Book review: The Inventor's Companion
Throwing a couple of these out there that I wrote this year and never posted! Just so I can post my 2014 reading/writing list and be able to link to the reviews.
The Inventor’s Companion
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I liked this book. It’s not the most amazing thing ever, the plot was a bit absent and the ending was rather random and rushed, but I really appreciated a lot of its aspects. It’s steampunk, but not ‘WE SLAPPED GEARS ON EVERYTHING AND SET IT IN THE VICTORIAN AGE’; it reads like an even more alternate universe than steampunk is generally. It’s not specifically said to be in London, home of 99% of steampunk, and there’s a large caste system at work in the city which affects all of society and no year is mentioned and though there’s an aristocratic social level there doesn’t seem to be any nobles or a royal family, and while things are mechanical there’s not actually a lot of steam stuff involved. If you don’t like steampunk at all you could easily read and enjoy this, because it’s very light and not overbearing with technical things or weird terms you’ve never heard of, and Victorian-age aristocratic titles don’t even get involved. And since the main character is an inventor, he’s actually creating machines that are useful to daily life and not some big flashy gizmo covered in gears; it feels more rooted in reality and practicality than a lot of steampunk things which are like ‘we’re gonna make this FLY and this do THIS and this do THIS regardless to if that make sense or if people would want or build such a thing!” Gabriel’s inventions are perhaps a little boring (fans!) but they make sense. Even if it’s a little unlikely that no one had ever thought of making a mechanical fan before, but it does make sense that since Gabriel basically becomes a fashionable commodity, it would be his products that the aristocracy wanted, regardless of what they actually are. Like buying Gucci or Prada just because they’re Gucci or Prada. It’s more of a bragging right than an actual necessity. Even though Gabriel does make something super complicated at the start of the book (a mechanical dog) and then never does anything that ambitious again; I found that kind of strange. But he couldn’t be mass producing something like that so...sure, mechanical fans, whatever.
That said, I wish the caste system had been delved into more! It was really interesting, but we mostly only got to see one or two of the castes, pleasure and merchant, and then at the very end the guardian caste pops up a bit more relevantly, but the one that got the most time devoted to it was pleasure. The Caste Equality movement was interesting, but other than all the injustices of the pleasure caste (which are basically what you can imagine with legal sex trafficking), the only other injustice that got focus was Wakefield, and how he was physically unqualified for his station as a guardian but couldn’t do anything more befitting his stature because he’s trapped in the caste he was born into. Other than that, the restrictions that Gabriel comes up against don’t seem all that different from ones he would have had if he were just poor and unconnected, and not just of an inferior caste. And he’s treated absolutely fine by all of the aristocrats, never gets anybody being snooty down to him because of his caste even while they want to use his services as an inventor. So while it’s clear there’s a lot of inequality and rigidity in the system, the book was really biased on the part of the pleasure house. Obviously it was pretty terrible to be in that caste, but to get enough of a force of power behind a socio-political upheaval movement, you need society-wide disgruntlement and unrest, not just “that one group of people is being treated poorly”, especially since the majority of society wasn’t rich enough/allowed to interact with the pleasure caste and wouldn’t know how bad it was for them. One of the big issues that would be present in a caste system like that was only brought up maybe once or twice; that people are being forced into professions that don’t suit them, like if someone was qualified or skilled or naturally talented in a certain area but would never be able to use that because they were trapped in a different/lower caste. Mostly that was mentioned with Wakefield, and it wasn’t much. I don’t count the fact that Lucio is interested in machines as addressing that issue, because it’s not like he was portrayed as being exceptionally mechanically minded or creative in that way, he just had an interest.
