The Iron Duke

The first steampunk I've ever read, a rec from vantine and a great one. It's nineteenth century London, England has been controlled by mongol invaders via nanoagents that controlled the population. The mongols were booted out a decade previous and we're following our heroine, a police inspector, who is the most fun in this book. We're going to see dirigible airships and ship battles and zombies and body enhancements and a giant conspiracy! I flew through this book, it was super fun and the world was real exciting to imagine. There are three more books in the series and I know I'm continuing for sure.

It's a romance book, with a super-alpha hero who vacillates between caring concern for the heroine and no-means-yes rapey-ness in several scenes which I think the author could have written a lot more consensually without a lot of extra work; it was disappointing she did not. I guess it would have made the alpha hero a tiny bit less alpha (if "knowing of what the woman really wants even if she says no" is super-alpha? ugh.) I wish these handful of parts had been just a little better and then I'd have no reservations about calling it a 5-star book.

(well ok, and the first couple of chapters were hella confusing. It felt like I'd walked in to the middle of a series. The exposition gets there before long, but I think the author might have gone a little too much into the "let the reader catch up" direction...)

Oh my god, you guys.

YOU GUYS.

I encountered this book, somehow, when I came across a blurb for it which included It's been nine years since the Horde, an oppressive empire from Asia, were run out of England. However, detective inspector Lady Wilhelmina Wentworth will never be able to escape their cruelty: her mother was raped during the invasion, and Mina is half Horde.

I mean, when you find yourself writing out "Horde, an oppressive empire from Asia" and then "raped" occurs in the next sentence, maybe your book has problems, you know?

But reading this book, it is at once the steampunk zombie adventure novel you always wanted, and simultaneously "The one in which everyone in Europe (no really, everyone) is a rape survivor."

Brooks is more interested in the action/adventure steampunk/zombie romance than the tale of a society deeply traumatised by rape and colonialism, and yet it's right there.

I really enjoyed reading it! I uh. Can't really recommend it without a list of caveats as long as my arm.