Customer Reviews

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dark and tense and powerful. One of very few contemporary novels that didn't have any missteps for me. Every plot point and characterization felt inevitable and right.

The writing is gorgeous--lyrical and dramatic without being overwrought. Every so often there is a phrase that makes you feel like you've just been punched...in a good way. The characters are compelling, tough, and vividly drawn.

If you think you might like this, you probably will. But I'd also recommend this to people who aren't particularly interested in steampunk, or fantasy, or circuses, or post-apocalyptic fiction, so long as you really like elegant prose and are willing to try something different.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I'll admit it, I bought Mechanique because the cover and the title intrigued me and I had a 30% off coupon for Borders (Sorry Amazon). After getting it home I assumed, after briefly skimming the synopsis on the back cover, that Mechanique was going to be a steampunk novel about a travelling circus. Boy was I wrong! I guess I should have read the synopsis a bit closer. I started the book at 530pm, after I got home from work. I had assumed that it would be easy to put it down to make dinner and go to bed early since I had to be up early the next day. No. Everyone has been told by a teacher at some point in their life to never assume. This is what that teacher was taking about. I ended up ordering pizza for dinner and staying up until after midnight because I could not put this book down.
This story about a dystopian world in which magic and the mechanical seem to coexist fascinated me. At first Valentine's writing grated on my nerves. The tenses were constantly changing and every page had approximately three parenthetical statements. However after the first few chapters I realized that it seemed as if these "flaws" were intended to throw the reader for a loop, quite like a real circus. Valentine is a ringleader and this novel is her circus.
Don't make the mistake of believing this to be a steampunk novel about a circus. It's so much more. Trying to stay away from spoilers I believe I can say that Boss fixes people that are broken. She changes them into something else, something more or less than human. In a world surrounded by war she creates her own community, her own army, of misfits. Her characters become real people that I felt for. Valentine has created a world that sucks you in and refuses to let you go.

If you like this book you may want to read:
Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt (ISBN: 978-0061054273)
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (ISBN: 978-1597801584)
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt (ISBN: 978-0765360229)

In a post-apocalyptic landscape a circus wanders around the waste from small enclave of life to the next in a never ending journey to entrance audiences with their wonders and grotesqueries. They may only visit a town once in a lifetime, if you're lucky, so get in while you can. Just don't tag along unless you have a strong heart unless you don't have a problem with it being replaced with scrap metal.

Last year Paul Jessup wrote an article that served as almost a call to action on what he was hoping for out of Steampunk in the future. A Steampunk novel that wasn't just Victorian. That wasn't just all about cogs and steam. That wasn't about colonialism and white people. Well the answer to his mandate has been answered by Valentine with a very dark and melodic first novel that consists of an unforgettable story that stays with you long after you finish the last page. Mechanique will haunt your dreams.

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is a novel of disparities. Disparities of time, love, and of what life is and should be. Even of what life could be, but probably shouldn't be.

Life in any circus can be hard. Hard for all the traveling, setup, and performing. But the Tresaulti circus is an entirely different beast. Like none you've seen before. It is filled with moody characters desiring what someone else has even if that something is another person or a part of a person. Somehow Valentine makes a group of mostly unlikable characters into a family. A family you end up caring quite a bit about. I was surprised how much I came to care for each and every one of them. Even those I loathed and couldn't entirely comprehend.

The pacing and style take quite a few chapters to get a handle on, but all the hard work pays off in this slim volume that is heavy with meaning. We flip back and forth through time seemingly at random that starts with the mention of the death of a character who we only relive through the memories of others. Each chapter acts almost as a standalone short story as Valentine has gone with her strengths of less is more. Each and every word is important and has reverberations throughout the narrative as the characters search for what comes next.

The Steampunk aspects appear more magical than mechanical, but each and every touch is done thoughtfully and with verve. Sure there are people with mechanical arms and wings, but this story is so much more than Steampunk. Mechanique actually has more in common with New Weird given its horror influences. Fans of early Mieville and VanderMeer will fall in love.

Mechanique is best experienced for yourself rather than reading an analysis. All those that like challenging reads should give this a chance and even a few of you who don't. On it surface you can simply enjoy it for the circus motifs and post-apocalyptic side. For you Steampunk fans this is one of the most original novels you'll ever find around the genre. For those that go deeper you'll be richly rewarded. I can't wait to see what Valentine has in store for us next. She is a voice to watch.

There is a unique condition you have to agree to before you can join this circus; you have to die first...

