Brass Automaton

Clockwork Tales #1

by M.A. Gardner, D. Paul Angel

"This story happened when His Majesty was still a young man, a huntsman to be precise. It is the tale of a clockwork machine from the future, with a mission to terminate His Majesty to prevent him from meeting his future queen." Jarvis paused for effect. "Then, she was known only as Snow White."

164 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2016

About the author

M. A. Gardner is a pseudonym for Mark Gardner. Mark lives in northern Arizona with his wife, three children and a pair of spoiled dogs, and holds degrees in Computer Systems & Applications and Applied Human Behavior.

Reviews

[Diana]

What a crazy mash up!! I even recognized direct quotes from the Terminator movies, such as "come with me if you want to love" that Arnie says to John in the movies. Cool. The guy is even called John! And he has to go with the machine to help protect her future wife. And then there is also Sbow Queen fighting the Evil Witch, and the Seven Dwarfs, all thrown in together, stirred and put on a bit of steampunk salt.
I guess it could have been way more if it had been thought more as a book than as a short novella, or so that's the impression I was left with. There were jumps in time that sometimes weren't clear at all, and for me cohesion was lacking. Although the idea is great in itself, I felt more like I was reading a draft than a book. But yes, it holds a lot of possibilities.

[Sandra (LadyGrey Reads)]

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Actual rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

"Let me know when Snow returns to the castle."

This was, in short, confusing as heck.

I think that the original idea of this is intriguing; Snow White mixed with steampunk and some time travelling magic, but the execution of it was not quite there. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on and where in time this piece of the story was taking place. Still giving it two stars, though, because I think if this was looked into a bit more and developed a bit further, the story could actually become quite an interesting one.

[Allison]

“…this story happened when his majesty was still a young boy, a huntsman to be precise. It’s the story of a clockwork machine from the future, with a mission to terminate his Majesty to prevent him from meeting his queen. Queen White.”

The premise of Brass Automaton sounded interesting: a mashup of Snow White and The Terminator wrapped up with a steampunk bow. I’ve never read anything from the steampunk genre, so I was rather excited to read this. Not only this, but the cover instantly attracted me and made me want to dive right in. I also thought it was interesting that the two authors, Mark Gardner and D. Paul Angel, took turns writing chapters, publishing the weekly serials online (here is a link to Mark Gardner’s blog, if interested).

However, I was disappointed. The main problem I had with this book were all the jumps in time that I felt were poorly explained and confusing. Although the story mostly came together, in the end, there were still gaps that existed in the plot, making the overall story rather disconcerting. Because of this, I never actually connected to any of the characters, nor did I really care what happened to them in the end. I think the characters could have been interesting if given the chance, especially because there was the opportunity for several strong, female, lead characters (like Snow, Reese, Sky, and Ceridwen).

I think this novella would have benefitted from being longer and being more cohesive. I think if the authors took more words to explain their story, it wouldn’t feel as rushed or forced. I would have liked the authors to slow down and allow for the reader to get a better grasp of what was going on. Reading this book, I was also able to get a sense that there was more than one writer, with chapters written alternatingly by the authors.

Finally, there were also several grammatical mistakes (missing commas, inconsistent capitalization of groups such as the Sisters/sisters, etc.) and sentences that didn’t flow quite right, which further took away from the overall story.

That being said, I will be interested to see how the authors continue the story and follow them for any additional serial blogs of the sequel they may publish in the future.

I received a copy of this eBook from NetGalley and Article94 in exchange for an honest review.

[Amanda]

If you like crazy stories, this one’s for you! Silly, but fun.

[D. Messing]

This was a very engaging and interesting read, It was a curious blend of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Terminator, and a fabulously paced steampunk novel. The time hops were a bit hard to figure out on occasion, there were several times I had to go back to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I voluntarily reviewed this story from Netgalley, and did very much enjoy the story, and in fact read it in a single afternoon. I could tell two different people wrote the story, one chapter would be smoother and flow easier and then the next would be jerky and frenetic. Overall a solid work, very enjoyable, well done.

[Cat]

Format: ebook
Tissue warning: No
HEA: sure
Triggers: none
My reviewer rating: 2 out of 5
Recommend to others: no, the writing is too disjointed and too many time hops.

[Ginny Lurcock]

At first, I marked the book as DNF, but then I felt bad so I kept reading...

While the idea had promise, in execution it ended up jumbled. The chapters seem to be trying to one-up each other and it leads to the story feeling very disjointed. I wasn't even sure who the villain was supposed to be, and I'm very familiar with both snow white and the terminator. And then there were several moments where I thought for sure the authors hated women because they were just terrible. Simply fucking awful.

It was bizarre, and I'm afraid I cannot recommend it...