The guns above

The Guns Above is what I'd call hard Steampunk. It's about the mechanics of the airship, and the strategies of war, far more than about the characters. There's little to no character development; Bernat, described as a “shameless flirt” in the cover blurb, really only flirts once, and that with Josette's mother.

I confess to being disappointed with this book. I was expecting something more character driven, and instead what I got was Steampunk military fiction. There was a LOT of violence, injury, and death, as you'd expect in a real war, especially a war fought with rifles and sabers and cavalry. With the exception of the airships, this is a close-combat kind of war. Rifles are a new-fangled innovation; most people are still using muskets and bayonets. Pistols are rare. Airships are the best technological advancement either side has made, and they're dependent on bladders of lighter-than-air gas and wooden frameworks. They're fragile enough a single cannon blast, if aimed right, can take out the entire contraption.

The cover blurb makes it sound as if there could be a romance between Josette and Bernat - nope. Not in the least. Bernat is conscripted by his uncle (the General) to find some dirt on Josette that will let the General demote her without incurring the wrath of the people who view her as a war hero. Bernat's entirely okay with doing this until some point in the  book where he changes his mind for no discernible reason. If he's decided that Josette is a worthy Captain, I wish that had made it onto the page as a motivation.

And WHY were they at war? Even the characters struggle to explain it. They're just perpetually at war for no good reason.

The action was good. The strategies were good. The characters and world-building fell very, very flat.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

There were parts that I rather enjoyed but overall, the whole thing seemed a bit thin. The characters were cartoonish, the plot barely developed, and the tone terribly uneven. It wasn't painfully bad, though, just tedious and uninteresting.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review through Goodreads.

DNF PG 22

Why?

This was my fault. I guess I didn't do my proper research before adding it to my list back in the day (three years ago, now) and I didn't even think to now.

The very world setting is inherently sexist. We had immediate problems two pages in when someone thinks the main female is dead and subsequently gropes her. We also had problems, for entirely different reasons, when she was wondering if she'd be able to keep playing dead while they extracted her teeth with pliers.

Then there is a separate branch created so women can serve in the military without being in charge of anything - because ‘a single moment of womanly hysteria might result in disaster.' I know the basic way of describing steampunk is ‘sci-fi as the Victorian's would have imagined it' - but I've never seen it taken to this rather obvious extreme before.

I don't like it.

I did read enough reviews to decide that my problems would likely never lessen and I might as well stop now.