Soulless by Gail Carriger, narrated by Emily Gray

Rating

* * *

The book's description from the publisher's website:

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

SOULLESS is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

This book was fun. Pure entertainment to while away boring and/or dull hours we all have here and there.

I'll admit I have some mixed reactions to it and I was having a hard time deciding how to rate this novel. Some things just don't make sense. For example, Alexia's soullessness. It does give her that one supernatural (or rather, preternatural) power of taking away other supernaturals' powers by a single touch (sadly, no shape shifting or immortality involved) which is an interesting introduction to the paranormal genre. However, character-wise, Alexia couldn't be farther away from my idea of a soulless person (a psychopath comes to mind). I understand that to match the light and amusing tone of Soulless, Ms. Carriger couldn't make Alexia a completely evil woman, with no moral compass. But not a single, teeny tiny sinister trait? That's a little bit of a letdown. Sure, Ms. Tarabotti is stubborn, with an independent and untamed spirit, and with an alpha (of course, duh!!!) personality, but it is kind of mundane, if you ask me. For that alone, I wanted to give Soulless two stars.

On the other hand, I truly enjoyed the light tone of the whole story. I liked the humor, I liked Alexia's and Lord Maccon's 'dance' around admitting their feelings and desire for each other (don't worry, I'm not really spoiling anything, as it's obvious from the beginning where their relationship is going). I also had fun with other characters, especially with Ms. Tarabotti's mother and half-sisters. You put them all in one room and you truly have a comedy of manners. Consequently, I did chuckle a few times and smiled almost all the time, while listening to Soulless. And the writing itself wasn't half bad either. It had a kind of a spring-in-its-step quality. For these reasons, I was ready to bump the rating up to four.

In the end, after hoping that Alexia would suddenly do something deliciously evil and not getting it, I got stuck in the middle. I did like it enough to not consider it a waste of time but not enough, I'm afraid, to read the rest of Parasol Protectorate books (well, maybe if I find them during one of my frequent library sales excursions).

P.S.

The label attached to this book the most is 'steampunk'. Personally, I didn't notice many steampunk elements in Soulless. There was maybe one appearance of a dirigible delivering the queen of vampires' drone to Alexia. Not much that I can think of besides. Maybe because it's set in an alternate Victorian England? Definitely more fantasy than science-fiction, with werewolves and vampires taking the center stage.

Narration

I chose the audible version of Soulless and I'm glad of it. The narrator, Emily Gray, does a fantastic job conveying the sarcastic spark in Alexia and an overall humor of the story. She switches between characters and accents seamlessly. I never was confused as to which character was talking. Above all, Ms. Gray has a pleasant voice, breathes life into the novel and makes the listening experience worthwhile.

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FTC: I bought a copy of Soulless by Gail Carriger.

The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma, translated by Nick Caistor

Rating:

*****


The book's description from the publisher:

Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time boasts a triple-play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and thereby save the lives of an aristocrat in love with a murdered prostitute from the past; of a woman bent on fleeing the strictures of Victorian society; and of his very own wife, who may have become a pawn in a 4th-dimensional plot to murder the authors of Dracula, The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, in order to alter their identities and steal their fictional creations.

But, what happens if we change history? Félix J. Palma raises such questions in The Map of Time. Mingling fictional characters with real ones, Palma weaves a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting, a story full of love and adventure that also pays homage to the roots of science fiction while transporting its readers to a fascinating Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.

The Map of Time is my first adventure with steampunk and it also convinced me to allow this genre more of my attention and maybe even to make it one of my favorite novel categories. However, this is a novel that must not be limited to steampunk. If you're a fan of alternate history (otherwise known as alternate universe), if you like literary fiction or like reading books set in Victorian England, I invite you to try The Map of Time. Felix J. Palma really had a great idea and followed up on it with fantastic writing (as opposed to some authors who despite having interesting ideas, can't quite put them on paper to create a successful novel).

