The Clockwork man and Imbibing peril!

Burton & Swinburne in
The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man
byMark Hodder

Since I decided to participate in the annual R.I.P. challenge this novel which was already in my TBR pile has become my first title for the challenge.  Does it fit the criteria? Well it does feature ghostly apparitions and zombies and it is certainly a thrilling ride, more than anything, though, it is good, old fashioned, pulp fiction fun.  I have to say up front that I have really enjoyed both of the Burton & Swinburne titles available to date, this title and it's predecessor, The strange affair of Spring heeled Jack.  Mark Hodder has successfully created a great addition to the growing steampunk cannon and given us an entertaining narrative to while away the hours.

From the back cover:
London 1862.  A lost aristocrat returns and the steam wraiths rise!
Sir Roger Tichborne: Lost at sea but now he's back to claim his family fortune.  Or is he?  To the upper classes, he's obviously a cunning  swindler; to London's laborers, he's the peoples hero ... while to Sir Richard Francis Burton,he's the focus of a daring plot to gain possession of the legendary black diamonds known as the Eyes of Naga.  Burton's investigation takes him to the cursed Tichborne estate ... and to an encounter with the ghost of a witch!

Like the previous novel Hodder takes real events and personalities and essentially plays with them, weaving a fiction out of the thread of history.  In this volume Hodder adds the philosopher Herbert Spenser to the mix and  Charles Altamont Doyle, (father of Arthur Conan Doyle) just to name two, other significant figures also appear, but historical figures in Hodder's work bear only the flimsiest resemblance to their historical selves, rather they become far more outrageous figures in Hodder's hands and their personal histories are only relevant to the point that they enhance Hodder's narrative.  The playing with 19th century history is half the fun of these books, and they are fun, old fashioned, escapist fun, literature they are not.

A logical underpinning of the narrative is key to Hodder's story and so even supernatural elements are explained in pseudo scientific terms.  Like the previous Burton & Swinburne novel we are treated to an alternative history where technology is exceeding its historical limits and developments are rapid.  This is a  world where genetic engineering arrives long before it's reality and while Hodder's universe is far more dependent on the tropes of science fiction, elements of fantasy still exist his work.  One of my favourite inventions was the cactus gun, a by product of horticultural genetic manipulation gone feral, which amongst other things turns Ireland into an uninhabitabitable jungle of dangerous and often carnivorous plants all because of failed attempts to deal with the problem of potato blight.

Hodder also makes great use of established mythologies; ghosts, zombies and fairies are re-evaluated in what is an entertaining tale.  It must be said that Burton and Swinburne are great editions to fiction's hall of heroes.  The real men on which these characters are based must be seen as an absolute gift to steampunk.  Sir Richard Burton is like something straight out of boys own adventures; a famous explorer and geographer, a master swordsman, an exceptional linguist and master of disguise, who in his early career worked as a spy for the British in India and Swinburne the pre-Raphaelite poet with a reputation for deviancy and outrageous behaviour, outwardly the two men seem quite different, the soldier and the poet, and yet clearly they had much in common, since a very real friendship existed between these two remarkable men.  Hodder has made great use of some basic historical fact and transformed it into entertaining and creative narrative.  I am looking forward to the next installment in the Burton & Swinburne saga, while the Curious case of the clockwork man, can be read as a stand alone novel it does set up a link to the next adventure.

First book for R.I.P. done, still not sure what my second novel will be.  If I don't find something else perhaps I will read the Arthur Conan Doyle novel The Sign of the Four, a novel I have been meaning to re-read.

A Rage to Live and steampunk fantasy and reality!

A Rage to Live.  A biography of

Richard and Isabel Burton.
by Mary S. Lovell.

Burton &Swinburne in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack.   
 By Mark Hodder

Yet again I have been a neglectful blogger, so this is a another catch up on recent reading.

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack was a book I had been eagerly looking forward to and it did not disappoint.  A Steampunk sci-fi, it makes good use of intrinsic time travel dilemmas and paradoxes to create an alternative reality in which Hodder can play out steampunk fantasies within the confines of a plausible logic. The novel is perhaps not perfect, but it is certainly one of the better recent additions to what is  a growing body of work within  the genre. Over a skeleton of plausible fact, Hodder builds an entertaining story, but the use of very real historical figures can also be a little jarring at times and requires some effort from the reader to accept these fictionalised, mythologised characterisations.

