Customer Reviews

Steamed: A Steampunk Romance (Paranormal Romance (Signet))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

First, I should say that I am probably not the target audience for this book. I'm a male and I mainly read science-fiction and urban fantasy. That said, if I think I will like the underlying story, I am willing to meet a romance half-way. I don't mind if I know on page two who is going to end up with who and if there's more obsessing than I care for over "the relationship", well I understand that comes with the territory -- the trip through the territory is the thing. In movie terms, I am quite prepared to like a clever, funny, romance adventure like "Romancing The Stone".

I ordered this book because I like pulp adventure and the whole steampunk concept so the idea of a spunky airship captain falling for a traveller from our world in a light-hearted adventure sounded promising. In the actual execution... not so much.

SURELY SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW

First, all of the characters aside from the two leads are one trait exemplified. This one is salty. That one is a comic-opera latin. The other is mysterious. The hero's sister is a plot-mover only.

Second, the two leads are not much better. Jack is a horny, two fisted, Quaker scientist. Octavia is a horny airship captain and revolutionary. Is Jack morose about being stranded in a strange world, does he think about parents left behind, pets going unfed, *anything* about his old life? No, he's in wuv. Does Octavia worry at all about winning the loyalty of her new crew, of taking her responsibilities seriously? Is she anything more than mildly annoyed at losing the ship she worked her whole life to win? Nope, she's in wuv too. With Jack's sister's life on the line will the couple resist the temptation to have a wildly inapprropriate and mistimed sex session in the secret passage of the castle? Nope, they're in wuv.

Third, the political situation that forms the whole background for the "plot" is very thin. So there's an Anglo Prussian empire. Well, OK, I guess, but why is Octavia plotting with the Black Hand to bring it down? We see that war refugees live a difficult existence, but as far as we can tell from what we see of the rest of the empire and its citizens, it seems reasonably nice. We even meet the emperor and he's not a bad sort, if a bit overfond of hangings. There's some hint that the Black Hand is working for Prussian independance, but we never hear what the grievances are or why Octavia throws her lot in with them. Then there are the Moguhls running around without any logistical support, trying to do, um, something.

Fourth, the ending is very odd. Yes, I see the setup for future books, but the decision to become non-lethal air pirates is ridiculous and the idea that the crew, who never knew Octavia before she got them all shot down (not to mention lying to them for most of their first voyage together) opt to stay with her from loyalty is totally unconvincing.

I guess the worst thing about this book is that all the elements to make a good book are there, but this wasn't it.

If you want a GOOD steam-punk romance adventure, read _Clockwork Heart_ by Dru Pagliassotti: Great characters, great world-building and plot and convincingly developed romance.

I've been a long time fan of Katie MacAlister and enjoyed all of her previous books. I was excited to hear she had a new series different from the dragons and vampires but the execution of this one left me disappointed. The jumping of perspective from Jack to Octavia, back and forth chapter after chapter left me bumfuzzled. An extremely heavy hand was used to justify the genre and rather than letting me enjoy and immerse myself in the alternate reality the characters constantly had to remind me it was "steampunk". Rather than an enjoyable read this was an effort and was the first Katie MacAlister book that I've put down without finishing.

Let me start this review off by saying I was warned before reading this book that it wasn`t very good, but I was interested because well it is Katie MacAlister (whose other books I've enjoyed) and it was steampunk.

You can create a world and spend all your time giving details of that world, such as putting a table/chart in the back of the book that tells you how to interpret the time given in this world, but if the story isn't that good, then the ideas behind the story fails.

This is what happens in Steamed. Ms. MacAlister falls very short in this genre, and I for one hopes she 1) never goes back to this world, or 2) in the future, she actually researches better.

Where to start? There are so many disappointments for me as a reader. I was thrown out so many times of the story, that I found it very difficult to get through this story. It has taken a little over two weeks and I finally came to the conclusion that this book will never be a finished read.

Here is what the story is about. Jack Fletcher and his sister, though she is a minor character, are sucked into an alternate steampunk universe where he meets the captain, Octavia Pye, of an airship. They are transported to the ship by "mysterious" means. Octavia believes Jack and his sister are spies, but realizes they are not. He, Jack, repeatedly references things as "steampunk" much to the chagrin of the captain who does not know what he is talking about. So begins the beginning of my annoyance with this book.

I could go on but I got to about page 214 of a 352 page book. It was such a brutal read for me. There were just too many characters to keep up with, and so many little annoying characteristics about the characters that I was continuously thrown out of the story.

