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The Great Faerie Strike
A revolution's brewing in Faerie! The Otherworld's first investigative reporter (and half-vampire) Jane witnesses a murder. And Charles the gnome is rallying for workers' rights against the detestable practices of Ridley Enterprises. Together, they must save both the human and fey worlds—if they can first agree on their feelings for one another.
REVOLUTION IN FAERIE
Ridley Enterprises has brought industry to the Otherworld, churning out magical goods for profit. But when they fire Charles the gnome, well, they’ve gone too far. And against a gnome's respectable nature, he takes to the streets, fighting for workers’ rights.
The Otherworld's first investigative reporter, Jane, is looking for a story. And she finds it, witnessing a murder and getting sucked into a conspiracy within werewolf high society.
Jane and Charles team up to unite the workers and bring the Ridleys to justice. But a budding romance complicates everything. Can they bring change to Faerie or will dark powers consume both worlds?
ADVANCE REVIEWS
"A rollicking adventure told with Pratchettesque wit and compassion. This is an Otherworld as real and as strange as our own, with characters you can't help but root for and an economic system you can't help but recognize. This book is a delight." (Kate Heartfield, author of Alice Payne Arrives)
"Wacky, satirical, and downright hilarious. With sharp writing and a rollicking pace, Ellsworth will throw you down the rabbit hole and into the Otherworld." (Sean Grigsby, author of Smoke Eaters & Daughters of Forgotten Light)
"Charming, rakish, and a rollicking good time." (Tina Connolly, Nebula-nominated author of Ironskin & Seriously Wicked)
"Spencer Ellsworth's The Great Faerie Strike is Dickensian fantasy that punches the soot off tradition with a cunning female lead and a dastardly fun world. Must read for those who love fantasy but need a revolutionary fix." (Jason Ridler, author of Hex-Rated and Harvest of Blood and Iron)
"Ellsworth’s feypunk Victorian fantasy is A Midsummer Night’s Dream meets Underworld with a dash of Dickens, featuring a heroine who is Lois Lane as imagined by a slightly drunk Jane Austen. While full of humor and fun fantasy adventure, it doesn’t shy away from also exploring the darker side of capitalism or the struggle between finding your place in the world versus making your place in the world versus making the world the place you want it to be. A fitting tale for our times." (Randy Henderson, author of Finn Fancy Necromancy)
REVOLUTION IN FAERIE
Ridley Enterprises has brought industry to the Otherworld, churning out magical goods for profit. But when they fire Charles the gnome, well, they’ve gone too far. And against a gnome's respectable nature, he takes to the streets, fighting for workers’ rights.
The Otherworld's first investigative reporter, Jane, is looking for a story. And she finds it, witnessing a murder and getting sucked into a conspiracy within werewolf high society.
Jane and Charles team up to unite the workers and bring the Ridleys to justice. But a budding romance complicates everything. Can they bring change to Faerie or will dark powers consume both worlds?
ADVANCE REVIEWS
"A rollicking adventure told with Pratchettesque wit and compassion. This is an Otherworld as real and as strange as our own, with characters you can't help but root for and an economic system you can't help but recognize. This book is a delight." (Kate Heartfield, author of Alice Payne Arrives)
"Wacky, satirical, and downright hilarious. With sharp writing and a rollicking pace, Ellsworth will throw you down the rabbit hole and into the Otherworld." (Sean Grigsby, author of Smoke Eaters & Daughters of Forgotten Light)
"Charming, rakish, and a rollicking good time." (Tina Connolly, Nebula-nominated author of Ironskin & Seriously Wicked)
"Spencer Ellsworth's The Great Faerie Strike is Dickensian fantasy that punches the soot off tradition with a cunning female lead and a dastardly fun world. Must read for those who love fantasy but need a revolutionary fix." (Jason Ridler, author of Hex-Rated and Harvest of Blood and Iron)
"Ellsworth’s feypunk Victorian fantasy is A Midsummer Night’s Dream meets Underworld with a dash of Dickens, featuring a heroine who is Lois Lane as imagined by a slightly drunk Jane Austen. While full of humor and fun fantasy adventure, it doesn’t shy away from also exploring the darker side of capitalism or the struggle between finding your place in the world versus making your place in the world versus making the world the place you want it to be. A fitting tale for our times." (Randy Henderson, author of Finn Fancy Necromancy)
- GenresFantasy
344 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 5, 2019
5 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Spencer Ellsworth
36 books81 followersSpencer Ellsworth lives in Bellingham, WA, teaches at a tribal college, plays in too many bands, and writes his little brain out. He is the author of The Great Faerie Strike from Broken Eye Books, about a plucky union leader gnome and young investigative report vampire, who join forces to take on the alchemists and sorcerers industrializing the Otherworld.
