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2013 Book Review #4: The Peshawar Lancers
Title: The Peshawar Lancers
Author: S.M. Stirling
Genre: Steampunk
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: In an alternate history British-ruled Indian Empire, a cavalry officer and his twin bluestocking sister are the targets of an evil Russian conspiracy to kill the Emperor and destroy the world.
Thoughts: I was initially rather off-put by the incredibly James Bond-i-ness of the protagonist. Athelstane King, home on leave after a wound to the designated hero area aka shoulder, has sex with his sexy sexy concubine who promptly gets fridged by assasins so he can appropriately swear revenge. I rolled my eyes.
It picks up, though. Oh, he never gets any less Marty-Stu. But it turns out that it's just that Stirling doesn't do deep characters, really at all. But at least Athelstane is not the only one. His sister Cassandra is just as ludicrously badass. As are the prince, and the princess, and the French ambassador, and King's two retainers, and the mysterious seeress, and the chief of intelligence. Even the Emperor turns out to be pretty badass. They're arranged against a mustache-twirler of the first degree, who literally worships Satan and eats babies and wants to end all life on earth, and pretty much can't be considered dead until you've seen the body and maybe not even then.
So this is high pulp. If you can accept that and run with it, it's actually pretty fun high pulp.
The characters are wildly entertaining. The action sequences are very well paced and often fairly creative. There are camel chases and ambushes on trains and exploding airships, basically across the width of India and into Afghanistan. There are several fairly unbelievable and yet still satisfying romances. There are tricksy plotting and can't-trust-anyone paranoia and ancient family obligations stretching back multiple generations.
Also impressive is the world-building. There's a very complicated setup--in the 1870s, a comet killed off most of the northern hemisphere, which is why civilization is now pretty much centered on India with a handful of rivals. The actual sequence of events, both climatological and political, is very well-thought-out. There are a series of appendices at the end that detail everything, but they're exactly what appendices should be--interesting but not necessary. The world-building is done well enough in the text that you have an excellent idea of how it all works, fast enough to not get frustrated, and then if you're still curious, there's some additional details at the end.
I did find the ending slightly unsatisfying, in that while the heroes all totally kick ass and take names, at the very end they're kind of saved by deus-ex-machinas. Well, the groundwork is laid and the events are foreshadowed, but I still would have liked to see them solve their own problems rather than be rescued by circumstances beyond their control.
So. Great literature, this is not. But it's really good pulp.
Author: S.M. Stirling
Genre: Steampunk
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: In an alternate history British-ruled Indian Empire, a cavalry officer and his twin bluestocking sister are the targets of an evil Russian conspiracy to kill the Emperor and destroy the world.
Thoughts: I was initially rather off-put by the incredibly James Bond-i-ness of the protagonist. Athelstane King, home on leave after a wound to the designated hero area aka shoulder, has sex with his sexy sexy concubine who promptly gets fridged by assasins so he can appropriately swear revenge. I rolled my eyes.
It picks up, though. Oh, he never gets any less Marty-Stu. But it turns out that it's just that Stirling doesn't do deep characters, really at all. But at least Athelstane is not the only one. His sister Cassandra is just as ludicrously badass. As are the prince, and the princess, and the French ambassador, and King's two retainers, and the mysterious seeress, and the chief of intelligence. Even the Emperor turns out to be pretty badass. They're arranged against a mustache-twirler of the first degree, who literally worships Satan and eats babies and wants to end all life on earth, and pretty much can't be considered dead until you've seen the body and maybe not even then.
So this is high pulp. If you can accept that and run with it, it's actually pretty fun high pulp.
The characters are wildly entertaining. The action sequences are very well paced and often fairly creative. There are camel chases and ambushes on trains and exploding airships, basically across the width of India and into Afghanistan. There are several fairly unbelievable and yet still satisfying romances. There are tricksy plotting and can't-trust-anyone paranoia and ancient family obligations stretching back multiple generations.
Also impressive is the world-building. There's a very complicated setup--in the 1870s, a comet killed off most of the northern hemisphere, which is why civilization is now pretty much centered on India with a handful of rivals. The actual sequence of events, both climatological and political, is very well-thought-out. There are a series of appendices at the end that detail everything, but they're exactly what appendices should be--interesting but not necessary. The world-building is done well enough in the text that you have an excellent idea of how it all works, fast enough to not get frustrated, and then if you're still curious, there's some additional details at the end.
I did find the ending slightly unsatisfying, in that while the heroes all totally kick ass and take names, at the very end they're kind of saved by deus-ex-machinas. Well, the groundwork is laid and the events are foreshadowed, but I still would have liked to see them solve their own problems rather than be rescued by circumstances beyond their control.
So. Great literature, this is not. But it's really good pulp.