In essence the novel occurs in an alternative history where Queen Victoria has been assassinated and Albert is on the throne.  Richard Burton rather than pursuing a diplomatic career is appointed as a special agent to investigate strange mysteries, hence his involvement with the mystery of spring heeled Jack.  Jack is of course a real figure in British urban mythology, his identity was never discovered and he may in fact have been more than one person. Hodder makes great use of this very real historical mystery to weave the framework of his alternative history, other historical icons abound in this sci-fi tale where steam technology  moves beyond the limitations of its time.  Technology and Eugenics (or rather genetic engineering), explode in possibility, new animals are  breed or evolved like the entertaining, 'messenger parakeets', who swear prolifically when delivering messages.  Steam engineering exceeds it's historical limitations and coal powered vehicles abound, including the invention of primitive helicopters, while Brunel builds the first  geo-thermal power plant, well before its time.  Hodder explains this exceptional technological progress in terms of a time travel paradox, to say much more, will give away to much of the plot.

Hodder's use of Richard Burton and Charles Algernon Swinburne as heroes is inspired, if ever a historical figure was suited to adoption by a steampunk adventure it is Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer, adventurer, linguist extraordinaire.  Swinburne also makes for an interesting characterisation, the diminutive poet is a nice opposition to the masculine and dramatic Burton and the two men were in real life friends. It was however, some of the other characters that I did find a  bit of challenge to accept, at least initially.  Oscar Wilde features, but not the Oscar known to history and literature, in Hodder's universe Oscar is a child in London after having fled the Irish famine.  He appears as a paper boy who Burton christens with the nick name Quips and many of Wilde's famous lines issue from Quips' precocious mouth, while this is an interesting ploy I, did at first struggle with this use of Wilde.  Many of the other characters are also very real historical figures and the novel begins by recounting one very real dramatic adventure from the life of Burton, the attack in Somalia that left him seriously scared as a result of being speared through the face.  From this point onwards Hodder changes Burton's story to fit the demands of his narrative.  Isabel Arundel,the woman destined to become Burton's wife  appears at the start of the novel but Hodder manages to push her out of the story, (I hope this is only temporary and Isabell will re-appear in later novels, the possibility for further appearances certainly exists).  Other figures also make appearances, from Darwin to Brunel, Hodder utilises the icons of the age with some effect, and many of the characters are in fact very real historical figures, including the women who were in fact the victims of spring heeled Jacks rather odd and disturbing attacks.

Like Scott Westerfield,(Leviathan),  Hodder has played with both history and science fiction in  creating this great new fantasy.  Like Westerfield, he has created the twin disciplines of technology and genetics to feed and drive his narrative, the view he creates of an alternative 19th century is imaginative, creative and entertaining, furthermore, his story is more mature and adult in its outlook, than Westerfield's.  Ultimately it is just outrageously good fun. 

One of the side effects of reading a novel that takes the bulk of its cast of characters from history is that of course it leads you into further reading in order to satisfy the curiosity that the original work sparked and this is what lead me to seek out a biography of Richard Francis Burton himself.  A Rage to Live is the somewhat lengthy biography of both Richard and his equally interesting partner Isabel, that I found in the local public library.  It was a rather daunting book to start and when I did start it I wondered if I would persevere and read it all the way through, I needn't have worried, Burton's life reads like something straight from the pages of a Boys Own adventure and combined with the romance of genuinely loving relationship with an equally interesting woman the work was a compelling read.
This is the only biog of Burton I have read and so find it a little difficult to comment on the validity of Lovell's interpretation of their story.  From the text I gather there is considerable controversy surrounding Burton and Isabel.  Her destruction of some of his papers after his death left something of a shadow on her reputation and many biographers have speculated about both their marriage and Burton's sexual orientation but Lovell does present a very convincing portrait of one of the great men of the age and a convincing portrait of a loving couple.  Lovell clearly developed considerable affection for her subjects and while she aims for objectivity, she does seem a little in awe of them.

