Another author with K as the second initial. But I liked this one better!
I read the Kindle edition.
Schephs: ********– 8 out of 10
Synopsis excerpt from Publishers Weekly via Amazon.com:
Young country witch Emily Edwards battles a horde of zombies and winds up with a mysterious magical stone embedded in her hand. Escorted by the academically-trained warlock Dreadnought Stanton…Emily reluctantly sets out to meet with warlocks from the Mirabilis Institute in hopes of getting the stone removed…. Clever techno-magical artifacts with steampunk flair, evil Aberrancies, and a unique tripartite magical system provide a colorful backdrop to the politics of the warlocks, the secrets of the stone, and the mystery of Emily’s past.
I freely admit that I’m feeling very lazy and not much for writing my own synopsis (which is generally what I try to do. Generally. Try. /cough Anyway).
It bears repeating: classic elements of steampunk (e.g., Victoriana, romance, machines, etc.) don’t generally fit my tastes. This book, however, suited me very well. Emily is a fantastic protagonist: relatable yet different, with a sharp personality that makes her interesting but not unbearable. I also enjoyed Dreadnought Stanton, insufferable know-it-all that he is. I actually thought this particular trait of his personality was an effective way of exposing the differences between Hobson’s alternaparallel historical world and our own. He’s a well-written character, so even though this may sound clunky it fits really well.
The world itself was peppered with many interesting yet fitting differences from our own, and included popular elements in new and sometimes funny ways. For example, there are zombies; they are employed as miners and controlled via a magical machine called a Corpse Switch. There’s also teleportation via a portal door that includes a piece of wood imbued with a portion of the spirit of a German Warlock who was trying to invent teleportation and accidentally got his spirit trapped in a piece of timber. (Deep breath.) I could list a few other things because I remember it all so vividly; if only real-world history lessons had struck me as this interesting back in high school!
As for the plot, it’s well-paced and kept me wondering what would happen next. However, the characters were engaging enough that despite the seemingly-predictable and straightforward beginning, I wanted to keep reading. Unfortunately the plot did drag somewhat in the middle; it felt as though random difficulties were added to delay the characters’ ultimate goal just to make the story longer. The last third was spectacular, though: exciting, fast-paced, and appropriately dramatic.
Something else I really loved about this story was that even though there’s going to be a sequel (releasing April 2011), this story had a definite and satisfying ending (the characters’ stories, however, need more time). Of course some elements went unaddressed, but based on the epilogue the next book should cover all of these, and I well and truly look forward to book two.
Molly K.B. Hunt 