A Positive Review For Once: Clockwork Heart

[gracedpalmer]

So, I'm embarking on a once a month habit of buying a book new from the store. It has to be a book I haven't read before, and it has to be a relatively new one. It is allowed to be a writer I already know I like, but new writers are okay, as well. We started out a little late for October by getting Rosemary and Rue at WindyCon. I haven't gotten around to reviewing that one, and probably ought to, since my last review was...vitriolic. But since I just finished reading the most recent one, Clockwork Heart, and it's fresh in my head, you'll get that instead. Do note that this is meandery and stream of consciousness, not a proper review.

I'll admit, the title made me skeptical. The word "clockwork" has me suspicious these days, what with steampunk turning into a thing of popular appeal. But this novel (Dru Pagliassotti's first) turned out to be really pleasant to read. It's a data heist novel, sortof like the Difference Engine, but less dry and complicated, and not set in Victorian London. The world owes more to China Mieville, but is rather more upbeat (I love Mieville, but his endings and his characters both end up leaving me feeling a bit leaden). The plot felt well constructed to me, though I'm also the last person to see movie endings coming, so there may be holes I'm not aware of. The worldbuilding is nice - I didn't get a good idea of the countries outside the primary one, but they weren't all that needed for the novel. More would have been welcome, but I see there's a sequel in the works. Hopefully it'll fill in the blanks.

There's a decent, albeit magical, explanation of why mechanical wings work, and some real attention to them - the viewpoint character spends some time trying to find a thermal to get her where she needs to go. Since flight is so often like a video game or remote control plane in books, that was a pleasant addition, too. There's a romantic subplot, which I'll admit to having seen coming, but it never got cloying. It's a rare occasion when I can sympathetically have the hots for the romantic object in any form of media, and this one actually worked. Is socially awkward, slightly abrasive geeky guy a surprising trope to appeal to me? No, but I still enjoyed myself. Nobody ever writes romances for me. :)

The main character is effectively white (pale and auburn locked despite her father being roughly Asian or Pacific Islander in coloration) in a non-white city, which is a common and regrettable trope - better than there being no nonwhite people at all but still problematic. Fortunately, we don't seem to have accompanying racial oppression or exoticism, so I didn't think it turned out to be an issue. I may not be the best person to weigh in on this, and the furor that was RaceFail has made me hypersensitive to this sort of thing in fiction (if you don't know, be glad - google it if you're really desperately curious). I guess I can say: despite initial concerns, Clockwork Heart doesn't feel like it's full of fail?

Writing for this book was reasonably tight, though nothing to write home about. There are no lush fields of verbiage to roll in. On the other hand, my internal copyeditor was mostly quiet, which is a rarity these days. I've found myself critting comma placement in novels. This should not happen if I'm not writing much fiction! For the first few pages, it quibbled a bit with word choice and repetition, and then shut up for a decent read. Writing that doesn't announce itself is also a Good Thing.

This is not groundbreaking, world changing fiction. It's not arguing for much of anything, it's not political, and it didn't do anything that surprised me enormously. That's okay, because I don't think it was trying to do any of those things (all books should focus on me, clearly). It -was- a lot of fun, a pleasant read, well constructed enough not to set off my disbelief, and solidly written.

I would absolutely consider buying the sequel, and other books by this author. A pleasant book I can relax with isn't a bad thing at all - sometimes my reading gets a little too serious, if I'm not careful. Too much Elizabeth Bear will make us depressed and cranky, no matter how good it might be. If you see Clockwork Heart on the shelf and feel like spending eight bucks, or see it at the library, it's worth a read, despite the title.

I also read The Manufactury (http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=64) when I went googling for the author. It has a completely different tone, but is definitely worth a read. Creepy tech and unemployed resurrectionists.

[Edit, as I get a lot of thinking done right before I go to sleep. I liked the lack of stereotyped gender roles in this one. It has strong females with them being "strong females," sexual freedom (for some) without it being the thing that will save us all, and people genuinely having different strengths and weaknesses. Also, it passes the Bechdel Test.]

Comments

[samadi.livejournal.com]

I'll write romances for you as soon as my characters start moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. ^_^

And yay for books where you want to buy the sequel; I like this book buying commitment of yours.

[jenny_evergreen]

For lush fields of verbiage, I recommend Shoeless Joe by Whatshisname Kinsella. The writing was more poetry than prose in a lot of places, in a good way. (This is the book Field of Dreams was (very loosely!) based on.)
It's a novel about people, mostly, and baseball a little bit.

[sister-bluebird.livejournal.com]

The book buying project is mostly a genre one, but I'll keep it in mind for the library. Tanith Lee and Cat Valente are my current favorites for the "prose you can roll in" category.