Just to avoid any confusion I like grim dark fiction. I like heroes and heroines with shades of grey. I have no problem with a two sided coins, villains with heroic traits and heroes who are half the villain. I have no problem with characters using foul language in books and enjoy a good fantasy romp in which characters talk like, well lets be honest here, the majority of people.

That said I do occasionally think authors have forgotten the power of a well placed singular “Fuck!” round about page 251. Just there, the only F-word in a manuscript. An exclamation that is completely out of character for the heroine, jarring to the reader who doesn’t expect it and focusing the attention of that reader on the event that inspired that singular and thus profound expletive.*

If however you’re characters habitually use expletives then in no time they lose all narrative power… It is a stylistic choice to do so, some stories, some characters, and some books just work well this way. The world is not a gentle light-fulled place. It is often grim and often dark, and there is a realism about novels and stories written that way… But that doesn’t mean every novel and story should be…

*This also works with a well timed “Buggeration!”, or even a good singular “Oh Bugger!”, you don’t need the F-word at all to achieve this kind of impact.

Nor does every reader want to read grim dark tales. Reading is often a means of escape. The reason books of fantasy, science fiction, historical, supernatural, horror and their collective love child Steampunk, remain popular genres is simply that. They are a means of escape from what is often a grim dark reality, or as you may otherwise know it, modern life. These are escapist genres, and there is a place within them for escapes not only from the readers reality but the nature of that reality. Even if like me you like grim dark fiction, its is refreshing oft times to pick up a book and enter a writers world that is more gentle light than grim dark. Which brings me to the inspiration for this post…

I will get to a review in a moment, but to stick to the theme, this is very much a novel that would fall under the category Gentle Light, if such a category existed. Genteel light perhaps. As such it is very much escapism, and quite delightful. Which is to say if Shelley did throw a singular expletive in around page 251 it would almost certainly have a world shattering impact on her readers.

The Automaton Empress by Shelley Adina.

This is the second novel, though it can easily be read as a stand alone) in the Lady Georgia Brunel Mysteries. I read the first of these ‘The Clockwork City’ last year and can heartily recommend it. This one carries on in much the same vain with the adventures of those two women of a certain age Lady Georgia Brunel and her maiden Aunt Millicent. As I said in my previous review, there is something very refreshing about a steampunk novel with a pair of heroines who are not ‘feisty young women’, or ‘talented girls’.

After the events in Venice our two heroines are requested to attend an audience with the Empresses of  Prussia, who while being one of the most powerful women on the continent is also something in the order of being a ‘talented girl’ engineer who, among other things, has constructed an automaton in her own image. This proves to have been a foolish conceit on the Empresses part as our heroines discover, as the empresses it seems has been replaced by her own invention and the cunningly crafted machine is so convincing that almost no one other than our two heroines has noticed.

Has the Empress vanished of her own accord, has she been kidnapped? Is the heir apparent, a rather unwholesome arch-duke, with a lecherous nature, who takes a distinct and unwelcome interest in Georgia, behind some plot to gain him the throne?

Naturally, Georgia and Millie, with the aid of Lady Thorn and her daughter, take it upon themselves to investigate.

The plot is complex, the characters well considered, the story well crafted, full of twists and turns, not all of them expected. But the gentleness that marked the first novel is here again. It is a fun tale, with characters you want to spend time with. A tale of gentle lightness, among the swathes of grim-dark that occupy much of the genre. Its just nice escapist fun, written to entertain and entertain it does. Genteel light if you will, a genre all of her own, which has much to recommend it.

I look forward to the next.

Note. As I have said previously, I owe something of a debt to Shelley Adina, as when I first stated writing steampunk myself and wanted to delve into the genre her Magnificent devices novels were among the best ones I read. While I don’t exactly write Genteel light novels myself, I took a degree of inspiration from her novels mostly in regard to keeping my steampunk stories character driven and recommend them often to people new to the genre.