Review: SOULLESS by Gail Carriger
If you listened to episode thirty-something of the podcast1 you may recall me wondering whether steampunk worked better as an aesthetic than as a genre of fiction. At the time we recorded that episode, I was reading—and not especially enjoying—The Affinity Bridge by George Mann, a novel that sported a rather boastful cover blurb:
STEAMPUNK is making a comeback, and with this novel MANN IS LEADING THE CHARGE…An engaging melodrama that rattles along at a breakneck pace. —The Guardian
Simply put, The Affinity Bridge was not my cup of tea; I felt the characters were poorly-developed and some elements of the plot seemed to have been added as an afterthought and not resolved very well. As metaphorical CPR for the genre—if one were to accept that the genre needs resuscitation—The Affinity Bridge fails to clear the airway before administering rescue breathing and completely ignores chest compressions.
Even after finishing The Affinity Bridge, I wasn’t quite ready to relegate steampunk to the realm of the cosplayer—I was fairly certain that the book was not the shining example of the genre The Guardian would have me believe—dirigibles and brass goggles just have way too much potential and I wanted to see if that potential could be tapped in a manner that I enjoyed.
Enter Gail Carriger and her steampunk novel, Soulless (An Alexia Tarabotti Novel; Book 1 of The Parasol Protectorate).
Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.
I’ll admit that Miss Tarabotti and I did not get off to a smashing start. “I say!” she declared after a strange vampire attempted to make ill use of her jugular vein. “We have not even been introduced!” Then after whacking the vampire with her parasol she exclaimed “Manners!” Oh, well that’s just too much, I thought. Is this woman a Victorian-era Emily Post? I was also initially put off by the fact that every other surname (e.g., Loontwill, Hisselpenny) seemed vaguely reminiscent of something from a Monty Python skit.
Even so, the first chapter established an interesting premise and by the end of the second chapter I’d not only gotten my bearings, I was entirely hooked. Soulless, I learned, owes as much to Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde as it does to Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. And though I should have recognized the signs as early as Chapter One, it wasn’t until nearly halfway through the book that I admitted to having been thoroughly hoodwinked, for Soulless is, at its heart, a romance novel.2 Granted, there’s a young lady holding a parasol on the cover and the text is primarily pink, but there’s no cleavage! No bare midriff! No shapely derrière crammed into leather pants! How was I supposed to know?
If I say “romance novel” like it’s a bad thing, well…in my experience it is. I fully recognize that I am not the target audience for that particular genre, but the few experiences I’ve had with it have not been good ones. In the “paranormal romance” sub-genre, I’ve read the first three Anita Blake novels by Laurell K. Hamilton and I’m fairly certain I’ll never read another.3 I read Eve Kenin‘s Driven expecting a hybrid of Mad Max and Ice Road Truckers, not realizing that it was actually a bizarre retelling of the battle of Hoth where Han Solo had breasts and no Wookiee co-pilot.4 I’m not saying the experiences were traumatic, just that I’m not wired for the whole romance bit.5 I mean, I’m a married man, for pity’s sake!
We like to say that there are exceptions to every rule, which sounds tired and trite, but here’s yet another example that warrants the claim. Soulless is a clever blend of supernatural (or paranormal, if you must), steampunk, humor and romance, and it works. There’s enough mention of steam-powered machines and dirigibles and brass parasols (and, yes, goggles) to maintain the steampunk aesthetic, which is woven deftly into the setting and the story without being obtrusive. The setting itself (in which vampires and werewolves are integrated into Victorian-era society and politics—at least in Jolly Old England) is nicely realized and Ms. Carriger populates her world with an array of interesting (if not all terribly original) characters.
The romance worked for me because it was bawdy without being explicit, and because after our shaky start, I really liked Miss Tarabotti (and her eventual suitor); the characters played off one another well, their verbal (and non-verbal) sparring was amusing, and the supernatural element added an interesting twist, as did the supporting characters on either side.
Soulless isn’t likely to inspire me to run out and raid the Paranormal Romance section of my local bookstore, but I’m definitely going to pick up the next volume in The Parasol Protectorate trilogy, Changeless, and I’m pleased to have found a steampunk novel that does the genre well, even if there is an awful lot of kissing.
- The one where we whinge and carry on about the sorry state of…no, the other one, no the other other one. Episode Thirty-Four, all right? Happy now? [↩]
- You shouldn’t make me read romance novels, Johnny. My mother made me read a romance novel once…Once. [↩]
- It was an omnibus, that’s why. [↩]
- I swear I didn’t see the “futuristic romance” label on the spine until after I got the book home. Or the phrase “her libido is shooting into overdrive at the feel of his hard body pressed against hers on the back of her snowscooter” on the back cover synopsis. Or the postage-paid insert offering memberships to The Historical Romance Book Club and The Love Spell Club. Is it too late to plead temporary insanity? [↩]
- I’m also saying that trying to read an action sequence written by Laurell K. Hamilton makes my head hurt. [↩]
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Tags: Gail Carriger, George Mann, Soulless, steampunk, The Affinity Bridge
Episode 0048: The Great Old Pumpkin
Yes. Excellent review and entirely spot on.
@SoAP — Thanks. My major lasting complaint with Soulless is the cover; not because I don’t like the cover (I do), but because the woman on the cover does not resemble Alexia Tarabotti in a few key areas: skin tone (the woman on the cover is quite pale, while Alexia is described as having darker skin due to her half-Italian heritage), shape of nose (the description of Alexia’s proboscis leads me to believe it should have more character) and overall body mass (Alexia is described as being more formidable in general, but especially in the bosomnal region).