cyphomandra (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cyphomandra) wrote2015-02-25 09:06 pm
cyphomandra) wrote2015-02-25 09:06 pm
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The Gilded Scarab, Anna Butler
Captain Rafe Lancaster is a charming daredevil aeronaut in the Britannic Imperium's aerial Corps who gets invalided out of the forces after crashing his fighter and damaging his eyesight. Not particularly respected by his family, who are part of a House system that rules all of society below the Queen, he ends up in a boarding hostel on limited funds and with apparently limited options. Fortunately for him, events conspire to have him buy a coffeeshop near the Imperium Museum that will put him back into good fortune and hook him up with the heir to the most powerful House in the Imperium.
The charm of this book is Rafe himself – it's told in first person – and he is charming. What lets him, and the book, down, is with one main exception the lack of any real conflict in the story, and it's a shame, because the author has obviously thought a lot about her steampunk setting, its technologies and politics, and has in addition planted enough interesting threads throughout the novel that I really wanted them to come to something and not be left dangling.
To expand on the conflict (or lack of) – the main obstacle in Rafe's romance with Ned Winter is, after some initial concealing of identities, is that Ned would like to take things slightly slower than Rafe. This does not stop them having sex, socialising together (to a surprising degree, given this world's stated views on homosexuality) or committing to each other. Basically, Rafe never meets Ned's sons (two, to a duty marriage to a wife conveniently killed off as a bystander in an assassination attempt), but apart from that – and Ned tends to drop by after they're in bed, so childcare does not particularly burden him either – there's very little to stop them continuing on happily like this for the foreseeable future. I don't want romances that turn upon ridiculous failures of the characters to communicate like adults ("No, she was my sister!" etc) but I do actually require some internal or external (ideally both!) tension so that when the characters do finally get together I get at least a tiny bit of catharsis.
Plotwise as well – Rafe's limited funds do not stop him from getting a nice suit when needed or having a night at a gentlemen's club with a likeminded gentleman (I believe the text is careful to avoid suggesting that Rafe pays for sex, and all club members are there as individuals) and, when needed, he has the finances to buy the coffee shop thanks to discovering that his mother has left him some very valuable jewellery that a number of people want to pay him a more than fair price for. I thought the jewellery revelation was going somewhere (was his mother something other than what she seemed? A connection to shady House politics?), but no. An old friend from the service shows up to be Rafe's valet; the owner of the boarding hostel (a relative) finds him a cleaner. He is able to show up his snooty brother and the head of his House by demonstrating how well he knows Ned with no real consequences, and everything progresses very, very, smoothly. Rafe's loss of vision does not have any further effects on him (he will still be able to fly commercially, although he does not in the story), and even the war appears to have vanished once he leaves it. The steam punk tech, too, is largely just decorative rather than essential to the book (there is one notable exception).
The only real complication in the book is Daniel Meredith, an Aegyptologist who sells antiquities on the side (thus distinguishing him from the high-minded types who merely take them all away from their original lands to display as part of the Imperium's loot) who is Ned's ex (but has never gotten over him) and who gets involved with Rafe, but drives him away too by getting too jealous. He drives the main other plot as well; he's an interesting character, and more so to me than Ned, who really is rather blank in this. Daniel makes stupid, impulsive mistakes, and is never going to get what he wants, but to a certain degree he recognises this, and so does Rafe. The tension around him relies on this rather than going for the farcical option of having Ned and Rafe not realise they've both been involved with him, and I liked this a lot. I just wish the rest of the book had also had this sort of unexpected depth.
I would like to see another book set in this world, even with the same lead; I'd like, however, to see a bit more growth and challenge for Rafe, and I'm not sure that's doable in another m/m romance with the same love interest.
The charm of this book is Rafe himself – it's told in first person – and he is charming. What lets him, and the book, down, is with one main exception the lack of any real conflict in the story, and it's a shame, because the author has obviously thought a lot about her steampunk setting, its technologies and politics, and has in addition planted enough interesting threads throughout the novel that I really wanted them to come to something and not be left dangling.
To expand on the conflict (or lack of) – the main obstacle in Rafe's romance with Ned Winter is, after some initial concealing of identities, is that Ned would like to take things slightly slower than Rafe. This does not stop them having sex, socialising together (to a surprising degree, given this world's stated views on homosexuality) or committing to each other. Basically, Rafe never meets Ned's sons (two, to a duty marriage to a wife conveniently killed off as a bystander in an assassination attempt), but apart from that – and Ned tends to drop by after they're in bed, so childcare does not particularly burden him either – there's very little to stop them continuing on happily like this for the foreseeable future. I don't want romances that turn upon ridiculous failures of the characters to communicate like adults ("No, she was my sister!" etc) but I do actually require some internal or external (ideally both!) tension so that when the characters do finally get together I get at least a tiny bit of catharsis.
Plotwise as well – Rafe's limited funds do not stop him from getting a nice suit when needed or having a night at a gentlemen's club with a likeminded gentleman (I believe the text is careful to avoid suggesting that Rafe pays for sex, and all club members are there as individuals) and, when needed, he has the finances to buy the coffee shop thanks to discovering that his mother has left him some very valuable jewellery that a number of people want to pay him a more than fair price for. I thought the jewellery revelation was going somewhere (was his mother something other than what she seemed? A connection to shady House politics?), but no. An old friend from the service shows up to be Rafe's valet; the owner of the boarding hostel (a relative) finds him a cleaner. He is able to show up his snooty brother and the head of his House by demonstrating how well he knows Ned with no real consequences, and everything progresses very, very, smoothly. Rafe's loss of vision does not have any further effects on him (he will still be able to fly commercially, although he does not in the story), and even the war appears to have vanished once he leaves it. The steam punk tech, too, is largely just decorative rather than essential to the book (there is one notable exception).
The only real complication in the book is Daniel Meredith, an Aegyptologist who sells antiquities on the side (thus distinguishing him from the high-minded types who merely take them all away from their original lands to display as part of the Imperium's loot) who is Ned's ex (but has never gotten over him) and who gets involved with Rafe, but drives him away too by getting too jealous. He drives the main other plot as well; he's an interesting character, and more so to me than Ned, who really is rather blank in this. Daniel makes stupid, impulsive mistakes, and is never going to get what he wants, but to a certain degree he recognises this, and so does Rafe. The tension around him relies on this rather than going for the farcical option of having Ned and Rafe not realise they've both been involved with him, and I liked this a lot. I just wish the rest of the book had also had this sort of unexpected depth.
I would like to see another book set in this world, even with the same lead; I'd like, however, to see a bit more growth and challenge for Rafe, and I'm not sure that's doable in another m/m romance with the same love interest.