The book presents an account of their lives including Richard's time in the army in India, his early,  fascination with languages and cultures foreign to him.  Lovell describes his remarkable ability to blend in, his fondness for disguises and his fascination with all aspects of cultures new to him, including sexual mores.  Episodes like his historic Hajj and his early exploration of Africa, including the infamous trip with Speke to find the source of the Nile, are fully recounted and they make for great reading.  Burton emerges as a remarkable, if a somewhat self destructive figure.  Isabel is no less compelling in her determination to spend her life with this unusual man.  Later sections of the book deal with their lives together while Richard pursued a  career as a Consul in a variety of postings, towards the end a posting to Trieste, largely designed to keep him out of trouble.  The later part of the book also covers the translations that resulted in Burton's enduring fame; Thousand Nights and one, and the Karma Sutra.

I must admit I did struggle a little with the last hundred odd pages, certainly the tragedy of Isabel's loss of the man she loved was sad, but then all biographies must end with a death, and her struggle to protect his reputation was really no less compelling than the earlier parts of the book, perhaps the work could have benefited from some tighter editing and a more concise account of those final years for the participants in Lovell's history.  Overall A Rage to Live was a great read, what a good biography really should be, it bought to life the biographer's subjects, illuminating them in clear, if essentially kind light.  I enjoyed it very much.

I note that Hodder has begun a trilogy featuring Burton and Swinburne, The Strange affair of Spring Heeled Jack, is just the first book in the series, the next entitled, The Curious case of the clockwork Man is now sitting on my shelves awaiting my attention and as soon as the third is available it to will find a place on my TBR shelf, their can be no greater praise really than that.  Perhaps, too a biography of Swinburne is on my horizon, reading does that, it creates webs of connection that expand exponentially out, one book leading to another and on and on, ad infinitum, with fiction arousing curiosity that must be satisfied.

Looking for something to read

I have stacks of books to read at the moment but I seem to have hit a slight reading rut, one of those blah moments when nothing seems to grab, it is not a reflection on the books but on me.   Despite the numerous unread titles and many old favourites awaiting a re-read I find I just sit amongst my books not able to discipline myself to focus on one title, I find I am thinking about the books I have not yet acquired that I suddenly seem to have an irresistible urge to read right now. 
I find local bookshops endlessly frustrating, they seem to have a very limited and very mainstream range of titles, I really do want to support local bookshops, particularly independents, but when they fail to stock very little beyond what I can buy at BigW or Kmart for a discounted price I wonder why I even try.  I mention this only because it relates to a recent frustration which has  arisen.
Several weeks ago I stumbled across a new speculative fiction title which I was very interested in, at the same time I have also been intensely aware of closing bookstores at every turn, so I decided I would not order this title from Book depository or Amazon but buy from a local bricks and mortar outlet.  The problem is this, here where I live we have a limited number of book shop possibilities and within those available retailers the stock they carry is limited and generally very mainstream, sci-fi for example has become increasingly limited and marginalised, and the title I am after falls into the genre designation of speculative fiction in particular steampunk and science fiction, so despite now being an award wining title I new that it was unlikely that I would find it here locally, which I didn't.  Now local book sellers are obliging and willing to order in titles, my problem with that is they tend to take at least twice as long as it would take for me to order the same title from the Book depository and charge me at least twice as much, usually more than twice the price as the Book depository, so this combined with a generally inadequate service is why I am reluctant to do so.  My preferred option is to make the trip to Brisbane and  visit an independent retailer who I know not only stocks a wide range of speculative titles and but is in fact a genre specialist.  In this general region a number of big book retailers have collapsed and finally closed their doors, (Borders and Angus &Robertson), these are stores that I utilised, since they have now failed I am afraid that without continued support we will see the smaller independents also struggle and in some cases, ultimately fail, hence my decision to try to avoid online book retailers, at least for the moment.  I do not want to lose the pleasure of just browsing, happy wandering with the possibility of discovering a hidden gem and the welcome guidance of knowledgeable sales assistants to help the process of discovery.  To an extent book blogs have provided a substitute for that process, but I am not yet ready to relinquish it completely, hence a determination to support good independent book stores.   For months now I have been trying to find a time to visit Pulp Fiction and a perfect time has simply not arisen, until now, next week I have a uni prac in Brisbane, so will be in the city for about a week, before coming home I am determined to find time to drop into Pulp Fiction.  Hopefully they will have the book I am hanging out to read, if they don't I will almost certainly find other books to pique my interest, in any case I will be buying a book, if not multiple titles from a favourite book shop, so even if they don't have the title I am after I can assuage my guilt and go home and order it from the Book depository.
The name of the book I am so keen to read, well it is the winner of this year's Philip K. Dick award: The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder.  Just the cover alone on this title makes me want to read it, let alone the cool steam punk setting and characters.  In the meantime I discovered a great web site from the publisher where they post sample chapters from the books in their catalogue, including the first two chapters from this novel found here at;Sample chapters of Pyr Books.  Definitely a web site and publisher worth checking out.

