2011 Book Review #66: Pasquale's Angel

[jethrien]

Title: Pasquale's Angel
Author: Paul McAuley
Genre: Renaissance steampunk
Thingummies: 3

Synopsis: A painter in a Renaissance Florence in which Da Vinci's inventions kicked off an early fantastic Industrial Revolution stumbles into a murder investigation on the heels of Machiavelli. But what started off appearing as an artist's feud between Raphael and Michelangelo turns out to be a widespread conspiracy that may include threats to the Pope, black magic, and a Spanish invasion.

Thingummies: This reminds me quite a lot of The Anubis Gates, both in its strengths and its flaws. There's fantastic world-building, clever alternate histories, and swash-buckling adventure. Unfortunately, there's also confusing plotting, a queasy relationship with magic, and problematic women/minorities. Plus, phantasmagoric evil clowns on stilts.

Italy in the late 1400s and early 1500s contained an amazing confluence of brilliant people, and basically all of them show up in this novel. In this alternate history, though, so do hang-gliders, photography, Greek fire, and self-guided mines. The technological superiority and adventurousness of the Florentines spills out into Columbus being funded by Italians (and so the New World being explored without the Spanish Inquisition being involved). Details are relatively well-thought out and the blend of Renaissance piety and Industrial Revolution gadgetry works surprisingly well.

By the end of the book, I'm still not sure whether magic is real or not, which irritates me to no end. McAuley wants to play it both ways, revealing some "magic" to be mere trickery but still waving his hands with mystic mumbo-jumbo when it works for him. There's a dizzying disorientation in some of these scenes that is all too similar to the not-completely-thought-out handwaving of The Anubis Gates and The Difference Engine. Why must early steampunk not carry through its convictions of early science-based fiction and veer unnecessarily into magic that they never properly explore? (I've got no issues with magic. But if you cleverly construct a world that "could have" been ours, please don't then throw in elements that couldn't. Unless you genuinely believe we can summon a demon right now?)

I will admit, there's a distinct possibility that the plot is not quite as confusing as I found it, since I read a large chunk of this book while feverish, exhausted, or both. But I still think it was a little difficult to follow.

There are women in this book (although that includes a lot of whores who seem to exist only for titillationn). They're not very impressive. The one with the most page time is essentially a female Native American version of the Magical Negro. She wisely mumbles wise-sounding mumbo jumbo, magically seems to know everything that's going to happen (but doesn't help really much at all), and exists mostly to feed the protagonist peyote and eventually send him to the New World to become a shaman. Seriously. Deeply irritating.

Oh, also--the locked door mystery that kicks off the main plot is lifted straight from a classic (the classic?) detective story. I guarentee you'll recognize it. And while it may have been intended as a gentle homage, it actually completely spoils a major plot twist because the author doesn't seem to think we're bright enough to recognize how the guy died.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious about the classic detective story.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Someone in a locked room high up (that could only be reached if someone climbed up a wall) has been murdered in a particularly brutal fashion that would require great strength. The victim locked the door behind him and has the key on his body, and the murderer did not unlock the door or even search the body.

How broad a hint do you want?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Was he shoved upside down in a chimney? Cause I know that one.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

The body wasn't actually shoved up the chimney, but yes, that's the story.

And given that one of the characters has an unusual pet, well...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOODNESS. He stole from "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and expected no one to notice? Also, of all the Poe to steal from. I'm sorry, but the solution to that story is STUPID.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Machiavelli is awfully Holmes-like, too. I really do think he intended you to see it as a cute reference (?) but he then kind of forgets what figuring it out implies.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

...the peyote and shaman thing alone might be enough to put me off this book. :-/

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I know. It's really not necessary, I don't think. I mean, I like the alternate history, that the New World being discovered by the pragmatic Italians instead of the fundamentalist Spanish led to significantly less bloodbath and a lot of alliances instead of conquests. (Cortez tries to invade Italy, instead, which goes badly for him. Makes sense, though, since the Spanish ruled southern Italy for quite some time.) But the whole mystical-woo-woo thing is either an introduction of a magical element that's never used, or condescending as all heck.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a GREAT alt-history premise, but...argh. What a way to screw it up. Especially if it went the condescending route.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

It more went the "not addressed" route. I kind of wonder if he'd intended to write a sequel set in the New World.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, that could do it, if he's sending the hero off there...