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The Iron Duke
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Apr 2012: So, here's the thing...
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I hear what you're saying, and I felt much the same way throughout a lot of the book as regards the world-building. From the beginning I almost felt like it was written in a language other than English at times because the references to the world were making little to no sense since there was precious little explanation of things being given. It felt as though I'd picked up the series on book 2 or 3 and it was being assumed that I'd read the previous books and knew all about the world and what was going on at this point in time in it. I too kind of wrote it off to my being unfamiliar with steampunk as a genre and/or setting, but now I'm not sure if it was just that.
yeah I am pretty sure it is just bad world building. Which kind of sucks because the story seems to be leading toward a fairly big scope story...which will only be disappointing with a crappy scope.
I understand where your coming from here, the author made a really great world with alot of history! I think it was done the best way it could have been done because it would have taken a whole chapter to just explain the history, without even getting into the story!
This is actually the second trip by Ms. Brook into this world, the first being the story "Here there be Monsters" in the "Burning Up" anthology. I feel obligated to point out that I LOVED this book and adore the world building so I'm not exactly an impartial opinion, however, if you are looking for a crash-course in this world, reading "Here there be Monsters" might help. It also happens to be a very yummy story, and as a bonus this anthology also has a story in the Changeling/Psy universe by Nalini Singh called "Whisper of Sin" which is also delicious.
I had the complete opposite feeling - I thought the worldbuilding felt really organic - she could have infodumped all over the place, but instead, I felt I received relevant details as I read. The world became clearer and clearer....I felt like this was a really good introduction to a huge world that I look forward to returning to in future books.
It's funny, I actually thought there was too much world building happening in the first chapter! I was bored with it...I kept waiting for something to happen. I actually skimmed over it and pushed on into the second where I fell in love with the story. I liked discovering the world a bit at a time. It was my first time reading a steampunk novel, so most of the world felt very foreign to me but at the same time it all came together in the end. The only part that confused me is Manhattan City. I was never clear on exactly where that is. It might have been in the part I skimmed ;-)
World building is one of those things no one can agree on. The line between too much, too little, and just right is very murky. I tend to prefer Brook's handling of it myself rather than having everything explained to me, but then I like my reading a little more interactive, having to figure out stuff on my own and guess doesn't bother me.
The world building is what I really loved about this book. It was rich, it felt natural and I was hooked by the references to things I didn't yet understand fully ... i.e. frenzies. The world is what will make me read more of this author, the romance was a bit stilted for my tastes.
I did personally like the world building here, because she did not dump everything at your feet and pull a Tolkein. She created a world that is huge, but to the characters there is little reason (for them) to explain what these words, references or events mean. Working in explainations is difficult and I think she managed it very well in flashbacks or use in context.
Remember that steam punk is usually alt-history and in this case it started with the Horde actually winning. Some of the stuff she is referencing is actual real history!
I'm a huge fan of alt history. Probably because I'm a history major. You have to be in the know to get some of the references, so it always makes me feel like the author and I are connecting on some secret level, haha. I didn't have too much of a problem with Brook's world-building once I figured out that she was going to explain things...eventually. Still, Jessica, I can totally understand your frustration. A lot of times with these kinds of books, I like to do a second read through to pick up on all the things I missed when I didn't know what the hell was going on.
I happened to be paying a lot of attention to steampunk on Pinterest at the time, just finished watching Downton Abbey and started the second season of Game of Thrones so I mashed all of those images in my head. :)
I agree with everyone who though the world building was really organic. I actually *liked* the confusion from an artistic standpoint. For me, I thought the way I felt reading the first quarter of the book (confused, off-balance) would have paralleled the buggers' reactions to feeling on their own for the first time. Maybe I'm giving Brook way too much artistic credit, but that's the way I understood her worldbuilding technique.
Katherine wrote: "This is actually the second trip by Ms. Brook into this world, the first being the story "Here there be Monsters" in the "Burning Up" anthology. I feel obligated to point out that I LOVED this boo..."Thanks! I will have to check that out.
Molly wrote: "I like to do a second read through to pick up on all the things I missed when I didn't know what the hell was going on."
I know what you mean. Though I do no like to reread a book unless I really like it. So far this book is not a second read through book.
The big thing about this world building is that it lacks structure. Even more than halfway through the book the author is still throwing things into this universe like "oh yeah that thing exists, oh and there is something else that exists." It is a very cool and interesting world, don't get me wrong but every universe needs rules!
I do think it is interesting that everyone has such different answers to this one topic! I guess everyone likes different kinds of world building. For me I need a certain amount of world building before I can really connect to the story. I also think there is a huge difference between world building and info dumping. I like world building, not info dumping.
Daeja wrote: "I had the complete opposite feeling - I thought the worldbuilding felt really organic - she could have infodumped all over the place, but instead, I felt I received relevant details as I read. The ..."That's how I felt about it. I learned enough to keep me interested but not so much that it interrupted the story.
Just a thought: maybe the varying POVs influenced the author's worldbuilding.