He is also the author of the space opera Starfire Trilogy from Tor, and his short work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Tor.com, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Michael Moorcock's New Worlds Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and a whole bunch of anthologies and little markets, and been recommended by Locus and other venues. You can find more about him at spencerellsworth.com
He is also the author of the space opera Starfire Trilogy from Tor, and his short work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Tor.com, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Michael Moorcock's New Worlds Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and a whole bunch of anthologies and little markets, and been recommended by Locus and other venues. You can find more about him at spencerellsworth.com
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 14, 2020
I'd have read this sooner if I knew one of the main characters was a Marxist gnome. This was a very weird time to read a book about a labor strike, a riot, looting, violent class warfare waged by the bourgeois against the proletariat, and the attempts to pit one subsection thereof against another. It could be the headlines of any American newspaper, except with gnomes, vampires, werewolves, and trolls. I found it especially compelling/horrifying to read about how the industrialized use of magic was polluting the Otherworld. As for the love story... well, who am I to judge? But their kids are gonna be something else.
August 12, 2021
This is yet another backlist book that I requested and received a long time ago. It is a fantasy story that adds something different to the issues plaguing the characters: a capitalist economy.
Our leading lady is a half-vampire who escapes her mother's clutches with great difficulty. She is trying to get back into the world that she actually belongs in, but things have changed in the time she was locked away. Jane had a plan to get a job and make her life in Fairie, but things are not going her way. She is hungry, worried and forces an unlikely creature to help her. This relationship changes over the time of the narrative.
In the backdrop, we have changing times, where the human world is closely linked economically with the magical folks, but this leads to a lot more complications than many understand. There is also the mystery of what the werewolves are up to to investigate.
Overall it is a fast-paced story with added input being provided at a reasonable frequency to keep the reader's attention. The worldbuilding and the dialogues given to the different characters were entertaining. It could have been a shorter book, and I would have liked it even more!
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
Our leading lady is a half-vampire who escapes her mother's clutches with great difficulty. She is trying to get back into the world that she actually belongs in, but things have changed in the time she was locked away. Jane had a plan to get a job and make her life in Fairie, but things are not going her way. She is hungry, worried and forces an unlikely creature to help her. This relationship changes over the time of the narrative.
In the backdrop, we have changing times, where the human world is closely linked economically with the magical folks, but this leads to a lot more complications than many understand. There is also the mystery of what the werewolves are up to to investigate.
Overall it is a fast-paced story with added input being provided at a reasonable frequency to keep the reader's attention. The worldbuilding and the dialogues given to the different characters were entertaining. It could have been a shorter book, and I would have liked it even more!
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
March 28, 2020
This book just didn't work for me. It started off silly and funny, but became less so as the book progressed. By the time we reached the drugged babies being killed to make doors to another world, I was no longer amused. Sorry, mine seems to be a minority opinion.
I received an eARC from NetGalley.
I received an eARC from NetGalley.
March 25, 2020
Disclaimers upfront: the author and I both belong to the same writers' forum (though I don't think we've directly interacted), and I received a copy via Netgalley for review.