There were two minor characters I hated in particular, a Mr. Francisco and a Mr. Llama. I could not understand why the author thought these two were even worthy to write, from Mr. Francisco's irritating, clichéd flowery speech every time he addressed the captain to when Mr. Llama seemly appeared and disappeared at random and how the captain kept on remarking on this.

Captain Octavia Pye. She was a very irritating character and she is the heroine. From the "voice" to her mannerisms I so wanted to punch the captain in the face. Instead I opted to throw the book across the room. I even hated Jack. I mean really hated him. Why? Because he kept on talking about his world and the technology and it just irked me in general. These two characters really made no sense to me and the fact that they supposedly fall in love, well I just didn't buy it.

And before I forget, the biggest offense of all. The viewpoint is told in first person point of view. Which would be fine except that she (the author) goes back and forth between Jack and Octavia as the narrator of the story. Talk about an awful experience for the reader because it is hard to actually get into the story with all the head-hopping. I honestly wish she would have picked a character and stuck with that character throughout the story. Or better yet, maybe she should have opted for third person.

Bottom line, the book gets a 1. By the time the sex happened I was so no longer invested in the story. This could have been an awesome story, especially from the blurb, but I feel as if the author put too many characters in the book, which made for busy reading. When reading, I kept forgetting who was who until my eyes crossed in frustration. Not everyone should try to write in this genre and I believe Ms. MacAlister should really leave steampunk alone, well, unless she could actually go back and really research, read or watch other steampunk and see what works. If you still want to read this and see for yourself, well good luck. I for one need a Men in Black Neuralyzer to erase the memory of this book and replace the memory with say the Wild Wild West movie.
[...]

Jack Fletcher seems to always end up in a situation where he becomes some sort of hero even when he isn't trying. Somehow he gets thrust into strange circumstances that make him seem heroic... and the ladies love him ever the more for it. When his meddling sister Hallie drops by his place of business to discuss setting him up on a date he becomes the victim of strange fates again. When Hallie messes with the wrong nano-whatsamahoozit and explosion rocks the two into an alternate reality where the year might be the same but the Victorian-esque manners and airship travel could hop right from the pages of one of Jack's favorite steampunk graphic novels.

Finding Jack and Hallie aboard her Aerocorps vessel, the HIMA Tesla, Captain Octavia Pye is in no mood to deal with stow-aways. As it happens Europe is in the middle of a war and between Moghul enemies and Revolutionaries dead set against bringing down the emperor Octavia has her hands full. But one look at the red locked Captain and Jack is smitten with lust. He'll have Octavia Pye and she him, if the two can survive the adventure ahead. If Hallie and Jack can't return to their own reality they may have to learn the ways of a steampunk lifestyle really fast.

Yet another book where the concept seems really great but just doesn't quite work. I'm no purist when it comes to romances. Sometimes I do like one where the narration is done in first person. Unfortunately, Steamed is told from both Jack and Octavia's eyes. It might work for some readers but I found it hard to tell the difference between their "voices" in this format. I didn't like it and by the end of the book I found it insanely irritating how shallow and lusty it made each sound. I like a lusty romance as much as the next reader but with the Victorian era mannerisms and speech it sounded kind of crass.

The story itself felt really slapped together. There were entertaining crew members aboard the Tesla to pepper it with funny dialog and euphemisms but at times it felt like there was no one really needed aside from the hero and heroine. It is my personal preference in reading--whether romance or not--that there be secondary characters. Those here in Steamed really do nothing for the story other than provide a little bit of conflicting force and backup. What little conflict there is resolves way too easily and that really cheapened the conclusion for me. This is the first time I've read MacAlister though I have some of her other titles in my TBR pile and if this is an example of the humor she threads into her work that is its main saving grace.

In summation, liked the humor, liked the concept, didn't care for the narrative style or general storyline. Would I read another steampunk romance based on this one as a point of comparison? Probably not. But I'm open to trying other steampunkish titles with romance in them.

First I want to start by saying that Katie is in my top 3 favorite Authors. I bought the book because I was looking for something to read and I felt sure that coming from Katie that it would be her typical "can't put it down". This book was NOT good. In fact it was horrible. Most every book I have read by Katie has been a page turner, I typically read them in a few sittings. I had to FORCE myself to read this. Literally took me weeks make myself finish it. I am all for trying new things, but if you are a usual Katie reader you will more than likely be disappointed with this one. Sorry Katie, Stick to the good stuff girlfriend.

