-ish thing I've read) this takes place on an alternate earth. The fact that Lake dares to do what he does makes him awesome. But I'm faced with the strange phenomenon of having to suspend my disbelief in a way I'm not used to. It's a problem I'm having in my current work, and a reason I prefer secondary world fantasy. While it is fun to speculate on what would happen to earth if X were the case, I suspect that anything we came up with would be wrong.
In my own work, I've got "what would happen in Hell opened up fifty years ago and opened diplomatic relations with humanity?" I'm pretty sure there are variables I've missed, and I'm pretty sure there are huge issues I'm not seeing/willfully ignoring. I'm a control freak when it comes to worldbuilding. I want to know exactly how those mountains formed, and what drainage patterns there are before I send my heroes across them. Usually, I'm able to curb my OCD with frantic mutterings of "don't think about it don't look too close no one cares people do wierder shit all the time...arghh!"
When the Blood Rose Devouring was just smut, it was easier for me to brush off the lack of detail in the dark corners. Now that it's turning into something more serious, I have to tell myself that the rest of it is so damn awesome (I hope), no one will care.
Mainspring is like that for me. With such a fundamental difference in the universe, the world would be even less like Victorian Britain than it is in his book. But of course, to say that would be to miss out on the unadulterated, fantastic glee of it all. If it were a secondary world, likely none of this would bug me. But again, to dwell on that is to ignore the unique joy of this book.
None of this is to say I don't love the book. But I'm particularly looking forward to watching Lake develop as an author and seeing the rough spots smoothed away.