This is, in part, a pastiche of Victorian adventure fiction (the format of the chapter titles makes that pretty clear). I'm therefore going to assume that the scene where a Convenient Eavesdrop is set up by Accidental Discovery of a Secret Passage is part of the pastiche, and not a terrible piece of writing that diminishes the agency of the protagonists for the convenience of advancing the plot. Likewise the fact (lampshaded at one point) that the two protagonists keep bumping into each other by coincidence. I am trying hard to work with the author here, and give him the benefit of the doubt, because normally I would call out shenanigans like this.
There's no working around the fact, though, that it needs another quick round of edits, for vocabulary, continuity, and a bit of punctuation (a couple of missing periods, a couple of misplaced apostrophes, a couple of commas that I personally would add for better flow).
There's a surprising amount of difference between the vocabulary of England in the 19th century and the US in the 21st, and almost every 21st-century American who tries to write 19th-century British English gets it wrong to some degree, even leaving aside the normal differences between the two dialects. In this case, the quite common error "hurtle" (to move very quickly) for "hurl" (to throw) appears three times; "balmy" (having a pleasant climate) is used for "barmy" (mad); the words "bunting," "callow," "visages," "milliners," and "conflagration" appear to be used incorrectly; and, most notably, the author uses "choleric" to mean "suffering from cholera," which it doesn't, and is almost certainly confusing cholera with tuberculosis ("consumption"), which made young women pale-skinned and bright-eyed, like the vampire protagonist. So "consumptive" is probably the word he is looking for.
The Irish character also uses the word "after" a lot, but I'm pretty sure doesn't use it the way an actual 19th-century Irishman would use it. And the same woman is referred to as "Mrs. Unsworth," "Lady Elizabeth Unsworth" and "Lady Unsworth," at least two of which must be incorrect, since Lady Elizabeth Unsworth is the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl, Lady Unsworth is the wife of a knight or baronet, and neither of them should be called Mrs.
In terms of continuity, a five-pound note becomes several one-pound notes and then turns back again, a boat docks twice, and in a couple of conversations people somehow know things that their conversational partners haven't actually mentioned.
I've nitpicked a lot, but I did enjoy the book. The characters were determined to do the right thing and persevered through extreme challenges, the villains were as villainous as possible, the heroes as heroic as possible, and it recalled Victorian sensational literature at every turn while simultaneously critiquing Victorian capitalism and colonialism - and yet not making the characters into 21st-century people with a completely 21st-century way of thinking.
Above all, it was fun (despite the high body count), imaginative, and, barring the issues mentioned above, well-written. I would read a sequel, but it's not quite going to make it to my Best of the Year list.
This is, in part, a pastiche of Victorian adventure fiction (the format of the chapter titles makes that pretty clear). I'm therefore going to assume that the scene where a Convenient Eavesdrop is set up by Accidental Discovery of a Secret Passage is part of the pastiche, and not a terrible piece of writing that diminishes the agency of the protagonists for the convenience of advancing the plot. Likewise the fact (lampshaded at one point) that the two protagonists keep bumping into each other by coincidence. I am trying hard to work with the author here, and give him the benefit of the doubt, because normally I would call out shenanigans like this.
There's no working around the fact, though, that it needs another quick round of edits, for vocabulary, continuity, and a bit of punctuation (a couple of missing periods, a couple of misplaced apostrophes, a couple of commas that I personally would add for better flow).
There's a surprising amount of difference between the vocabulary of England in the 19th century and the US in the 21st, and almost every 21st-century American who tries to write 19th-century British English gets it wrong to some degree, even leaving aside the normal differences between the two dialects. In this case, the quite common error "hurtle" (to move very quickly) for "hurl" (to throw) appears three times; "balmy" (having a pleasant climate) is used for "barmy" (mad); the words "bunting," "callow," "visages," "milliners," and "conflagration" appear to be used incorrectly; and, most notably, the author uses "choleric" to mean "suffering from cholera," which it doesn't, and is almost certainly confusing cholera with tuberculosis ("consumption"), which made young women pale-skinned and bright-eyed, like the vampire protagonist. So "consumptive" is probably the word he is looking for.