The author weaves a tale from the past into a circus in the present time and it's a complex tale with many characters, all of whom have an important part to play in this story.

The history of the circus is interesting, and most characters joined up to have a sense of family, a place to belong and enough to eat. They all seem to have a past with mental and emotional wounds that haven't healed. No one is very outspoken about feelings in the book, but you, as a reader, get interested in them and care about them, just like the boss does.

Ms. Valentine does a very good job of creating a dystopian future where things aren't always what they seem. She creates conflict both internally and externally for the circus and its members. When the Boss and Bird are taken away by soldiers and the Prime Minister, young George is forced into a position of leadership he's not ready for yet.

As the circus members nervously decide what action to take, you can feel the tension between the two factions and the uncertainty of what to do and how to do it. Their fears and disappointments are expressed very well. This author makes her characters live.

The story has a good flow to it, is an enjoyable tale, and while it's fantasy, you want to believe every word. What a magical circus world! There is also a potential for a sequel to this story and I hope the author does write one. I want to know what happened to Bird... see, I told you you'd care about the characters!

Originally posted at The Long and Short of It Romance Reviews

i would actually rate this about 4.5 out of 5.

like other reviewers, i see this book's shortcomings. i agree that the digressions can be a bit much when you first start reading, and the change of voice was also distracting at times.

that said, it has been at least 2 or 3 years since i really enjoyed a book this much, since i really had that wonderful experience readers look for of getting lost in another world. i thought it was surreal, compelling, and magical. i picked it up due to the eye-catching cover, and managed to read at least a third of it in the store. every page i flipped to was worth looking at. when i got home and borrowed my mom's kindle to read it, i was impressed that my attention never wavered even through the bits i had already read. i found myself reading slowly, wanting to catch every word, as one listens to a well-told story while sitting at a fire.

what most impressed me was that so many characters are introduced, but i never felt that i got either too much or not enough information about them. as in real life, you come to know people in an organic way; you don't know everything about them, but you get a sense of them and you can speculate a bit. they were not flat nor was i bored with tons of back story.

i loved that so much of the characters' natures and their relationships to one another were revealed through their acts and their habits of movement. that is something you would expect in a beautifully made film, not in a short novel. as another reviewer pointed out, the author has done an amazing job of creating visuals for us, while her tone remains conversational, direct and spare. i found myself wondering how well it would translate into a graphic novel, for example. additionally, the few drawings included were perfect and evocative.

while i also think the "flaws" may have been an intentional style choice, i can still imagine how much better this book might have been if the author had written it a few years down the road, after she becomes more comfortable with the novel format.

regardless, i cannot recommend this story enough, either to fans of sf/fantasy, or even those who are simply open to a story that is not quite typical fare.

I have to start by saying I haven't been this engrossed in a novel since the Thirteenth Tale. It might seem jarring to compare Mechanique to the previous title, but I think anyone whose read both will see what I mean.
Second, this is the best Steampunk novel I have ever read. Period. Hopefully it is only the first of many from this promising new writer.

This is a novel of soaring beauty marred by sloppy mechanics. My 9th grade English teacher once told me that the use of parenthesis was distracting to readers...I wish Ms. Valentine had an editor who gave her the same advice. It seems as if every third paragraph had a parenthetical statement that was unnecessary either in content or in its use of paranthesis.

There was also an annoying tendency to switch tenses, perspectives, and an over reliance on the passive voice. Had an editor worked more closely with the author, this book would have been flawless.

Ms. Valentine's originality and content were sparkling. Her characters all seemed to have dimension, and her plot moved at a sure and steady pace. There were moments in this book, especially when describing the circus, that the imagery was so intense that I found myself in a dreamlike state.

Her prose as a thing of pure beauty.

Perhaps it was these highs that made the nit-picky lows stand out. But stand out they did and, in my opinion, dropped a 5 star book to a 3.5. But please buy it and find out for yourself. It is definitely worth the price of admission.

This is, quite simply, the best book I've read in a very long time. I honestly didn't know what to expect when I picked it up, responding more to cover art than anything else, but wow, this was a shockingly wonderful surprise.

This isn't a quick, easy read, and I mean that in the best possible way. The author uses this dark, brutal novel as an exercise in storytelling, narrative tropes, and reader involvement. Section to section, this story is told from every conceivable point of view, including first person, several instances of third person limited, and most surprising of all, second person. They all interlace to give the reader a well-rounded experience while he or she picks up clues and details and subtle nuances to compose a full picture of what really happened and why. In a weird way, it almost felt like Lost at times, where the author would tell me something, then later on, I'd get the same event from a different perspective which would shed an entirely new light on what happened. I felt like a collector of brutal details and nuanced reveals as I read this book, desperate for every single tidbit. I read this book very slowly and even before I had finished it the first time, I wanted to read it again. It's the kind of book that you could read 5 times and pick up something new with every read.