I have to agree with Jessica - I felt the same way about the world building. It was almost simultaneously too much and not enough, like I was starting mid-series. And to be honest, it got worse with the second book. I like the series, but I feel kind of dumb trying to read it. It's not a relaxing read for me.I think steampunk was so new for me that it was harder to absorb and picture in my mind.
I feel that the world-building helped draw me in more to the story. It not only made me curious about the history and want to continue reading to find out, but it allowed me to pull clues from the character's reactions. Sometimes I get frustrated when author's spend pages explaining the history or when they implement a character whose sole job is to provide information. I often find myself skimming these pages and I end up missing some interesting tidbits that flush out the world. Here, each tidbit was important and stood out because we experienced them through the main character's eyes and felt their reactions to them.
I think a person's reaction to this book will be colored by what they have or haven't read before. The "Frenzy" didn't bother me because I had a pretty good idea of what it was from the get go. Her being half Horde and her mother putting her eyes out explained it all to me.
Jennifer wrote: "I have to agree with Jessica - I felt the same way about the world building. It was almost simultaneously too much and not enough, like I was starting mid-series. And to be honest, it got worse wi..."Too much and not enough at the same time. That's a good way to put it. At first I thought that I was reading the wrong book. I even checked to make sure it was the first in the series.
Also, I think I just don't like this book very much. I am having trouble liking any of the characters enough to invest my time in this book (still have not finished it). I hate it when I don't like a book. Just not my cup of tea. I am probably going to try soulless the alt read for this month.
We dropped right into the main story, but left confused over references to the backstory/world.. I would of liked a bit more history up front vs alittle at a time.. I was like, Are we sure it's the first book. That feeling of having missed something, kept me re-reading to see if I actually missed something. :\But by the end I loved the details that came out and glad for it... it was a pretty cool world...
Yeah, as a history nerd, I'm still a bit unclear what the hell was going on.
I'm glad to know there are previous books in the world, maybe that would help my understanding. I was also a little confused when in the first chapters she said noone ever died of the fever but then all of the sudden it was a dread disease. It was a good story, but sometimes I felt like there were a lot of details on some subjects and then no details on things I wanted to know about. Of course, I'm not a big romance reader either so that may be part of the problem.
Another thing that bothered me (and here I'm just being picky): If second generation nanobots were different (as in the rats and Rhys), why weren't hers? Her mother obviously had the nanobots since she was conceived in a Fury and her mother was unable to fight, but the book states her nanobots were introduced after birth. Theoretically, they could be only carried on the male chromosome (which would exclude her since she's female) or maybe she intends 50% of the DNA was not sufficient to induce the change (if it follows that the genetics of our world applies since this is alt history). It still bothers me though.
So this is my first foray into Steampunk, and I loved it. But here is what I am confused by, and maybe it is because I played too much Civilization, the technology conflicts. Going into Steampunk I had a vague understanding that it would have some kind of anachronistic technology for the Victorian Era, possibly involving clockwork, and I was fine with it for half the book or so. But what threw me out of the world and made me perplexed is the fact in this world they have nanotechnology and yet still use lambskin condoms or "sheaths" to use the parlance of the book. So now I am confused about how technology development works in Steampunk. Because for the rest of the book each time a new cool tech thing was introduced, all I could think was "You have that, nanobots, and the Victorian equivalent to a Sybian, but lambskin condoms is the best you can do for contraception?" So, I guess my question is, how does the technology tree work in Steampunk?
James said: "So, I guess my question is, how does the technology tree work in Steampunk?"Generally, in my experience, there seems to be one, at most two branches of technology that are similar to the advancements we've made today, while the rest of the world (including medical advances, vehicles etc) stays roughly at the same level it was at during the actual Victorian era. This is by no means a strict rule, as it's entirely possible for all of technology to be much like it is today or even more advanced, while society itself still operates under the constraints of the Victorian era.
To address those for whom this was the first point of contact with the Steampunk genre, I feel your pain. My first foray into steampunk was The Difference Engine and I spent the first two hundred pages floundering and grasping at single straws of that which seemed familiar. Not to mention that I'd read that book back in my first year of college when my English was mostly intermediate conversational stuff and I was nowhere near equipped to deal with technological terms and such (there was a detailed description of the bones of some kind of dinosaur in the first few chapters which took me days to unravel, for example).
Here is what this some of these references sound like in my brain: "I was born in a frenzy. You don't know what a frenzy is? oh well I will give you another hint at it in 3 chapters but I wont actually tell you what it is until even later than that."
There are a few times this happens with other references. I feel like I started reading a story that was already in progress. Where is the world building here? I am craving some structure to this universe! where's the beef?
Maybe it is just me. This is my first steam punk and I really like that part of the story but I am new to it. Is there an intro into steam punk that I need to read? I feel like the author is keeping this universe's history a secret and it is pissing me off! Just tell me! It sounds kind of cool! I just want to know! ok end rant. Sorry guys I get carried away sometimes.