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What Ho, Automaton! (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries #1)

by Chris Dolley (Goodreads Author)

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 32 ratings · 20 reviews

Wodehouse Steampunk! Reggie Worcester and Reeves, his gentleman’s personal gentle-automaton, are consulting detectives in an alternative 1903 where an augmented Queen Victoria is still on the throne and automata are a common sight below stairs. Humour, Mystery, Aunts and Zeppelins!

“A fun blend of P.G. Wodehouse, steampunk and a touch of Sherlock Holmes. Dolley is a master...more

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Published by Book View Cafe (first published April 9th 2011)

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Jun 04, 2012 Pati Nagle rated it 5 of 5 stars

A delightful tribute to Wodehouse with a Steampunk twist! What Ho, Automaton! is a grand romp through the trials an tribulations of young Reggie Worcester and his gentleman's automaton, Reeves. In two separate tales (the title story appeared in The Shadow Conspiracy II), they root out villains, appease formidable aunts, and evade vicious Pomeranians. In the second adventure, "Something Rummy This Way Comes," they are joined by the charming and inquisitive Emmeline Dreadnought, who holds her own...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

This originally appeared at http://bojnberry.ca/~berry/blog/?p=29... e-book consisted of the titular novelette and a novella titled � Something Rummy This Way Comes�. As you might be able to tell from the titles, these stories take place in the world of �Jeeves & Wooster�, with some interesting changes. The action, for instance, takes place roughly 10 years earlier than the original stories. Stiffy, a woman in the stories/tv show is now a man (to make the joke that you are currently thinking...more This originally appeared at http://bojnberry.ca/~berry/blog/?p=29... e-book consisted of the titular novelette and a novella titled � Something Rummy This Way Comes�. As you might be able to tell from the titles, these stories take place in the world of �Jeeves & Wooster�, with some interesting changes. The action, for instance, takes place roughly 10 years earlier than the original stories. Stiffy, a woman in the stories/tv show is now a man (to make the joke that you are currently thinking of). Aunt Agatha is now Aunt Bertha. Bertie Wooster is now Reggie Worcester, and Reggie (Jeeves� first name in the original, if you were wondering) is now a steam-powered valet.[return][return]The novelette follows the first meeting of Jeeves and our Bertie Reggie, and in classic Wodehousian style, Jeeves is immediately put upon to help Worcester extract his cousin from an engagement. Hilarity � involving prize pigs, monomaniacal country gents and accidental engagements � ensues.[return][return]The novella begins with Reggie under the stern eye of his indomitable aunt once more. She�s decided that Reggie must marry, and has gotten him a standing invitation to every ball that season. He learns that several d�butantes have gone missing, and with the aid of Jeeves and a deb who is immune to his betrothal avoidance system (6 or 7 cloves of garlic before each ball), Reggie puts on the deer-stalker and acts the private investigator.[return][return]Both of these stories were entertaining, and adhered well to the spirit of Wodehouse. Jeeves was cucumber-like in his coolness, and his prodigious brain always came up with a solution, even though it might not be one that Reggie would enjoy. Reggie was affable, and extremely silly, as he should. The steam-punk mods are well done, and important to the story, though I have a feeling the 10 year bump in time-line was merely to get Reggie into a Stanley Steamer.[return][return]All in all a quite a bit of fun, especially for the Wodehouse fan, and well worth the 2.99 you have to drop for it.(less)

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Aug 18, 2012 Katharine Kimbriel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, humor, mystery, history, alternative-timeline, book-view-cafe

This ebook is a long short piece (8,000 words) and a 41,000 word novella.