I've read in some other reviews that readers didn't appreciate the three different plots which read more like separate novels rather than one, cohesive book but I suppose that's just a matter of personal taste. I like such a style if it's done well (which it is, in The Map of Time) and they all do come together at the finish line, so they're not really separate stories when they all play a role in creating one ending. And it's really written so well that there wasn't a minute of annoying confusion as to who did what or why.

I underlined the 'annoying' because (here comes the best part of Mr. Palma's time-travel, science-fiction work) the author managed to really play with my head. There was a point at which I really couldn't tell what was real and what was imagined, trying to guess in error where the reality ended and fantasy began. This wonderful 'guessing game' that Felix J. Palma served the readers, combined with intelligent, at times very lyrical writing, made it a true pleasure to immerse myself in The Map of Time.

P.S.
Do not let the size of the novel discourage you. It might just be my personal preference since I do like long books but I really didn't think that even one paragraph was unnecessary. I like reading books to enter a different world and to lose myself in it and for that, it has to be a book with some 'meat' on it. Anything shorter and it seems to me that the story ends before it begun true and proper.

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A note on the translator, Nick Caistor. He did a wonderful job of turning Palma's words into English. Nothing is 'lost in translation', I don't think a reader could even tell that The Map of Time was a novel originally written in Spanish. The 'soul' of the book is there and that's what the best translators do.

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FTC: I received an ARC of The Map of Time from Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for a review.

Best news of the day: there's part two of The Victorian Trilogy (which began with The Map of Time), The Map of the Sky, coming out in September, 2012.

Links to visit: 

1) Felix J. Palma's website.

2) The Map of Time website. This one is a must if want to get a feel of the novel before committing yourself to reading it.

Heart of Perdition by Selah March

Rating:

***

The book's description from the publisher:

As the nineteenth century draws to a close, James Weston, Earl of Falmouth, is dying along with it. Despite living in an age of airships and automatons, even London's finest physicians cannot cure the young man's ailing heart. His last hope lies in retrieving a powerful artifact from the remote island home of an eccentric scientist's daughter.

Elspeth Shaw prefers her solitary life to the tragic results that come from mixing in society. Elspeth is cursed: every mortal being who forms an attachment to her dies a horrible death. Yet when the doomed Lord Falmouth arrives in search of the very artifact that blights her, she hasn't the will to refuse. But the price for cheating death may be more than any human can pay...

Despite my slight misgivings about Heart of Perdition being a novella (which I didn't know at the time of requesting this title), I was surprised to actually like this story. Thankfully, there aren't many characters introduced in here and therefore, it's easier to for a reader to fully acquaint her/himself with the ones that are. Also there is only one plotline, which works nicely in the format Ms. March chose to write her first piece. Since I'm not an expert on novellas and short fiction, I can't fully judge how well or not was Heart of Perdition written to fit this format. From a personal standpoint, it worked for me to like it but it's also the reason why I gave it three stars, instead of four. I prefer to read rather longish novels in which I can truly lose myself for days on end and it wasn't really possible with this story where things ended before they truly even begun. Not that there wasn't any action happening.

Heart of Perdition is a combination of genres: steampunk, romance and horror. I enjoyed it the most of all the sides to this novella. Steampunk is a fairly new genre for me but I appreciated how it made the background of the world James and Elspeth lived in that much more fun. I suppose it's given an old Gothic tale a new twist. Heart of Perdition did seem to me to be an atmospheric, strange tale reminiscent of the Gothic tradition and especially of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And before anyone cries 'foul!', I am in no way comparing the two or putting them in the same category. I'm merely saying that Ms. March's debut has some elements (including the effects of the artifact) that can be traced back to the Oscar Wilde's classic.

If you're up for some fun read that's quick, with a dose of chill and a pinch of romance, I think Heart of Perdition is something you should look into. It's not badly written at all and the tale doesn't end here either because the author is already working on part two. As a matter of fact, the story is intriguing enough and the writing is promising enough for me, that I wish it were a full length novel and I hope that Selah March will one day make a transition into the novel category. 

FTC: I received this ebook galley from the publisher, Carina Press via NetGalley.