I wish we’d also gotten a background as to HOW the society formed this system. Was there a social rebellion by the mid-to-lower classes that was put down by the upper, was there some kind of need for a strictly segregated split of duties and professions because some of them weren’t being performed or filled, thus creating a non-functioning or imbalanced infrastructure? Did these things happen together? Who decided there’d be an entire caste dedicated to sex work, and what caste are the handlers in? Are they a subset of the pleasure caste, are they their own caste, or part of another caste and being a handler is basically a day job for someone in say, a business/merchant caste (like Gabriel was an inventor in the merchant class)? The worldbuilding was probably all there, it just wasn’t paid attention to very much. Which was strange, seeing as there was a big focus on Gabriel’s involvement with the Caste Equality movement so it seemed like it should have had a way bigger role, other than functioning as the major obstacle to keeping Gabriel and Lucio apart.
If you ever want to read a book where the main couple is 100% about getting each other’s consent for sex all of the time, that’s this book. It’s tied in with Lucio being from the pleasure caste and Gabriel basically being an upstanding human being, but wow they are constantly talking about not forcing each other to do anything they don’t want. It is nice for a change, since so many m/m books (and regular books now) seem to find consent as a total turn off, and people growling their alpha male possession/total ownership of the other person is all hot and in vogue. I’ve got nothing against that, when it’s established as a thing between characters, (ie it’s more like a roleplay or a game) and not just characters being complete abusive fucking creeps and emotionally manipulative assholes and legitimately believing that they have complete control over another person, their body, and what they do and think.
Though, like a lot of stuff in this book, talking about consent gets really repetitive. Far beyond the point that they both should be aware of this consent-rule they’ve got between them, they’re still talking about it. It’s the same conversation over and over, and after the midpoint it doesn’t read like it’s adding anything into their relationship, it feels like parts that should have been edited out. They know these things about each other, and yet they’re still talking about it. Around one of the first times Lucio and Gabriel actually get intimate with each other, Lucio says he doesn’t know how to act with Gabriel because it’s real and not a show, which is a completely legitimate thought and fear for him at the time. Then, like ¾ of the book later, after a lot more relationship stuff, HE SAYS THE SAME THING. At that point, it’s just a random stray sentence that carries no real weight, because he clearly DOES know how to act at this point, it feels like a sudden regression in their relationship that makes no sense, it should have been completely edited out.
Despite the sometimes weird and non-sequitor things they say about their relationship, the progression of it does make perfect sense, and it’s very slow and super innocent in the beginning. Gabriel even starts off wanting to buy Lucio’s time just to have a conversation or a walk in the park with him because he enjoyed his company. He’s also attracted to him at the same time, but he actually values Lucio as a person above that, which is basically the whole point of the story/their relationship dynamic, and it’s pretty refreshing. The way they treat each other and relate to each other actually makes sense in why they would care about each other, it doesn’t feel forced or that they basically hook up because they’re the two male leads of an m/m book and they have to. Because man I have read a lot of books like that. And of course that’s almost every heterosexual couple in media too; they get together because they story says so and not because of any particular chemistry or believable feelings.
Line by line writing was pretty good. A lot of it got repetitive (oh my god we know why Gabriel doesn’t want to force Lucio into anything, we know, WE GET IT) and characters often had the same conversation several times in different forms, and a lot of the concepts were overly beaten into your head, and a lot of it felt like it came from a lack of editing, not poor writing. It seemed like several scenes were written with the same tone and ideas as various options, and then somebody forgot to go ‘yeah, we need to take at least two of these out’. It happened on a large scale (with entire whole scenes feeling repetitive) and small (with just very quick conversations feeling so). It made the middle of the book a bit...tiresome. Because it was the same things, over and over.