Here is parody done right, and as a bonus, we get Steampunk! Chris Dolley has taken the classic tales of P.G. Wodehouse and created a delightful homage to them. Reggie Worcester begins in the title tale with “Aunt trouble,” a dreadful thing, as any fan of the Jeeves’ tales knows. Fortunately, his club has found an automaton in the attic - a smart fellow. Reggie is flabbergasted (the club has an attic?) but game to borrow Re...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, indie

Once I've said "steampunk P.G. Wodehouse," you're either in or out. But if you're in, let me clear up a few points you might be wondering about.
First, is it a good pastiche? Yes, it is. We have Reggie Worcester, clueless man-about-town, and his gentleman's personal automaton Reeves, who had been shut in a cupboard in the Drones Club attic for 14 years. We have Reggie's Aunt Bertha, prize pigs, country houses, accidental and unwanted engagements, and Reeves' giant steam-powered brain proposing in...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Mikaela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Two words sums up this collection: Wodehouse Steampunk.
The first one is about how Reggie and Reeves met, and the second they search for missing debutantes.
Both stories were fun to read. Reggie acts like an bored young noble man should act. Reeves is the one with brains. Emmeline is a debutante with a spine. They join up and search for the missing debutantes, and hilarity ensues. Reggie had a lot of wild ideas, Reeves managed to stop some of them. And oh my. I laughed a lot. They fumbled around,...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was first introduced to Chris Dolley's work in International Kittens of Mystery and was happy to find out that more fun and frivolity were forthcoming in What Ho, Automaton!. If you're a fan of wry historical fiction that isn't afraid to be silly and absurd (in a good way) then this book is a good bet.

Reggie is, in a word, a goofball. His primary concerns in life are avoiding the yoke of holy wedlock and trying to solve mysteries, which he considers himself uniquely qualified to do because of...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Sherwood Smith added it

Shelves: fantasy

There’s been enough said about steampunk all over the place. I don’t want to try defining it. I suspect it’s one of those things that people point to and say “That’s steampunk,” when it’s something they like that has cool gears, steam-power, zeppelins, and an alternate history fin-de-siècle feel.

Steampunk and Wodehouse? Hey, who does better alternate London than Wodehouse?

I wasted some time trying to track down a quotation I remember reading, in which Henry James made a prediction that by the en...more There’s been enough said about steampunk all over the place. I don’t want to try defining it. I suspect it’s one of those things that people point to and say “That’s steampunk,” when it’s something they like that has cool gears, steam-power, zeppelins, and an alternate history fin-de-siècle feel.

Steampunk and Wodehouse? Hey, who does better alternate London than Wodehouse?

I wasted some time trying to track down a quotation I remember reading, in which Henry James made a prediction that by the end of the 20th Century, Hugh Walpole would be a famous name, whereas P.G. Wodehouse would be forgotten.

James was an insightful critic, and his essays about the modern novel, though written around 1900, have some value now, but one thing I've never seen him praised for is his humor. He also had a thing for Walpole, whose early novels showed some promise, but he never seems to have understood Wodehouse. James could do horror, as in “The Turn of the Screw,” which terrified me as a twelve year old kid. Wodehouse admired James—and apparently he was doing a typically Wodehousian homage in one of his most famous and funniest short stories, “Honeysuckle Cottage.” I don’t know what James thought of it. If he even read it.

Wodehouse, like several writers who became popular in the pre-WW II era, such as Antonia Forest, chose to unmoor later work from time, as the culture they'd known before or between the wars changed forever. Though it could be argued that the London of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves’ earliest stories, which seem to center around the Drones Club, was unmoored from time at their inception. There is no sign of the horrors of WW I in those stories; the rise of fascism is glimpsed in strictly comedic form, such as in the figure of Sir Roderick Spode, who secretly designed ladies’ underwear when he wasn’t spouting Brown Shirt footle.

There’s a timelessness to Wodehouse’s stories and novels, as well as a good-humored almost sweetness; you can believe that the well-dressed young gentleman wears spats. Wodehouse has been beloved by many famous writers who have tried to pin down exactly how his comedy works. Lacking that fine critical eye, I can only say that Wodehouse is one of the best examples of how a great narrative voice can make anything work. Data dump? They are as entertaining as the dialogue. Action? Vivid. Pacing? So deftly handled the reader is unaware of drifting along an extremely carefully planned plot that will spring in just the right place, at the right time.