Really, this is just a mess. From characters that are thinner than cardboard cutouts to an ending that produced a snort from me, I have to say that I was roundly disappointed by this book.... which is a shame, I've read previous books by the author and they are pretty good (although not from this same genre .... maybe that's the problem).

Stay away, you can do better.

What an unpleasant surprise. Having assiduously collected all Ms. MacAlister's novels - ok - I do not Love all of them, the stories get lots better in the recent ones and the Dragon series are Incredible - I expected, because this is newer, that it would be really fun and really great. Nothing could be more wrong. It is hard to follow, makes little sense, is NOT funny and it was hard to care about the characters. The word obscure comes to mind. This time, I'm writing it off to "anyone can make a mistake." I hope this is not an example of what I have seen happen lately - instead of publishing author's new novels - they are publishing something not very good they must have been written long ago and passing it off as a new work. This makes the author look as if they have lost their touch. Technically, since it went unpublished it is new - but the skill and the story and the work do not hold up to what today's readers expect of that author today. I do hope this is true for this work because it's very bad and that is something I do not expect from Katie MacAlister. How do I make a decision to spend increasingly more money for increasingly less satisfaction in the future? Apologizes to Punk People who may have loved it - but this is how I see it.

I have managed to read and enjoy MacAlister's books before, but I may never try reading her books again.
This book had the feeling that the author was snidely mocking both romantic fiction and the steampunk genre. I can handle "tongue-in-cheek" stuff, but this was such crap. Let me just say, you can describe a character as "intelligent, strong-willed, and respectable" all you want, but then when you actually WRITE the character, you should try to adhere to your own description. The main heroine is repeatedly described as willful and bright and the best she can be... but then she behaves like a horny, irrational nit-wit with no self control. The male hero character is repeatedly made out to be dashing and charming, but his dialogue is assinine and he comes across like an ego-maniacal jerk. They seem to blunder into implausible sex scenes based solely on spontaneous afflictions of "primal instincts," because otherwise there is no chemistry between them. The guy says and does the most idiotic, thoughtless things and the gal even breaks that forth wall long enough to think he's an insensitive clod, but then she shakes her head and marvels at how "adorable" he is, and is won over by his "charm" which the reader is never invited to witness (unless we are to believe that in steampunk-world acting like a know-it-all condescending jerk is extremely charming). The male lead repeatedly calls things "steampunk" and refers to conventions, like being sucked into an alternate world is a delightful holiday where he can look down his nose at the people wearing funny costumes. He's supposed to be a genius, but then is repeatedly shocked when the ALTERNATE DIMENSION doesn't conform to what he thinks "steampunk" is supposed to be based on his experience with conventions and concerts from back home(was that supposed to be a dig at steampunk fans? If so, it was in poor taste!). Then there is a completely superfluous and idiotic sister-to-the-hero character who is described as a "kind heart" but acts like a neurotic moron and alternately freaks out and swoons all over the place. I had to say I was pretty grateful that she got kidnapped, but then there was some extremely weak plot to rescue her (where the two leads barely resist having sex in a secret passageway while supposedly trying to rescue the sister. Cause, you know, in a tense, life-and-death rescue situation, sometimes it's really hard not to just jump on your partner and go crazy. Right?)

There's never any actual world development. You are supposed to believe that the "bad guys" are just really bad, even though the background seems pretty nice. We are expected to sympathize with the "Rebels" but no real reasons are given, and the "bad guys" seem pretty benign, except that they kidnapped the ding-dong sister and seem bent on executing her for some reason. The only reason that "steampunk" is involved at all is apparently because the main hero keeps telling us that it is (which completely ruins something, let me tell yah.. that fourth wall is just busted over and over!) Oh and the incidental flying ships. they could have been sailing ships for all their significance to the plot, really, but hey.

I forced myself to finish it because I couldn't believe it was so bad. I thought for sure it would stop sucking sooner or later, but no. As a romance this gets a failing grade. And as a "Steampunk" novel this never even made it to the classroom. Save your money and your time!

Huge disappointment from one of my favorite authors. There is none of the clever dialog, humor, interesting plot, unique characters that typically are found in Katie's books. I couldn't make it past the first 40 pages; there was just nothing to hold my interest and make me want to read more. Thank goodness I got the book from the library.

This is what happens when a good author hears about a new "craze" and says I can write that. Taking a sub-par romance story and changing "car" to "zeppelin" and "bra" to "corset" does not make it steampunk! And the "twist" at the end is obvious almost from the 2nd chapter.

Just a sad attempt to jump on a bandwagon. If you want a GOOD steampunk style romance, check out the Parasol Protectorate, you'll be much happier.