“Dawn of Steam: First Light” is the first of a series of
books set in an alternate past. The Napoleonic Wars have been won by England
(with help from the USA and others). Dirigibles already exist; some were used
in the war. The USA is still largely unexplored by Europeans, as are most parts
of the world. But a book exists, written by an explorer, wherein he tells of
his journeys across the North American continent (there is a Northwest Passage,
he claims), to Australia, China, Japan, South America, and Antarctica-
basically, the whole world. Two men make a bet in a club; one believes the book
is the truth, one doesn’t. Therefore, two teams will set out to duplicate the
author’s travels, to see if they are even possible. We follow the course of one
of the teams; the good guys. Told through letters and a diary, it is almost all
in first person by an ex-soldier who knows how to work a camera. He writes to
his fiancé and to the gentleman who has made the bet and is financing the
journey.
The first almost half of the novel is spent gathering the
team. They assemble a group that has the skills needed to make the expedition a
success. While this part of the book may be necessary to introducing the cast
to us, it’s overly long. With so little action, I nearly gave up. When they get
to North America (via one member’s family airship), they have a couple of
events that, while full of action, do not move the story forward. They do
finally start across the continent, but the plot never really works out; there
is no build up and climax- it’s just sort of “and then we did this and then we
did that”.
I didn’t care much about the characters. The basics were
there and could have been great (and maybe they are in the later books in the
series), but there was nothing built around “sharp shooter”, “lady engineer”,
or “daughter of the explorer who passes as a man most of the time and can do
damn near anything”.
I was sadly disappointed, especially because I’d enjoyed the
first book in the other series these authors have written. Only three out of
five stars.
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I'll pass on this one
ReplyDeleteI'll pass on this one
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