Monday, February 4, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Wonder Engine by T Kingfisher



The Wonder Engine is the second half of T Kingfisher's (the pen name for author Ursula Vernon's non-children fic) Clocktaur War duology, which began with "The Clockwork Boys" (Review Here).  I enjoyed The Clockwork Boys a bit, but complained in that review that the book wasn't satisfying on its own - that it felt too much like the first half of a more complete story, which was a bit frustrating considering its short length.  I enjoyed it quite a bit in parts, but it just wasn't enough for me.  So this book had additional pressure for me as a reviewer, as it had to not only be satisfying on its own but be satisfying enough to justify my read of its predecessor.

And it does, oh it does in spades.  The characters in this book remain tremendous and only grow more so, the dialogue contains numerous gems, and the plot goes in directions that are sometimes predictable and sometimes not but always make sense, and the whole thing wraps up in an enormously satisfying package.  I still wish that the two books were united as one (they'd be ~500 pages, which would be shorter than a recent book I finished by 200 pages!), but The Wonder Engine is satisfying both as a conclusion to the overall story and its own book, which is a damn good achievement (Not that I would recommend starting here).


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
When mysterious inhuman monsters made partially of Clockwork - and hence named "Clockwork Boys" - came from Anuket City and started destroying the forces of the Dowager's City, the military sent a team of specialists to find out where the Clockwork Boys were coming from and how to stop them.

They all died.

So a second team was sent, this one with the research notes of a scholar which could help unravel the mystery.

They also died, and the notes were lost.

So the Dowager's City turned to its last resort, a band of criminals and a sheltered scholar, with the criminals controlled by a magical tattoo that will eat them if they abandon their mission.  After a crazy journey, in which the group managed to recover the research notes, deal with a powerful demon, encountered a spreading plague, and dealt with oh so damn much sexual tension, the team has actually now managed to get to Anuket City.

Now, the team:
Slate: the Leader, Thief and Master Forger, who used to reside in Anuket City;
Caliban: Disgraced Paladin with a dead demon in his head;
Brenner: Scoundrel and Asassin;
Learned Edmund: Woman-phobic Scholar with possibly helpful knowledge of artifacts

as well as the mysterious non-human Gnole, Grimehug, a creature helpful for the moment but with his own agenda, must actually figure out where the Clockwork Boys come from, how to stop them, and to kill the ones responsible.  Their only lead is the found notebook, but the scholar might not have been entirely sane.  And to top it all off, Slate has a price on her head in Anuket City, a price her former underworld contacts would surely love to cash-in on.  Yeah, they're probably all screwed.
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In all three of Vernon/Kingfisher's books I've now completed, she remains an absolute master at dialogue, character-work, and imaginative settings/worlds, and with The Wonder Engine she combines all three into a pretty amazing package. Each of the five main characters, particularly the two leads Slate and Caliban (from whose POVs the story is told), has some pretty great character moments and development.  And again the dialogue is just absolutely wonderful, with so many damn quotable moments throughout.

A large part of the book is of course the ongoing love story/sexual tension between Caliban and Slate (with Brenner as a potential third wheel).  And despite the fact that the two should seemingly have nothing in common beside a mutual attraction (despite Caliban's insistence to himself that Slate isn't really that beautiful), this somehow works really damn well.  It helps that both characters are just so damn likable - Slate as the witty and independent rogue trying to lead the party despite her own fears of the ones out to get her and Caliban, the former paladin who is still struggling with his disgrace and who knows he always puts his own foot in his mouth.

And even the other characters not involved in the love story are - as I mentioned before - fantastic and have their own arcs.  Learned Edmund's breakthrough from his old sheltered misogynistic world view is surprisingly painless and well written, making me care about a character who was clearly an ass to start.  Brenner the assassin is pretty hilarious throughout in his dialogue and interactions with the rest of the team, and actually has a surprising arc to go through the end.

And then there is Grimehug and the Gnolls.  The only major character added from the first book (Grimehug showed up near the end of that book), Grimehug looks at first like he's going to be the type of primitive non-human race you see in classic fantasy novels who helps the heroes, but the book subverts this so damn much - really it's the humans who are primitive compared to the far more accepting, gender non-conforming, and far far more perceptive Gnolls, especially Grimehug.  I know there's already one more book in this universe with more potentially planned, and I really hope to see a lot more of the gnolls in the future, perhaps in a starring role.

I suppose I should actually review the plot as well here, which works well enough.  This isn't quite the most imaginative thing Vernon/Kingfisher has ever written, but it's got plenty of quirky interesting things in its world and plot that make even the most predictable part of the plot - gee, is Slate going to run into the elements of the criminal underworld she once fled from (Yup) - work rather well.  But the plot does go in some directions that I would never have foreseen, but which have been set up rather well so they feel totally earned.  And the ending works in the end to be a satisfying conclusion to everything, unlike the first book.

In short, The Wonder Engine is well worth your time, and makes this whole duology worth your time.  Just a lot of fun, despite being a dark-ish fantasy story involving death, plagues, and a bunch of really screwball people on a suicide mission.  Recommended.
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