Rise of the Iron Moon, By Stephen Hunt. Any good?

[gloriousbattle]

Never read this guy before, but the Victorian-esque illo on the cover caught my eye (always judge a book by its cover).  I got a few pages in, and it seems to be the kind of Victorian Science Fantasy (AI steam robots, aliens, some kind of world saving god-machine) that I enjoy.  I'm not the type of hard VSFer that enjoys speculating about what would happen if a working difference engine had been built, and nothing beyond that.

However, it looks to be a fairly long read, so I'm wondering if anyone can recommend or disuade.

As always, Thanks

[VSF Gamer]

Own it, haven't read it yet. I have read his The Kingdom Beyond the Waves and throughly enjoyed it. It's everything you said and more and inspired me to purchase Rise of the Iron Moon and The Court of the Air. I seem to have more books than time. Hope you enjoy it!

[Red Orc]

Haven't read them yet but my girlfriend has - she says they're "brilliant, full of fantastic stuff".

Court of the Air is the first book, Kingdom Beyond the Waves is second and Rise of the Iron Moon is the third book in the series - she reckons they can be read as stand-alone books but make more sense if you read them in order, so that's what she recommends.

[gloriousbattle]

Thanks a lot gentlemen, I'll read it and write back with a review.

[Melnibonean]

It's the next read on my adjenda and it has taken me a while to get a copy. I've read Court of the Air and Kingdom Beyond the Waves. Both of them are great stories. There's no pretense or philosophy in his stories just thoroughly good VSF adventure with all the trappings.

If you read any more of his books you'll find that some characters may reapear but the books are totaly stand alone. All set in the same milieu and you can read them in any order.

[gloriousbattle]

If you read any more of his books you'll find that some characters may reapear but the books are totaly stand alone. All set in the same milieu and you can read them in any order.

Thanks.  My local library has only the one at the moment.

[Red Orc]

Well, partly as a result of this thread, and partly because my local library had a delay in getting the 4th book in the Game of Thrones saga, and partly because my net connection has been down for 3 weeks, I've now read 'Court of the Air' and most 'Kingdom Beyond the Waves'. I thoroughly recommend both.

But they're not VSF, despite containing lots of airships and whatnot.

[gloriousbattle]

Well, partly as a result of this thread, and partly because my local library had a delay in getting the 4th book in the Game of Thrones saga, and partly because my net connection has been down for 3 weeks, I've now read 'Court of the Air' and most 'Kingdom Beyond the Waves'. I thoroughly recommend both.

But they're not VSF, despite containing lots of airships and whatnot.

I dunno.  Does parody count?  Jackals is definitely Britain, Quatershift is definitely France, etc.

Anyway, glad you like them.

[Red Orc]

I think my main problem with labelling them 'VSF' is that they're too much of an alternative world. The geography is different - Britain has never had a continental border, for instance, and Quatershift is undergoing some cross between the French and Russian revolutions. The history is different - 400 years after the Revolution in Jackals, the country is a republic in all but name. The level of technology is different to more obvious VSF (either early 20th scientific romances or later more directly VSF-inspired stuff) - sure, there are airships and clockwork, but much of the technology like the the steammen circuit boards, the crystal technology of the Chimeca, and the magic are very un-VSF. Even the military stuff doesn't say VSF to me, the descriptions of the Jackals' redcoat regiments with their shakos and tricorns sound more late-18th-early-19th than late-19th-early-20th.

I think it's fair to say that there's a lot of influences from Victorian Britain - some of the things going on are very 'Dickensian', from the cruel Poorhouse staff to the top-hats and canes, and there's certainly dollops of VSF stuff; but the whole thing, with its post-apocalyptic setting (hundreds of thousands of years in the future?) is too big and diverse to just be VSF; there's so much else going on from before and after, and from outside the realms normally associated with VSF at all, to pigeonhole it.

I think, anyway.

[Melnibonean]

Well, I just finished Rise of the Iron Moon and I have to say: I enjoyed it much less than the preceding tales.
It delved to far into SF for me. It felt at times like I was reading Iain M Banks mixed with Roger Zelazny. I did like it but it just didn't grab me like the others. Less steampunk and more SF... Not really my cup of tea.

[BaronVonJ]

Read Court of Air, and gotta say, lots of great ideas, but not great writing. Let's take a bunch of ideas, locations and throw them in a big vat. The author spent more time describing how there crystal bullets work, than on the characters.
Besides airships and steam things, we've got:
super powered fey beings
sentient robots
a cthulu-like underground cult and gods
a Bolshevic style revolution
crab people
an all seeing group of people monitoring the world from a satelite
and it just keeps going. All that, and I still don't know what drives our protagonists.
Lots of ideas for wargaming though.

[gloriousbattle]

Read Court of Air, and gotta say, lots of great ideas, but not great writing.

Agreed.  However, most of my favorite writers were, at best, good hacks.  What can I say?  I like these.

[zebcook]

Read "Court of the Air" a bit back, decided not to read any more in the series and couldn't really recommend it. Don't mind if it's hackwork or not (I've read a lot and even written some of that). As BaronVonJ said it was just too many things thrown into the mix. After a while the setting starts to lose its internal logic -- if A and B exist then certain things should follow but instead of following those possibilities the author seems to throw it all over and chase a new idea. There's a lot of good stuff there but maybe not all of it should be in the same place at the same time.