Saturday, August 11, 2012

Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris "Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel" (Harper Voyager, 2011)








Are you a fan of genre tropes?  If so, this is a book that you will love.  It loves steampunk tropes even more than you do.  It wallows in them, rejoicing as it shouts “yes, may I have another!”

An odd couple work for a secretive government agency.  They are battling a variety of evil secret organizations.  Over the course of the book we have dirigibles, mad scientists, assassins, robots (& robot armies), orgies, duels, exotic weaponry, fantastical inventions, mysterious libraries, street urchins, asylums, & more!

At this point you may be thinking that this sounds like the most derivative thing you’ve ever heard of.  It’s not.  The reason is that these tropes haven’t been used because of laziness.  They all are used in a  fun knowing way (try to identify & count the references to Victorian or SF literature).
It may not be the deepest novel you read this year, but by Jove, it’s fun.

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