Where Gideon Tracks Down the Villain

Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this quite a bit. Good fun. Great plot. Almost a 5 star for me. 4 for sure--making me wish we could give half-points.

I've tried and been soured on a lot of steampunk, and this one works much better than most of the ones I've read. Some steampunk is so quirky and outlandish it feels like it's a satire on the genre and a reaction to it rather than an actual example of the genre, and I was glad not to feel that with this book. The main character, Gideon Smith, is very real, very natural, an excellent protagonist with both strengths and weaknesses who wants to be heroic but has doubts. He's neither too incompetent nor too amazing, making it easier to see him as a plausible main character. He isn't a cartoon or caricature like so many other steampunk heroes seem to be.

Same with the genre stuff--the science and weird inventions are fun but not over the top. They are important to the plot and the action, but it doesn't feel like the author is trying to up the ante all the time, as if weirder is better.

In other words, the author uses his steampunk setting and steampunk hero and steampunk conventions to tell a story that emerges naturally enough that I don't have to accept weirder and weirder stuff as real. It feels like we're taking all of it seriously starting at page one and then just enjoying an imaginative story.

Gideon is a fun hero. He's not super and he's not perfect and he starts a little naive, but he's also not an idiot or a loser. He's a pretty regular person who happens to have more interest in helping people than most others. In this story, some people in his town, including his dad, are killed by supernatural creatures, and Gideon takes it on himself to figure out what's happening and stop it. He brings other adventurers along, mostly people a little bit jaded and tired who are galvanized by his attitude and his determination to make a difference. He falls in love with the mechanical girl in the title, and when she's kidnapped and taken to Egypt, he has to follow, and his fellow adventurers all come along. (Yes, it's an airship. And yes, there's a perky pilot running it, and there's a vampire, and there's a grumpy journalist. This is still steampunk, after all.) It's an adventure with genuine heart.

I felt like it was well done. I liked it and hope to like the sequels even more. We'll see.

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