Monday Review: The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato and The Butterfly Mosque by G Willow Wilson
image via bethcato.com
Many have been my rants against Steampunk as a genre that tends to be more about its conventions than about the stories and characters.
And along comes The Clockwork Dagger and gives me everything I’ve wanted.
1) The title. Has nothing to do with steampunk. What? Yes. Reminded me, and I have no idea if this was the intent, of the hashashin tradition of North Africa and the Middle East. Yay for history in unexpected places (even if it’s just in my weirdo brain). And for the unexpected in a sub-genre ruled ad nauseum by convention.
2) Well developed characters with needs, desires, prejudices, secrets, strengths, and weaknesses. They are consumed neither by the magic system (which is important and present and wonderful but not THE SUM TOTAL OF ALL THAT IS RELEVANT) nor the punking of the steam (THAT WHICH IS INTEGRAL BUT NOT TO THE POINT OF SWALLOWING THE STORY WHOLE AND POOPING OUT ANOTHER AIRSHIP ADVENTURE COMPLETE WITH GOGGLES AND SURPRISE REVEAL OF GEARS IN PLACE OF VITAL ORGAN).
3) Story as central. Allow me to say that again, but “louder” and with exclamation points: THE STORY IS CENTRAL!!!!!!!!!! Cato uses both magic and Steamcraft deftly, furthering character development and advancing the plot, and lightly. At no point does either wrest the story from Octavia or Alonzo. Cato does not allow them to crush the story under the weight of their own importance. And it’s a great story. One might even call it “rollicking.” Rollicking, now with humor (which is another thing I frequently feel is missing from Steampunk).
4) No hoity-toity faux Victorian bullshit. Corsets? Yes. Buckling of swashes? Sure. Thrusting of antiquated, self-conscious, self-aggrandizing language into my eye-holes to the point of face-book and snoring? No! There is none of that nonsense. The Clockwork Dagger is well written. Very well written. It blends a strong, third person, formal-ish narrative voice with dialogue written in more colloquial style. Imagine that. People talking the way people talk.
This IS the Steampunk novel you’ve been looking for. Okay, fine, it’s the one I’ve been looking for but huzzah! I found it. Can’t wait for the next installment.
Five full fingers on the Hand of Glory. And as ya’ll know, I don’t give up that last knuckle easily.
Not only did I step out of genre, I willingly leapt out of fiction altogether. Which I do maybe once a year, if that.
G Willow Wilson is a journalist and author of a wonderful graphic novel called Cairo (and other graphic novels I have not yet read). She is also the current writer on Ms. Marvel, aka: Kamala Kahn, a wonderfully awkward, confused, brave, realistic Muslim-American teenager. If you’re not reading the book, you should be. Especially the last couple of issues, which featured Wolverine and were absolutely hilarious and, just in advance of the final issue of Death of Wolverine, poignant and lovely.
I don’t want to go in to too much detail on Wilson’s memoir in a review: the story is hers to tell and she does it so much more beautifully than I could ever manage to barf up a summary. Short version: Wilson is an extraordinary woman who has done extraordinary things simply by refusing to relinquish her convictions, even in the face of the ignorance, rage, and foolishness of others.
Yes, there are some choppy bits. Some bits that don’t make sense or jump oddly in time or are just plain random or hang out waiting for clarification that never comes. But it’s a memoir. You know. Memory. Which is rarely cohesive or linear or thorough. With The Butterfly Mosque, Wilson has given the reader a very precious gift: an extended glimpse into the extraordinary experiences that shaped her into who she is at her very core. An extremely brave thing to do in any life, but especially in this case, where I imagine many, many people will not understand, or even make an effort to accept, Wilson’s choices.
Another five fingers. I’m running out of hands.
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