The end bugged me, mostly because the last 10% of the book feels like setting up for an entire second book instead of the denouement you’re supposed to get. There’s a rise in action instead of a fall in it. ALSO UM? LUCIO GOT CRESSIDA PREGNANT? I mean, they literally do not ever outright say, but it’s strongly hinted at and basically only possible that it’s his child, and nobody…seems…to….care? Not Cressida, not Lucio, not Gabriel, not anybody. I don’t get the POINT. It happens so late in the story, and really had nothing to do with…anything…and I thought it was going to go some weird route of Gabriel and Lucio raise the child together or something because always got to have the goddamn babies even in m/m, but THAT doesn’t happen (thankfully) but also nothing else happens? And nobody does care that it’s Lucio’s kid? It’s going to go to the aristocrat lady who took Cressida in? I MEAN WHY DID NOBODY DISCUSS THIS. They barely acknowledge it. Lucio only vaguely sorta-kinda admits that it’s maybe perhaps possibly his ‘fault’, and even then it’s never explicitly stated. And Gabriel doesn’t care. And I also thought it was maybe gonna go some route where Cressida and Caleb and Andrew were going to be some kind of threesome or something (because Andrew and Caleb were together? THAT was really incredibly vague the entire story) and then THEY’D raise the baby…even though it’s Lucio’s…but also that didn’t happen? Oh my god I don’t understand the point of making her pregnant and including the horrifying breeding barn scenes which seemed so unnecessary except to kind of give some propaganda for the Caste Equality movement to use but THAT didn’t pay off so the whole thing just seemed….exploitative almost. I also didn’t understand the point of Gabriel going to prison for a month, after getting arrested at a protest. That happens in the last 5% of the book or something; it sounds like the start of a really big thing! I thought it’d be like GABRIEL IS IN PRISON and there’d be a cliffhanger and then “hay book 2!” but no it’s resolved right away. I…what? Maybe it was to prove that Lucio could handle the business without Gabriel there but it was a really weird way to do it, especially because it happened in like three pages. The ending was so weak for a myriad of reasons-too many new things popping up and resolving too fast and huge loose ends not being resolved or addressed at all. A lot of the repetitive relationship stuff could have been cut to make room for resolving things better.
Actually a lot of the repetitive relationship stuff should have been cut for PLOT stuff. Because that got buried and lost. I mean there’s all these hints about political movements and getting aristocrats on their side and trying to get this one Caste Equality candidate elected into office for their cause and there’s rallies and social movements and then none of it pays off. The candidate doesn't get elected because an election doesn’t happen, the caste system doesn’t really change, actually nothing changes except Lucio is free. Basically this NEEDS a book two, or was written to really feel like the first in a series.
The Inventor’s Companion
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I liked this book. It’s not the most amazing thing ever, the plot was a bit absent and the ending was rather random and rushed, but I really appreciated a lot of its aspects. It’s steampunk, but not ‘WE SLAPPED GEARS ON EVERYTHING AND SET IT IN THE VICTORIAN AGE’; it reads like an even more alternate universe than steampunk is generally. It’s not specifically said to be in London, home of 99% of steampunk, and there’s a large caste system at work in the city which affects all of society and no year is mentioned and though there’s an aristocratic social level there doesn’t seem to be any nobles or a royal family, and while things are mechanical there’s not actually a lot of steam stuff involved. If you don’t like steampunk at all you could easily read and enjoy this, because it’s very light and not overbearing with technical things or weird terms you’ve never heard of, and Victorian-age aristocratic titles don’t even get involved. And since the main character is an inventor, he’s actually creating machines that are useful to daily life and not some big flashy gizmo covered in gears; it feels more rooted in reality and practicality than a lot of steampunk things which are like ‘we’re gonna make this FLY and this do THIS and this do THIS regardless to if that make sense or if people would want or build such a thing!” Gabriel’s inventions are perhaps a little boring (fans!) but they make sense. Even if it’s a little unlikely that no one had ever thought of making a mechanical fan before, but it does make sense that since Gabriel basically becomes a fashionable commodity, it would be his products that the aristocracy wanted, regardless of what they actually are. Like buying Gucci or Prada just because they’re Gucci or Prada. It’s more of a bragging right than an actual necessity. Even though Gabriel does make something super complicated at the start of the book (a mechanical dog) and then never does anything that ambitious again; I found that kind of strange. But he couldn’t be mass producing something like that so...sure, mechanical fans, whatever.
