Review: The Iron Wyrm Affair

The Iron Wyrm Affair
Bannon & Clare, Book 1

Author: Lilith Saintcrow
Pages: 303
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

Description from Goodreads:
Emma Bannon, forensic sorceress in the service of the Empire, has a mission: to protect Archibald Clare, a failed, unregistered mentath. His skills of deduction are legendary, and her own sorcery is not inconsiderable. It doesn't help much that they barely tolerate each other, or that Bannon's Shield, Mikal, might just be a traitor himself. Or that the conspiracy killing registered mentaths and sorcerers alike will just as likely kill them as seduce them into treachery toward their Queen.

In an alternate London where illogical magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head, Bannon and Clare now face hostility, treason, cannon fire, black sorcery, and the problem of reliably finding hansom cabs.

The game is afoot...

First Sentence: "When the young dark-haired woman stepped into his parlour, Archibald Clare was only mildly intrigued."

Review:
Dudes, I was SO excited about this. I mean, look at that cover! Steampunk awesomeness surely awaits within, right? Well, sort of, depending on what you're looking for, but not so much for me. I, sadly, spent most of the book bored, though occasionally hopeful after a promising bit. All of that promise didn't ever turn into anything more concrete.

Let's start with the pleasant aspects, shall we? Saintcrow's steampunk world building is intense. She has created an alternate universe that just brims with detail and is one large step over from the Victorian world we knew. Names have been tweaked slightly: London is Londinium, The Thames is The Themis, etc. Mechanical creatures abound to satisfy steampunk fans. With the increased popularity of steampunk, a couple clockwork creatures are enough to earn the label now, but this one really merits it.

Bannon & Clare show a lot of promise as a lead duo. Emma Bannon is the kind of powerful woman that thrives in steampunk, one of the reasons I love the genre; women always seem to be more powerful and better in a crisis in steampunk novels. Emma has insane amounts of power, one of the highest order of sorcerers, a Prime. She gets to use her magic a lot, but, honestly, her magic was a bit odd to me.

Clare, on the other hand, has mind-based power. He is a mentath, which I need to discuss in more detail, as it was my favorite bit of worldbuilding. Mentaths are, essentially, Vulcans: "Mentaths did not feel as others did; logic was the pleasure they moved towards, and irrationality or illogic the pain they retreated from. Emotions were to be subdued, harnessed, accounted for and set on the shelf of deduction." Without problems to solve, deductions to make, mentaths literally go insane. A life of mental stagnation kills them. As such, Clare quite enjoys even the worst bits of this adventure, because it gives him so much to ponder.

In the few scenes where Bannon and Clare are actually together, they have a nice back and forth. They respect one another's abilities, while also making their own little judgments. Their relationship thus far has also been free of any romance, and I hope it stays that way. There have been some hints on Clare's part that they might end up together, but I think that would weaken things. Plus, Mikal and Bannon have some great chemistry, when they're allowed time together.

The problem lies in the fact that, despite having these great characters, she doesn't make full use of them. Interaction is kept to a minimum. More dialogue and character development would have worked wonders. Unfortunately, Saintcrow cared much more about building up her steampunk world and so the reader is instead bombarded with description after description.

While I love me some complex writing and am used to world building set up from epic fantasy, I just could not deal with Saintcrow's style in this book. Her descriptive paragraphs constantly threw me out of the text. I couldn't ever get into the novel. I'm not sure if her descriptions were clunky or what. I kept finding myself skimming them inadvertently and fighting battles with my eyelids. So many descriptions and yet I still have so little mental picture of what happened. Also, I know German and some of the German in here is wrong.


This was my first experience with Lilith Saintcrow, so it's hard for me to say whether this is her typical style. I suspect this writing may work better for others, but did not resonate with me at all. The most important aspect of a book for me is characterization, so I could not enjoy this one, despite Saintcrow's world building efforts.

Rating: 2.5/5

Favorite Quote:

"'You are likely to have some entertainment planned for the evening.'
   'If by entertainment you mean conspiracy-hunting and unpleasantness, as a matter of fact, yes.'"