Pastiche of writers with distinctive voices is tough to pull off. As far as I can tell, Wodehouse is right up there with Shakespeare in quotations that are not only pulled out because of their wit and verve, but they are instantly identifiable as his. Wodehouse could take the most trite expression and give it a deft twist--"I smoked a moody cigarette"--and he applied the same twist to literary allusions, often leaving out crucial bits, in a way that vanquished cliché. He could also build set up a host of characters, and a mood, in one line or phrase, like “On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps . . .” Wodehouse had a thing about tough aunts.

Chris Dolley begins with Aunt Bertha, who feels that Reggie Worcester should be married. Reggie totters off to the Drones Club, where he meets his pal Stiffy, who tells him what he needs is a Reeves—an automaton, hitherto dressed as a fortuneteller, stuffed into the Drones’ closet. When another member tries to interfere, a quick word from Stiffy that Reggie has aunt trouble, and everyone understands.

The second thing about Wodehouse’s humor is the seeming non sequitur that turns out to actually makes sense—if by no one else’s reasoning but Bertie’s. Stiffy instructs Reggie to tell Reeves everything. When I read, “I recounted my sorry tale, omitting not a single Pomeranian,” I thought, this is it. Chris Dolley has got it.

In this alternate 1903, many servants are automata, fed on steam (which leads to some humorous moments). There are also the Prometheans, of whom Dr. Frankenstein was probably a founding father. Reggie drives a Stanley Steamer, and there are airships as well. The first tale is a country house story, a blending of Bertie and Blandings; with the second tale, Dolley really finds his feet. It's longer, stronger, and Dolley begins to develop his own voice, though expertly staying within Wodehouse's airy limits. (less)

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May 11, 2011 Jennifer Osterman rated it 4 of 5 stars

While many reviewers equate this book to those of P.G. Wodehouse, I have not read any of those books. (After reading "What Ho, Automaton!", I find myself inspired to do so!). Instead, I find it reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest", which I adore. One shouldn't expect this pair of steampunk-flavored short stories to be anything but fun, as the length of the tales somewhat prevents much character exploration. I think, however, that upon further investigation, one might fi...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Catherine Siemann rated it 3 of 5 stars

Steampunk P.G. Wodehouse. OK, what do I do for the other 22 words?

If the concept appeals, the book should. It's been years since I've read any Wodehouse, but the story of Reginald Worcester (pronounced like . . . ) and his human-appearing steam-driven automaton manservant Reeves (rescued from a closet at the Drones Club, where he'd been confined some 14 years after being lost at poker) struck me as letter-perfect. The steampunk framework is overlaid lightly, but works well. I did get a bit of t...more

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May 29, 2011 Amamur rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: giveaways

Review of Giveaway ebook

A short story and novella
‘What Ho, Automaton!’ and ‘Something Rummy This Way Comes’.
The short story previously published in ‘Shadow Conspiracy II’ by BookView Cafe.

These are set in the same steampunk alternate universe, and follow the exploits of Reginald Worcester and Reeves. They are a hilarious tribute to Wodehouse. Reeves, a steam driven automaton, and Worcester while avoiding Aunt Bertha’s schemes for marriage engage in madcap adventures with debutantes. Automatons...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Sarah (Workaday Reads) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

This is a compilation of two short stories. What Ho, Automaton! introduces Reggie, an amateur detective who has been engaged multiple times, and Reeves, a steam-powered automaton. This is story of how they met. Something Rummy This Way Comes is their first detective case together. Debutantes are disappearing, but no one seems to be investigating. Reggie and Reeves set out to solve this mystery.

