This isn't an easy to review to write. Not because I didn't
like it - quite the opposite really - but because to review
the book I have to describe it, and WHITECHAPEL GODS is so
bizarre and imaginative, I'm not sure how to describe it.
I'm not even sure what genre to put it in. This book is one
of the most imaginative, inventive genre-bending thing I've
seen in years, filled with so many new ideas that its hard
to take it all in. Here's my best take: a Lovecraftian
gothic steampunk horror psycho thriller. On drugs. Very,
very good drugs.
Let me try and be a bit more specific. WHITECHAPEL GODS is
set in the
Whitechapel district of London at some time in the mid to
late 1900s.
The borough has been walled off for decades in response the
appearance of two alien intelligences that appeared there.
One is a masculine intelligence of gears and logic, the
other a feminine force of creative engineering and
inspiration: Grandfather Clock and Mama Engine. The natural
order has been utterly wrecked, and in Whitechapel steel
girders grow like trees, men have their hearts replaced with
coal furnaces, and a plague runs through the populace that
gradually turns the victims into clockwork men. Into this
nightmarish world, agents loyal to the Crown strive to
overthrow Grandfater Clock, Mama Engine and their servants.
And that's just a sampling of the setting. I haven't even
mentioned the mechanical rats, brain-sculpting mad
scientists or the drug trips. Nor have I even gotten to the
plot, which involves murdering prostitutes, scorned
godlings, vengeful (ex)lovers, secret weapons, plans for
secret weapons, spies and animation of the dead.
I think I could write more words trying to describe the book
than are actually in the book, which leads me to my one and
only complaint with
this book: it's too cool to be over that fast. This book
practically
begs for sequels, prequels or the ubiquitous trilogy
treatment. The plot starts into motion without much of the
way of a preamble, and the reader is left to piece together
the setting and the backstory through hints and suggestion.
It's a great way to tell the story, and is terribly
effective, but by the time you get your head around what's
going on, the book is moving on to the next mind-warping
concept. I want more, and can't wait to read whatever Mr.
Peters writes next. I also want whatever drugs he's on,
because...wow.
In Victorian London, the Whitechapel section is a
mechanized, steam-driven hell, cut off and ruled by two
mysterious, mechanical gods-Mama Engine and Grandfather
Clock. Some years have passed since the Great Uprising, when
humans rose up to fight against the machines, but a few
brave veterans of the Uprising have formed their own
Resistance-and are gathering for another attack. For now
they have a secret weapon that may finally free them-or kill
them all...
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