That said, I wish the caste system had been delved into more! It was really interesting, but we mostly only got to see one or two of the castes, pleasure and merchant, and then at the very end the guardian caste pops up a bit more relevantly, but the one that got the most time devoted to it was pleasure. The Caste Equality movement was interesting, but other than all the injustices of the pleasure caste (which are basically what you can imagine with legal sex trafficking), the only other injustice that got focus was Wakefield, and how he was physically unqualified for his station as a guardian but couldn’t do anything more befitting his stature because he’s trapped in the caste he was born into. Other than that, the restrictions that Gabriel comes up against don’t seem all that different from ones he would have had if he were just poor and unconnected, and not just of an inferior caste. And he’s treated absolutely fine by all of the aristocrats, never gets anybody being snooty down to him because of his caste even while they want to use his services as an inventor. So while it’s clear there’s a lot of inequality and rigidity in the system, the book was really biased on the part of the pleasure house. Obviously it was pretty terrible to be in that caste, but to get enough of a force of power behind a socio-political upheaval movement, you need society-wide disgruntlement and unrest, not just “that one group of people is being treated poorly”, especially since the majority of society wasn’t rich enough/allowed to interact with the pleasure caste and wouldn’t know how bad it was for them. One of the big issues that would be present in a caste system like that was only brought up maybe once or twice; that people are being forced into professions that don’t suit them, like if someone was qualified or skilled or naturally talented in a certain area but would never be able to use that because they were trapped in a different/lower caste. Mostly that was mentioned with Wakefield, and it wasn’t much. I don’t count the fact that Lucio is interested in machines as addressing that issue, because it’s not like he was portrayed as being exceptionally mechanically minded or creative in that way, he just had an interest.
I wish we’d also gotten a background as to HOW the society formed this system. Was there a social rebellion by the mid-to-lower classes that was put down by the upper, was there some kind of need for a strictly segregated split of duties and professions because some of them weren’t being performed or filled, thus creating a non-functioning or imbalanced infrastructure? Did these things happen together? Who decided there’d be an entire caste dedicated to sex work, and what caste are the handlers in? Are they a subset of the pleasure caste, are they their own caste, or part of another caste and being a handler is basically a day job for someone in say, a business/merchant caste (like Gabriel was an inventor in the merchant class)? The worldbuilding was probably all there, it just wasn’t paid attention to very much. Which was strange, seeing as there was a big focus on Gabriel’s involvement with the Caste Equality movement so it seemed like it should have had a way bigger role, other than functioning as the major obstacle to keeping Gabriel and Lucio apart.
If you ever want to read a book where the main couple is 100% about getting each other’s consent for sex all of the time, that’s this book. It’s tied in with Lucio being from the pleasure caste and Gabriel basically being an upstanding human being, but wow they are constantly talking about not forcing each other to do anything they don’t want. It is nice for a change, since so many m/m books (and regular books now) seem to find consent as a total turn off, and people growling their alpha male possession/total ownership of the other person is all hot and in vogue. I’ve got nothing against that, when it’s established as a thing between characters, (ie it’s more like a roleplay or a game) and not just characters being complete abusive fucking creeps and emotionally manipulative assholes and legitimately believing that they have complete control over another person, their body, and what they do and think.
Though, like a lot of stuff in this book, talking about consent gets really repetitive. Far beyond the point that they both should be aware of this consent-rule they’ve got between them, they’re still talking about it. It’s the same conversation over and over, and after the midpoint it doesn’t read like it’s adding anything into their relationship, it feels like parts that should have been edited out. They know these things about each other, and yet they’re still talking about it. Around one of the first times Lucio and Gabriel actually get intimate with each other, Lucio says he doesn’t know how to act with Gabriel because it’s real and not a show, which is a completely legitimate thought and fear for him at the time. Then, like ¾ of the book later, after a lot more relationship stuff, HE SAYS THE SAME THING. At that point, it’s just a random stray sentence that carries no real weight, because he clearly DOES know how to act at this point, it feels like a sudden regression in their relationship that makes no sense, it should have been completely edited out.