In the mean time I have managed to pick up a book and will hopefully over the next week manage to finish The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds, not a long novel, so far characterised by beautiful prose, hopefully it will distract me from this blah mood and keep me reading.  It was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker prize and has been a title I have been meaning to read ever since it was mentioned on the Booker shortlist, I'm just a couple of years behind the times.

'No man can step into the same river twice...' or the Paradox of time travel

 The Anubis Gates

  by Tim Powers

Wow, this was not quite what I expected, but it was certainly a rollicking great adventure of a book.  I was attracted to this title for a couple of reasons, firstly with my rising interest in steampunk I thought it was about time I got around to reading what is regarded as something of a pioneer text within the genre.  The other thing that attracted me to this title was the fact that the story involves Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the bad boy of romantic poetry, Lord Byron, a novel featuring cameos by a couple of the greats of the romantic movement held great appeal.  What did surprise me was the apparent absence of technology in this speculative title,  I have come to expect the term steampunk to be heavily associated with a kind of retro tech and to be essentially sci-fi in terms of its outlook, but this book is much more a fantasy title, with magic rather than science being the dominate motif.  Having made that obvious observation, let me just say that it  in no way detracts from the roller coaster ride of what is a great adventure. 

A time travel novel that sees the main character transported back to 1810 London as a result of gaps or gates in the time stream which have been created by sinister Egyptian magicians and exploited by an equally sinister millionaire in the twentieth century.  The main protagonist, Brendan Doyle becomes involved when he is recruited as a Coleridge expert to escort a fund raising tour into the past, Doyle becomes marooned in a nightmare world where he must struggle to just stay alive, let alone escape back to his own time.  Peopled with fantastic grotesques and cliff hanging incident after incident, this novel has a high octane plot that drives the narrative compulsively and compellingly  forward.  Gypsies, poets, magicians, beggar and thief lords, a clown worthy of our worst nightmares, werewolves and girls disguised as boys, all make this a varied and sensational novel.  This is the kind of speculative novel which makes the term speculative fiction so accurate as a genre descriptive.  Essentially a time travel novel, it deals with the conundrums presented by the possibility of time travel, but also voices our fascination with the past.

I must admit I did not find the character of Brendan Doyle particularly appealing but the mysterious poet William Ashbless was much more compelling.  The novel is a little demanding of the reader in that one of the plot devices involves characters switching bodies and to an extent persona's.  The damaged magician who becomes the werewolf character Dog faced Joe needs to keep finding new bodies in which to hide, due to the excessive hair growth his condition occasions.  Incidentally, other elements in the novel feed into well know London legends, such as the legend of spring heeled Jack, although never explicitly spelled out, the elements are there.  The character of Horrabin the clown is vividly realised, the stuff of nightmares, he haunts the pages and potentially the readers dreams and nightmares, he and the terrifying dungeons of the rats castle, his base certainly haunt the dreams of Coleridge:
"This Fuseli-esque scene, together with the familiar - though extra strong this time - ballon-headed feeling and the warm loseness in his joints, made him certain  that he had once again taken too strong a dose of laudanum and was hallucinating.
In Xanadu, he'd thought  wryly, did STC a morbid dungeon world decree." 

