I've been reading a bunch of pulp steampunk recently -- at some point I'll have to update a bunch of same-samey titles with "brass" and "steam" and "corset" in the titles -- and this stood out as not stupid. There's a lot here that's de rigueur for the genre: plucky scientist's daughter, hat pins, Dickensian moppets, dreary eye dialect, etc. But there's an alternate history here that runs deeper than the usual "justification for clockwork umbrellas" one encounters on the more romantic edge of things, and a refreshing attendance to the harsh economics/imperialism of the Victorian era.

 

I mean, sure, there's usually a gesture to how Unfair it is for the Scientist's Daughter to wear a Clockwork Corset when what she really wants to do is Direct -- though, of course, she has no idea how good she looks -- but here poor people actually starve, and the upper classes literally drink blood. Something something, vampire virus used by the aristocracy to keep themselves in power something something. So it's not particularly deep, but it was cool to see. 

Art and Myrtle Mumby live in Larklight, a house that orbits Earth beyond the moon, with their father, their mother having disappeared years earlier and thought dead in an aethership wreck, until one day, monstrous white spiders attack Larklight and send them scurrying. Can Art and Myrtle save their father, Larklight, and the entire British Empire?

First off, if I was thirteen, this would be my favorite book of all time. Larklight takes place in the 1850s, only it's an 1850's with Jules Verne-esque space travel and space is as it was thought in the Victorian era. The moon is covered with desert and giant mushrooms, Venus is a lush plant-world, and monstrous white spiders from Saturn's rings threaten to topple the British Empire of space. Interested yet?

Philip Reeve crafted one hell of an adventure tale here, fit for kids of all ages. The dry British wit kept the story going, even in the slower parts. I LOVE the world Reeve created for this book, from the pseudo-science of the aether ships to the hover hogs, pigs that thrive in zero gravity and get around by farting.

The characters are very much in the mold of those in Victorian literature: modest, prudish, and very dry. Except for Jack Havock and the space pirates, I mean. Also, Richard Burton, Warlord of Mars, is hardly prudish with his hot Martian wife.

Reeve draws from a lot of sources dear to my heart in Larklight, like Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, and many others. I'm anxious to see what he draws from the well in the next two books. It also reminded me of other books, like Celestial Matters or Beyond the Moons. Steampunk fans also won't want to pass this up.

So what didn't I like? Not a lot, really. I found some of the twists to be predictable but that's owing to the fact I'm about double (or possibly triple) the target age for this. Like I said, if I was thirteen, I'd think it was the greatest book ever written. I'm giving it a four mostly out of sheer inventiveness and enjoyment level.

It is the mid-nineteenth century, Queen Victoria is on the throne, and the British Empire stretches into the stars. With their absent-minded father for their only human company, Arthur and Myrtle live in a ramshackle house named Larklight floating in deep space. But then giant spiders invade Larklight and kidnap their father, and Art and Myrtle barely escape. They join up with a pirate crew led by the notorious Captain Jack Havock and have a number of thrilling adventures whilst evading the spiders.

I really, really wanted to like this book. The illustrations are charming, and the combination of steampunk and ya should make this book a slam-dunk. Reeve has created a universe filled with sentient storms on Saturn, a plague that turns people into trees, ships powered by alchemical weddings...It's imaginative, though a little heavy-handed. But it just didn't work for me.

The main problem I had was the characters. From the very start, Art continually jibes at his sister for being so prissy and priggish. Turns out, the author didn't like the sister much either. Myrtle is unbelievably awful, in this very specific way that only female characters are. She keeps asking Art what's going to happen next and demanding he reassure her--even though she's years older! They get rescued from certain death by pirates, and she complains that the pirate ship is dirty. She gets kidnapped by obvious villains and thinks that just because they have nice linen they must be good. Running from more certain death, she refuses to run across the villains' lawn because it has a "keep off the grass" sign. She whines constantly. She saves the day literally completely by accident. And then she and the Peter Pan-type character fall into each others' arms, for no reason I can discern.

If I hadn't been so annoyed with Myrtle, the plot would still have frustrated me. It's a series of set pieces, all culminating in a deus-ex-machina. I don't think I was worried for even a single paragraph. Disappointing!

Very fun. Humorous. Lovely. Steampunk. Good atmosphere. Great narrating voice. Recommended to all!

Benchley's small articles and essays offer an interesting look at life in the 1920's-1930's.