The Irish character also uses the word "after" a lot, but I'm pretty sure doesn't use it the way an actual 19th-century Irishman would use it. And the same woman is referred to as "Mrs. Unsworth," "Lady Elizabeth Unsworth" and "Lady Unsworth," at least two of which must be incorrect, since Lady Elizabeth Unsworth is the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl, Lady Unsworth is the wife of a knight or baronet, and neither of them should be called Mrs.
In terms of continuity, a five-pound note becomes several one-pound notes and then turns back again, a boat docks twice, and in a couple of conversations people somehow know things that their conversational partners haven't actually mentioned.
I've nitpicked a lot, but I did enjoy the book. The characters were determined to do the right thing and persevered through extreme challenges, the villains were as villainous as possible, the heroes as heroic as possible, and it recalled Victorian sensational literature at every turn while simultaneously critiquing Victorian capitalism and colonialism - and yet not making the characters into 21st-century people with a completely 21st-century way of thinking.
Above all, it was fun (despite the high body count), imaginative, and, barring the issues mentioned above, well-written. I would read a sequel, but it's not quite going to make it to my Best of the Year list.
August 31, 2019
This book is a fantastical, rollicking ride through the (mostly) real world of Victorian London and the strange, beautiful and dangerous world of the fey. From the first page, Ellsworth drops you head first into a story populated by a brawny, boisterous, and sometimes belligerent cast of gnomes, vampires, and werewolves. We follow Jane, an investigative reporter (half-human and half-vampire) who witnesses a murder. And we also follow the gnome Charles who becomes an agitator and workers' organizer after reading The Communist Manifesto.
It's a fast-paced and often hilarious ride, but also one that explores themes like the importance of unions, workers' rights, and the complexities of political power -- both in the real and the fey world. There is murder and mayhem, romance and alchemy, making this a fey-punk page-turner.
It's a fast-paced and often hilarious ride, but also one that explores themes like the importance of unions, workers' rights, and the complexities of political power -- both in the real and the fey world. There is murder and mayhem, romance and alchemy, making this a fey-punk page-turner.
January 26, 2021
What I liked about this book was the interesting nature of the relationship of the main characters. The book avoids typical stereotypes about faerie and traveling in faerie. It also has an interesting subtext commentary about the industrial revolution and Marxism. I would recommend this book if you are looking for an off kilter read, which I often am.
November 18, 2019
Really entertaining romp through a different sort of fairyland, a fairyland unfortunately infused with the worst elements of our world.
May 22, 2019
This is a fun book! A rollicking good adventure-mystery with a double scoop of cheeky mischief on top.
Industrialization has come to the Otherworld (aka fairyland) and there's conspiracies afoot. Ellsworth brings together a new combination of ingredients for his book: gnomes, vampires, werewolves, bad cheese, and the Communist Manifesto. Wacky hijinks ensue.
I felt like the turns of phrase for the different cultures were particularly entertaining as people from different groups clashed with each other, as were the little asides of "fun human facts" written by someone who'd clearly never encountered a human before. (Example: "Murgalak’s Fun Human Facts: The human female is equipped with a little-seen set of wings, which she will only show to other human females. Human men politely call these “women’s intuitions.”")
Industrialization has come to the Otherworld (aka fairyland) and there's conspiracies afoot. Ellsworth brings together a new combination of ingredients for his book: gnomes, vampires, werewolves, bad cheese, and the Communist Manifesto. Wacky hijinks ensue.
I felt like the turns of phrase for the different cultures were particularly entertaining as people from different groups clashed with each other, as were the little asides of "fun human facts" written by someone who'd clearly never encountered a human before. (Example: "Murgalak’s Fun Human Facts: The human female is equipped with a little-seen set of wings, which she will only show to other human females. Human men politely call these “women’s intuitions.”")
April 15, 2020
In Victorian London, Jane, a half-vampire is released from an asylum. Half-convinced she is actually mad, she finds a way to the faerie realm Otherworld, meets a drunken, recently-unemployed gnome whom she converts to communism, gets a job at a newspaper, and the rest, they say is history. Amid orchestrating a workers strike in the Otherworld, Jane seeks to uncover the secrets behind the industrial werewolves rise to power and deals with the trickster Puck to do so. But is all as it actually seems?