Aside from this 1811 London setting, the plot also sees the main character travel further back in time, to take part in a chase across the frozen Thames at the time of the great frost fairs.  Part of the novel also occurs in Egypt at the time of the massacre of the Mamelukes, giving Powers the opportunity to write great, dramatic scenes.  This is a vividly realised world and a great, (if not literary,) read.  To an extent the novel reminded me of a novel I read several years ago called The List of Seven by Mark Frost.  I went and dug through the three deep stacks of books that fill the bottom shelves of my book shelves in order to dig that title out and will probably dip back into that in the near future.  The Anubis Gates is also a title that will warrant re-reading in the future.

On the back blurb on the edition I have is a quote from a TLS review which I will quote here as it seems to nicely sum up the book:
"An adventure novel ... an impressively intricate time-travel conundrum ... a supernatural thriller ... a literary mystery ... a horror story ... a catastrophe of necromancy and ruin ... virtuoso performance, a display of marvellous fireworks that illuminates everything in flashes."
All and all a great escape!

Steampunk or back to the future with brass, brown and perhaps a just a little bit of burlesque.

I thought I might just throw up a quick post on the subject of steampunk.  The term is now well known, a sub-genre of speculative fiction that incorporates, a neo-Victorian aesthetic, it speculates on what might have been if the industrial age had developed at an even greater technological rate, what things would have been like if Babbage completed his Difference engine or if other technologies, such as rocket technology went forward with steam tech.  It celebrates a kind of Victorian discipline and Victorian enthusiasm for science and technology, combined with a kind of Victorian comportment and aesthetic, in essence it is a rich and varied sub culture that with a romantic sensibility speculates on what might have been and what could be. Personally I consider some texts that combine old technology with more recent, such as Philip Reeve's wonderful Mortal Engines series as possessing distinctly steampunk elements, though set in a dystopian future.  And while the genre does not really include the 'scientific romances' of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells they certainly provide much of the inspiration for the current genre of steampunk.

Steampunk is something of a zeitgeist idea or aesthetic, at the moment, with it currently permeating popular culture at multiple levels, everywhere in fashion at the moment one can see the influence of steampunk or neo-Victorianism.  Pop culture now embraces the ethos with things like the new invigorated Doctor Who incorporating steampunk into its narrative vision, (how cool was the Silurian Victorian vigilante from the A Good Man Goes to War episode). 

I guess I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of the whole steampunk aesthetic, and for that matter a bit of a history junkie with a fascination for all things Victorian, with a particular interest in the technology of the age both in terms of history and in terms of speculative literature.   The essential romanticism of the movement, combined as it is with a celebration of the development of technology and innovation is hard to resist, and then there are the clothes, oh my, the clothes, is there anything sexier than a corset?  When women chose to wear them, as opposed to wearing them for the sake of an unrealisable ideal, they become an object of empowerment, a kind of glorious wrapper for femininity.  And I have to say a surprisingly comfortable piece of clothing to wear,  they do wonders for posture which in turn seems to ease the aches of a slouching progress through modern life, corsets seem counter to back ache, so yay for sexy Victorian wear.  Not that it is all just about corsets, the guys look pretty hot also, weather they wear the formal attire of the Victorian gentleman or the rolled up sleeves, braces and corduroy of the working engineer, steampunk or neo- Victorianism is just plain gorgeous.  And who doesn't love the chance to play dress ups.

I have read some rather glib, if possibly accurate summations of steampunk recently, which really just further reveals the extent to which the idea is permeating pop culture, one such definition in a major newspaper was; 'steampunk is what happens when goths discover brown', and certainly steampunk has much in common with the romantic goth movement.  Another was 'steampunk is a desire for machines that aren't crap', who can't relate to that, when we have to replace our digital tools every couple of years not just because they become obsolete so rapidly, but also because they just don't last, they really are crap, (IPhone being a case in point).  And now since I have outed myself as a steampunk fan here are some  photos from the steampunk picnic I attended yesterday, (oh and after my defence of corsets I must admit to choosing not to wear one yesterday, Steampunk and neo-Victorianism is about more than just one narrowly defined dress code).

More to come.  But in the mean time and just for fun here is the link to Girl Genius: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ adventure, romance and mad science and very definitely one of the many steampunk texts around and this one can be read online.  Girl Genius with it's ready availability online is one of those texts I often point teen readers towards but it is not just for young adults, my other half is a huge Girl
Genius fan, in fact it was G who introduced me to the fun that is Girl Genius.