This is a very British, humourous steampunk story, written like PG Wodehouse. I will admit that I didn'...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Being a huge fan of PG Wodehouse and the varied and sundry Wooster and Jeeves stories I had my doubts that anyone could pull off a parody. First off, it's hard to parody a parody and second off, the originals are simply brilliant. Suffice it to say that with a touch of Steampunk and a dollop of Sherlock Holmes, Chris Dolley pulls this off. Since there are no more Wooster and Jeeves stories in the offing, I'm happy to settle for Worcester and Reeves.

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Feb 06, 2012 Marian Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

You like P. G. Wodehouse? You like Steampunk? You like silliness? Cross-dressing? Pomeranians? Then you'll love this book of stories. Well, possibly not the Pomeranians. Deceptively swift dogs.

Seriously, this book had me at the title, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Was it just like reading P. G. Wodehouse, if Jeeves had been powered by steam? Honestly, not quite. But very nearly. Well worth whatever I paid for it, and I don't pay anything lightly.

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May 20, 2011 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: steampunk, humour

Chris Dolley's What Ho, Automaton! retains the flavor and feel of Wodehouse's work, while adding elements of Steampunk and a dash of Sherlock Holmes. Readers will find familiar elements, Jeeves has become the automan Reeves, Bertie Wooster has become Reggie Worcester etc. Dolley successfully maintains Wodehouse sense of the absurd in his story. Fans of Wodehouse should appreciate this work.

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Aug 06, 2011 Saran Neti rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nicely done. When I first heard about the book, I was expecting a theoretical-computer-science automaton, not one with nozzles, and definitely not one that runs on steam. But expectations aside, the reading itself was hampered with endless name substitutions - Reeves, Worcester, that served to improve my grey matter by unconsciously imposing reverse-substitution. Without giving too much away, I'd like to say something about the ending - I bet it'd never have occurred to Wodehouse if he were writ...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Jennifer Stevenson rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's very, very, very hard to write Wodehouse pastiche. Really hard. Chris Dolley does it well. I laughed til I cried over the (literally) robotic Reeves. Dolley gets the language right, he gets the timing right (really hard!) and oh yeah--it's steampunk! Supposedly there are more of these stories coming. Yay!

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Feb 02, 2013 Ankush Agarwal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: weread

This book is a good blend of humour, thrill and science fiction written in the classic PG Wodehouse style with the pun on his most famous characters. I loved the spoof on Sherlock Holmes and thoroughly enjoyed the suspense. Looking for more reads from Dolley.

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Apr 23, 2012 Electric Landlady rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: steampunk, e-books, england

It would not have occurred to me to do Wodehouse meets steampunk, but I'm glad it occurred to Chris Dolley. Delightfully silly.

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Jan 04, 2013 Rif Saurous rated it 5 of 5 stars

How can I only give this five stars? Eight starts I tell you eight stars!

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Feb 27, 2012 Lorena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, fantasy, steampunk

Pitch-perfect ode to Wodehouse, via steampunk and A.C. Doyle.

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May 10, 2013 Ian marked it as to-read

Shelves: mystery, science-fiction, humor

Apr 19, 2013 Sherri marked it as to-read

Apr 12, 2013 Rachelr marked it as to-read

Mar 20, 2013 Andree marked it as i-am-intrigued

Mar 19, 2013 Tony Prost rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 04, 2013 Matt marked it as to-read

Feb 24, 2013 Lois Gresh marked it as to-read

Shelves: science-fiction

Feb 06, 2013 Anne Seebach rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jan 07, 2013 Bonnie marked it as to-read

Jan 04, 2013 Julie marked it as to-read

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About Chris Dolley

An English author, a pioneer computer game designer and a teenage freedom fighter. That was back in 1974 when Chris was tasked with publicising Plymouth’s Student Rag Week. Some people might have arranged an interview with the local newspaper. Chris invaded the country next door, created the Free Cornish Army and persuaded the UK media that Cornwall had risen up and declared independence. This was...more

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What Ho, Automaton! (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries #1)

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