Magnificent Devices: Books 1-4 Quartet: Four steampunk adventure novels in one set (Magnificent Devices box set)
This four-book set contains the “Claire Quartet”—Lady of Devices, Her Own Devices, Magnificent Devices, and Brilliant Devices, an edition of over 250,000 words.
London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world.
At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head …
A South Bank gang—Snouts, Tigg, Jake, 10-year-old twin girls called the Mopsies, Weepin’ Willie, and Rosie the chicken—soon becomes Claire’s flock. But concealing her secret life becomes increasingly difficult, particularly when a powerful lord proposes and she and her friends are forced to flee on an airship to the American Territories. Will she achieve her goal of a university degree? Will her loyalty to her friends be her undoing when it jeopardizes the plans of powerful men who desire money more than honor? And just how many funerals will her unfortunate mother be forced to arrange?
“An immensely fun series with some excellent anti-sexist messages, a wonderful main character (one of my favourites in the genre) and a great sense of Victorian style and language that’s both fun and beautiful to read.”
—Fangs for the Fantasy: The latest in urban fantasy from a social justice perspective
very enjoyable,
I have a few quibbles – but they are very minor (evil characters were either one dimensional, or had so little airtime that I hadn’t a clue as to their motivation, all the women seemed to develop identically – starting very ordinarily, then developing, under stress, into cute-tough-cookies-with-hearts-of-gold. Also, the technical side of steampunk engineering was glossed over in a way that disappointed).
So what did I like? Most of it, actually. There was a lot of dry, understated humour that made me snort with delight. Rosie the chicken was wonderful without ever being cutsie, or anthropomorphed into a cartoon. Costume, corsets and cumbersome dresses were dealt with brilliantly. The vocabulary was largely authentic and unfailingly entertaining. I only spotted a couple of Tomayto/Tomahto issues, which is amazing for a US author trying to create a 19th C UK world (the glitches mainly involved biscuits).
There was something Georgette Heyer-esque (and this, from me, is a great compliment) about the series, which probably comes from that wonderful, kind, acute humour.
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|Good background and storyline but characters behaved out of character,
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|Fun Steampunk Entertainment,
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