"Steampunk Infused with Echoing Horror and Touches of Romance"
Reviewed by Diana Troldahl
Posted August 31, 2012
Fantasy Steampunk
When Cedar Hunt agrees to protect and guide his party from
Hallelujah, Oregon across the western landscape he includes
himself as one of the dangers, especially the day he came
back to himself as a man with blood on his lips and a dead
man at his feet. Still, there were greater dangers waiting
and as long as crack-shot Rose Small keeps a gun close by
and ready to train on Cedar, they will get along well
enough.
They are riding east to return Mae Lindson to her witch
sisterhood before the spell they set on her drives her mad,
hoping they will have a cure for the beast rising up in
Cedar and his brother Wil. Rose Small is looking for
adventure and eager to see the rest of the world, no longer
welcome in the only town she can remember as home.
Cedar has also agreed to sniff out parts of the Holder for
the mysterious and chancy Madder Brothers. They could be
good allies when faced with danger or their infernal
machines could cause more trouble than they started with.
Still, the Holder is a weapon of uncertainty and great
power, better left in the hands of those without desire to
rule the world. The Madder brothers are far too intrigued
with their gears and gyros to rule anything.
Nothing could have prepared them for what they find in the
town of Vicinity. People dead in their homes missing
various
organs and body parts with the smell of Strange laying
heavy
on the air. Devon Monk continues the adventure started in Dead
Iron with book two in her Age of Steam series. TIN
SWIFT
continues the story of characters we've already met and
adds
a new level of enticement by exploring the world of the sky
pilots gathering glim from above the clouds. We also are
introduced to a new villain who has joined forces with an
otherworldly harbinger of the Strange.
Monk has the true gift of storytelling, inhabiting her
world
with twists of language and Victorian sensibility while
keeping readers a bit off balance and eager for the next
chapter. The Age of Steam series is solidly
steampunk
infused with touches of romance and echoing horror. If you
are new to the steampunk genre it may be a learning
experience but with Devon Monk's skillful world building
and
the true notes she strikes with all her characters it
works,
it most definitely works.
SUMMARY
In steam age America, men, monsters, machines and magic
battle to claim the same scrap of earth and sky. In this
chaos, one man fights to hold on to his humanity--and his
honor. . . Life on the frontier is full of deceit and danger, but
bounty hunter Cedar Hunt is a man whose word is his bond.
Cursed with becoming a beast every full moon, Cedar once
believed his destiny was to be alone. But now, Cedar finds
himself saddled with a group of refugees, including the
brother he once thought lost. Keeping his companions alive is proving to be no easy task,
in part because of the promise he made to the unpredictable
Madder brothers—three miners who know the secret mechanisms
of the Strange. To fulfill his pledge, Cedar must hunt a
powerful weapon known as the Holder—a search that takes him
deep into the savage underbelly of the young country and
high into the killing glim-field skies defended by desperate
men and deadly ships. But the battles he faces are just a glimmer of a growing war
stirring the country. To keep his word Cedar must navigate
betrayal, lies, and treacherous alliances, risking
everything to save the lives of those he has come to hold
dear…
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