Despite the sometimes weird and non-sequitor things they say about their relationship, the progression of it does make perfect sense, and it’s very slow and super innocent in the beginning. Gabriel even starts off wanting to buy Lucio’s time just to have a conversation or a walk in the park with him because he enjoyed his company. He’s also attracted to him at the same time, but he actually values Lucio as a person above that, which is basically the whole point of the story/their relationship dynamic, and it’s pretty refreshing. The way they treat each other and relate to each other actually makes sense in why they would care about each other, it doesn’t feel forced or that they basically hook up because they’re the two male leads of an m/m book and they have to. Because man I have read a lot of books like that. And of course that’s almost every heterosexual couple in media too; they get together because they story says so and not because of any particular chemistry or believable feelings.
Line by line writing was pretty good. A lot of it got repetitive (oh my god we know why Gabriel doesn’t want to force Lucio into anything, we know, WE GET IT) and characters often had the same conversation several times in different forms, and a lot of the concepts were overly beaten into your head, and a lot of it felt like it came from a lack of editing, not poor writing. It seemed like several scenes were written with the same tone and ideas as various options, and then somebody forgot to go ‘yeah, we need to take at least two of these out’. It happened on a large scale (with entire whole scenes feeling repetitive) and small (with just very quick conversations feeling so). It made the middle of the book a bit...tiresome. Because it was the same things, over and over.
The end bugged me, mostly because the last 10% of the book feels like setting up for an entire second book instead of the denouement you’re supposed to get. There’s a rise in action instead of a fall in it. ALSO UM? LUCIO GOT CRESSIDA PREGNANT? I mean, they literally do not ever outright say, but it’s strongly hinted at and basically only possible that it’s his child, and nobody…seems…to….care? Not Cressida, not Lucio, not Gabriel, not anybody. I don’t get the POINT. It happens so late in the story, and really had nothing to do with…anything…and I thought it was going to go some weird route of Gabriel and Lucio raise the child together or something because always got to have the goddamn babies even in m/m, but THAT doesn’t happen (thankfully) but also nothing else happens? And nobody does care that it’s Lucio’s kid? It’s going to go to the aristocrat lady who took Cressida in? I MEAN WHY DID NOBODY DISCUSS THIS. They barely acknowledge it. Lucio only vaguely sorta-kinda admits that it’s maybe perhaps possibly his ‘fault’, and even then it’s never explicitly stated. And Gabriel doesn’t care. And I also thought it was maybe gonna go some route where Cressida and Caleb and Andrew were going to be some kind of threesome or something (because Andrew and Caleb were together? THAT was really incredibly vague the entire story) and then THEY’D raise the baby…even though it’s Lucio’s…but also that didn’t happen? Oh my god I don’t understand the point of making her pregnant and including the horrifying breeding barn scenes which seemed so unnecessary except to kind of give some propaganda for the Caste Equality movement to use but THAT didn’t pay off so the whole thing just seemed….exploitative almost. I also didn’t understand the point of Gabriel going to prison for a month, after getting arrested at a protest. That happens in the last 5% of the book or something; it sounds like the start of a really big thing! I thought it’d be like GABRIEL IS IN PRISON and there’d be a cliffhanger and then “hay book 2!” but no it’s resolved right away. I…what? Maybe it was to prove that Lucio could handle the business without Gabriel there but it was a really weird way to do it, especially because it happened in like three pages. The ending was so weak for a myriad of reasons-too many new things popping up and resolving too fast and huge loose ends not being resolved or addressed at all. A lot of the repetitive relationship stuff could have been cut to make room for resolving things better.
Actually a lot of the repetitive relationship stuff should have been cut for PLOT stuff. Because that got buried and lost. I mean there’s all these hints about political movements and getting aristocrats on their side and trying to get this one Caste Equality candidate elected into office for their cause and there’s rallies and social movements and then none of it pays off. The candidate doesn't get elected because an election doesn’t happen, the caste system doesn’t really change, actually nothing changes except Lucio is free. Basically this NEEDS a book two, or was written to really feel like the first in a series.