Best of all, in conjunction with Valentine's unconventional narrative approach, her language is completely engrossing. Her words wash over you before you can fully comprehend their full impact. I got so immersed that when a line would come along that cut to the bone, it felt like I had to come up for air for a moment and really process what she'd said. I read somewhere that this book is like a punch in the gut, but in a good way. I couldn't agree more. Each line is powerful and incisive without being overwrought or forced. Valentine doesn't foist some florid picture on readers using $10 words just because she can. She simply states things exactly the way they are, in the most searing and powerful way possible.

By the end of the book I was completely invested in every single character, even ones that I didn't think would factor into the story in a substantive way when I started. These aren't simple characters with simple motives. Valentine doesn't spoonfeed their agendas or thought processes. Even when you think you know why they are doing what they're doing, the truth is layered and murky in a way that keeps you on your toes, parsing each and every line for illuminating subtext. It's strange, all the while you're unsure of their motivations, all their actions make perfect sense in their own twisted way.

There are a million things I could say about this book, but to put it mildly, I'm in love. I don't think this is the kind of book everyone will enjoy, but I think if this is the kind of book you respond to, you'll REALLY respond to it. As a final sidenote, I have to point out that the representations of women in the novel are compelling and dark and strong. I am keenly attuned to representations of women in fiction and this is one of the few cases in which I was not only pleased, but thrilled. The women in this novel aren't perfect or impervious by any stretch, but they have enough layers that their flaws seem like far more than narrative ploys.

I don't often review books on Amazon, but I couldn't help but to write a love letter to Genevieve Valentine and her wonderful tale. I like a book that challenges me and this was a challenge in the most satisfying way possible. Kudos!

It took me awhile to decide whether I liked this book or not. I liked the world that was created, and I liked the characters. But the style of writing was very chaotic. You had chapters with alternating POV. You had one character's in first person. You had dozens of others in 3rd, and sometimes you weren't sure who was talking. The are also more flashbacks, including short trips back in time to tell a scene from another perspective until there's nothing left to your imagination, than in all six seasons of Highlander.

But as chaotic as the pacing and style was, I still wanted to know why. I had to know what kept the circus going. I had to know about the Wings. I had to know what would happen to these characters.

About 60% of the way through, I realized that I liked this book.

I ordered the Kindle edition of this book, though I read it on my laptop, not on a Kindle. Since many readers have reported problems with Kindle editions of books, I feel the need to report that I thought this was a fine edition - no missing pages, all the content there, not buggy, etc. So, just for the record.

Now to the story. This is a great story. Other reviewers have said things like "the prose sparkles" (it does) and "the characters are three dimensional to the point that they leap off the page" (they do). It's a fantastic world she's created, and as a person who really enjoys gritty pseudo fantasy/scifi settings, this one is top-notch. I personally also really enjoy carnival and circus atmospheres, so this is great.

Valentine also plays with the theme of circus life and performance having a magical or shamanic element to it. Death and rebirth, and a power tying all of the circus performers inexorably together are major themes. As a student of anthropology, I ate it up.

I also like that she doesn't reveal too much about this world or the characters. The characters have all taken new names, and "what their names were before isn't important". The ringleader of the circus is simply Boss, for example, and the relationships between the characters are very skillfully and subtly defined. Well done.

However, this good point is also an aspect of the book that I find a little annoying. A little. It takes a very long time for what is actually happening to come into the open, and there are lots of interruptions along the way to flash back and reveal something about a character's past or something. Stylistically this is fine and interesting, but at times it made me frustrated to just figure out what the heck was happening already! Still, those moments were few and far between, and I got through them easily enough.

Also, there are (I think) two voices, and at times I have trouble telling them apart. One seems to be a nameless narrator, and the other one of the named characters, but there is no real difference in the cadence of their voices, so sometimes that's just a bit jarring. Still, I enjoyed the voice very much, and perhaps it is indeed meant to be the same voice anyway.

One reviewer commented that they found her prose style a little complicated - heavy use of parentheses, for example. This doesn't particularly bother me. I suppose I could see how it might bother someone, but I think it's done to create an effect, and well done at that.

So, all in all, 4 stars.