This is a rollicking ride - sometimes funny, sometimes sly, sometimes disturbing - into Victorian London and the faerie equivalent. Thoroughly tongue-in-cheek and playing on many supernatural Victoriana tropes, The Great Faerie Strike explores more serious themes of economics, prejudice, privilege, mass production and the cost of power.
This is a rollicking ride - sometimes funny, sometimes sly, sometimes disturbing - into Victorian London and the faerie equivalent. Thoroughly tongue-in-cheek and playing on many supernatural Victoriana tropes, The Great Faerie Strike explores more serious themes of economics, prejudice, privilege, mass production and the cost of power.
November 27, 2019
I loved this book. It took place in a steampunk-esque, industrial revolution-era faerie reflection of London. It features a gnome who loses his job because the industrialists import a new workforce who will work for cheaper. Said gnome discovers the writings of Marx. Hilarity ensues while a half vampire who isn't altogether certain she isn't just imagining this covers it for the local paper.
I never knew I needed more labor relations and union organization in my fantasy, but it was great!
I never knew I needed more labor relations and union organization in my fantasy, but it was great!
February 27, 2022
DNF. Only got to 14% when I had to give up. At least for me, this book was too "scattered" and hard to follow. I was rereading each part of it a couple of times to see if I could connect everything properly. To me, it seems like everything was thrown in all at once and not enough time given to each blurbs before moving on to something else. The storyline came back but it also moved on to other subjects. I was just too confused, frustrated and uninterested to continue at this time.
August 3, 2019
A half-vampire reporter covering a murder mystery, and a gnome worker inspired by Karl Marx team up to take down the bourgeois. The Great Faerie Strike is an adventure into the Otherworld of Victorian London during the rise of industrialization and the exploitation of workers, be they vampire, gnome, or other fae. This was a fantastic read with a satisfying ending.
August 14, 2021
Whimsical horror
An excellent story with plenty of twists and turns. I was not expecting some of the more horrific aspects of the story; it’s a bloody, gory affair with plenty of dark humor. The not-too-on-the-nose allegory of capitalism consuming everything was appreciated. A unique gem.
An excellent story with plenty of twists and turns. I was not expecting some of the more horrific aspects of the story; it’s a bloody, gory affair with plenty of dark humor. The not-too-on-the-nose allegory of capitalism consuming everything was appreciated. A unique gem.
May 16, 2019
This book is charming, lighthearted, funny, and yet deals with some very dark themes - class oppression, processed food, Marxism, unions, psychiatric wards. The plucky young heroine kept me laughing, and a sense of joy and playfulness pervades the writing. Well worth a read.
August 12, 2019
I blurbed this one! Here's what I wrote: "A rollicking adventure told with Pratchettesque wit and compassion. This is an Otherworld as real and as strange as our own, with characters you can't help but root for and an economic system you can't help but recognize. This book is a delight."
January 7, 2020
Another fun adventure from Spencer Ellsworth. The industrial revolution has come to Faerie! Can our plucky heroine and her neer-do-well young man mitigate the damage? Fairy tale and urban fantasy tropes meet union history.
July 16, 2020
ACTUAL RATING: 3.5 STARS
I found this to be a pleasant read. The narrative was entertaining and draws in the reader, fully immersing them into a plot full of intrigue. I sped through this one in a matter of a couple of hours as a result of its enthralling twists and turns.
I found this to be a pleasant read. The narrative was entertaining and draws in the reader, fully immersing them into a plot full of intrigue. I sped through this one in a matter of a couple of hours as a result of its enthralling twists and turns.
August 11, 2019
SO much fun! Vampires, Victorian England, the faerie realm, and REVOLUTION! Seriously, I got through this really quickly and I'm really hoping there will be a sequel.
retry-someday
January 28, 2020May come back and finish this at some point.
It’s a nifty core idea.
It’s a nifty core idea.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews