Mainspring [Mass Market Paperback]

Jay Lake (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 29, 2008

Jay Lake’s first trade novel is an astounding creation.  Lake has envisioned a clockwork solar system, where the planets move in a vast system of gears around the lamp of the Sun. It is a universe where the hand of the Creator is visible to anyone who simply looks up into the sky, and sees the track of the heavens, the wheels of the Moon, and the great Equatorial gears of the Earth itself.

 

Mainspring is the story of a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster will ensue if it's not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lake (Trial of Flowers) envisions the universe as an enormous clockwork, put in motion by God, complete with gears and a mainspring hidden at the Earth's center, in his intriguing first trade hardcover novel, a fantasy set in the magic-tinged late 19th century. Archangel Gabriel charges clockmaker's apprentice Hethor Jacques with a quest: he must find the lost Key Perilous so that the Mainspring of the World can be rewound. Hethor leaves New Haven, Conn., for Boston, where he boards Her Imperial Majesty's Ship of the Air Bassett and travels south to the towering Equatorial Wall, along the top of which run the great gears that rotate the earth. Hethor soon discovers opponents who don't want the mainspring rewound. He must deal with dark magicians, monstrous winged savages, mechanical men and other wonders during his epic journey, which takes him over the wall and into a land of wonders. The author of more than 200 short stories, Lake demonstrates his enormously fertile imagination in this unusual book, marred only by some sluggish pacing. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In a visibly clocklike world, a clockmaker's apprentice with an excellent ear for the meshing of time at midnight is visited by the angel Gabriel, who tells him he must seek the Key Perilous, travel to the Earth's workings, and wind the mainspring, or disaster will ensue. Hethor, the apprentice, has no idea what the Key Perilous is, so he goes to his master's son, Pryce, who ridicules him and accuses him of stealing the feather the angel left as proof of the visitation. Fortunately, the librarian Hethor meets next is more sympathetic and provides him with guidance and a pass code that serves him well in the adventures he has after Pryce's accusation gets him kicked out of town. Imprisonment, impression into the royal navy, in which he learns the art of navigating an airship, and a final plunge into and beyond the wilds of the equatorial wall on the southern continents highlight the journey, during which Hethor meets all sorts of fascinating people and members of the more mysterious races living on and over the wall. Lake's steampunk-esque alternative nineteenth century is an astonishing, marvelous place, and the quest for the world's mainspring is a fascinating fable of a young man's sudden, unexpected education out in and about the great world. Schroeder, Regina
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 358 pages
• Publisher: Tor Science Fiction; Reprint edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765356368
• ISBN-13: 978-0765356369
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #822,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His 2010 books are _Pinion_ from Tor Books, _The Baby Killers_ from PS Publishing, and _The Sky That Wraps_ from Subterranean Press. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached through his Web site at jlake.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 72 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Bait-and-switch at its best November 2, 2007

By Tom Dullemond

Format:Hardcover

I'll start it short: This is a terrible book.

The premise is excellent, as is the cover. The execution, however, is amateurish at best and laughable at worst. There were some 4 star moments, though - the journey, to be fair, proceeded as follows:

3 stars, 4 stars, 3, 4, 2, 2, 1...

The second half of this book is so unsatisfying, and the ending so trite and faux-didactic that I had trouble not throwing it across the room. As a massive sf/fantasy literary snob (China Mieville is my hero), I was actually insulted to have been conned into buying and reading this book.

The premise is classic steampunk/clockpunk - what if the solar system were a giant clockwork mechanism, and the planet was winding down and needed to be rewound? The book, however, is classic bait-and-switch. There is no steampunk here beyond the premise, and after the halfway point the book just becomes tiresome and tedious. The main character is uninteresting, his 'perils' uninspiring, and we are never concerned that he is in any danger of failure on his quest. Actions, scenes, characters and ideas are thrown around, but the author never does us the courtesy of explaining them. The message of the entire book seems to be 'trust in god' which never sits well with me anyway, but this message isn't even delivered in an interesting way. A massive, massive disappointment, and I should probably give the book away to someone I don't like.

Have I mentioned how terrible this book is? Well, let's ignore a pointless sex scene thrown in randomly later in the book to establish a growing bond between the main character and his nominal girlfriend; let's ignore the impossible nature of the equatorial gear crossing (Imagine the worst possible writing mistake about a world where the baseline earth is a giant clockwork mechanism and the concept of gears is fundamental??? Try thinking about the shape of a gear for a second, just one second, a fraction of time less than it would have taken the author to google a picture of a gear, for example...); let's ignore foolish exposition and grade school philosophy and metaphysics that makes the Matrix look like holy revelation by comparison; let's ignore long, tedious travelling scenes followed by condescendingly short and ridiculous action scenes with monsters who appear for no reason and out of nowhere... What's left to ignore?

There was a tiny fraction of potential in this novel, and it was wasted.

I think Jay Lake should go read Polystom: Two Universes in One Reality (Gollancz). That was an excellent take on a similar idea. It even had a point! This, however wasn't and hadn't.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Clever But A Little Thin August 2, 2007

By R. Albin TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This is very clever idea. What if the idea of the Universe as a clockwork mechanism was not merely a metaphor but literally true? Lake constructs a clever alternate universe based on this idea. He also inserts a clever religious theme. Unfortunately, characterization and quality of writing are not particularly good and the plot is perhaps too elaborate.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Lake Needs his Clock Cleaned March 4, 2008

By Charles Floading

Format:Hardcover

How do you ruin a great short story? Turn it into a novel. Great premise (though not entirely original) that could have really gone somewhere if it had only gotten there sooner. For an author who made his name writing short stories, he really does yammer on in this novel. And the story's mainspring winds down about halfway through.

Lake should have deleted that third quarter of this book and put his energy into crafting a better ending. It wasn't that I didn't understand the ending, it was that I thought the ending was weak and hastily written. He spent long sections dwelling on pointless environmental detail during the adventure, but at the end, he summarizes major plot points in a single sentence.

Clearly it's a fable, probably an Intelligent Design fable... but I think that's just a stylistic choice to get off the hook for the weak logic. He alternates between reveling in his world building skills and describing things in detail, as if to say, "this could really work!" But when he gets too close to serious engineering questions, he leaves that vague and uses God to explain it. That's not Steampunk as some reviewers have said, that's Faithpunk. (Incidentally, anyone who knows anything about mechanical engineering will tell you that the gear he describes for the Earth's rotation would vibrate so horribly that not only would people near it go deaf, but the whole planet would also be shaken apart.)

Jay Lake comes off as very sharp and insightful in interviews. I wonder why there wasn't more of that in this book.