Queen Victoria

The Brass Queen

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I am a sucker for a good steampunk novel. However, there are a lot of novels out there I simply slog through (see: Whitechapel Gods) and some I fly through (anything by the amazing Gail Carriger). I tend to like things that have a good sense of humor to them. I have enough anxiety to be getting on with, I don’t want some dour, depressing book as escapism. Elizabeth Chatworth’s The Brass Queen is very Carriger-esque and therefore right in my wheelhouse. Beware spoilers – this book came out in January.

In this world, Queen Victoria is a straight up tyrant. No Parliament. No due process. British Red Coats could kill for the slightest reason and the cops were keen to hang any and all criminals. Miss Constance Haltwhistle is a baron’s daughter and a weapons dealer. Unusual combo for a Victorian woman, but with her father in an alternate dimension, she needed to be able to keep her hall and her people cared for. Unfortunately, being a woman, she couldn’t inherit (yes, this was an actual law during Victorian times, though I’m not sure if that’s different now with British peerage), so she had to get married – quickly. As in, by about three days from the time we’re introduced to her.

Things don’t go smoothly. There are invisible people driving giant exo-suits who break up the party she was husband hunting at – her own (very late) coming out party. There’s a terribly dressed American man and some kidnapping. And let’s not forget the biggest roadblock to her husband hunting – Constance herself. She’s…not quite likeable? She’s a strong, independent woman, which I generally like, but the writer kind of casts her as a bit of a harpy. She doesn’t listen to anyone else’s ideas, even when they’re clearly better than her own. She doesn’t apologize when she does something stupid or insane and people end up getting hurt. Some of it can be blamed for having a mad scientist of a father who never let her leave the family estate, but not all of it.

I’m not a fan of the strong woman = harpy thing. It’s…lazy. I’m also not a fan of the strong woman = psychopath thing (think Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye or Alya from Dune). You can have a strong, complex woman who is not a harpy or a psychopath (Mako Mori in Pacific Rim). I digress.

Miss Haltwhistle has to investigate the kidnapping that ruined her coming out party with the unfortunately dressed American man, JF Trusdale, who isn’t all he seems (natch). They stumble and bumble their way through an investigation, thwart naked and invisible Swedes and and up playing a very violent game of polo with a murderous royal (one of Victoria’s grandsons). This is a fun romp through a very different Victorian England. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book and hope that Constance Haltwhistle will become more of a well rounded female character.

If you’re looking for a bit of light, fun steampunk reading, I recommend picking this up. She’s very much in the vein of Gail Carriger, so if you like her books, you should like The Brass Queen. Rating: A-. Some tropes, especially surrounding the main female character, but overall enjoyable. And before you ask, no, this isn’t a prank/April fool’s joke. This is a legit book. Get it through Amazon or another book provider.

Kate Locke

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So I decided to try this book God Save the Queen by Kate Locke on a whim. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read another steampunk-y type book since I’ve read a bunch of them lately but this one was really more of an alternate history modern fantasy book with a bit of steampunk in it. Instead of cell phones (or mobiles for you Brits out there), the have “rotaries” (and boy do I feel old for having used rotary phones). Instead of computers they have “logic engines”. A lot of the phrases have a steampunk type feel but it is most definitely set in the 20 century.

The basis behind this book is that the Black Plague transformed people into supernatural creatures (in this case, vampires and werewolves and goblins). “Full blooded” plagued people were considered aristocrats. Or I should say, full blood vampires were considered aristocrats. The werewolves in the UK were in one single gi-normous pack lead by The Alpha (Vexation ‘Vex’ MacLaughlin-such a silly great name).

It was accidentally discovered that full-blooded weres and vamps could have children with a certain segment of the human population. Human female courtesans are highly paid and respected by the plagued community for being able to produce half bloods (halvies).  Halvies are used for protection against humans seeing as halvies can go out in the day time while most full bloods cannot (I’m still not sure if full blooded weres can go out in the day).

Queen Victoria never died, she turned out to be a full blooded vamp. Prince Albert was killed in a human insurrection in the mid-1930s, rather than dying in the late 1800s. There was no World War I or World War II.

The main character is Alexandra (Xandy or Xandra) Vardan is a Royal Guard, whose job it is to protect Victoria. We are introduced to her trying to find a younger sister. That search turns into a somewhat convoluted investigation into faked deaths and sinister scientific/medical experiments on halvies which may include Xandra herself.

Who can she trust? Will she find out what happens to her sister? What are these experiments? We only get a few answers in this book but it is clear that this is going to be an arc, so I’m not too upset by some of the loose ends. It is a very interesting book. And the follow up Long Live the Queen was just as good. I really suggest reading it. Rating: A.