This steampunk novel has it all: deceptions, a brainy and courageous girl, violence, inventions and mystery set in Victorian...
Can the bites of mechanical dogs induce artificial rabies?
Charlotte, the 16-year-old daughter of Her Majesty’s royal surgeon, and her two friends are attacked and severely wounded by a pack of the vicious beasts while out on an illicit nighttime lark. With Peter and Jillian severely injured, she must defy her father by secretly studying his medical books and use her cunning and courage to discover the cause and cure before the symptoms cause death. While lemons temporarily alleviate the pains, an antidote is needed. Maddison weaves the proprieties and improprieties of late-Victorian courtly life (especially as applied to young women), Charlotte’s unwanted arranged marriage and her inventions into the rapidly paced plot. Detailed descriptions set cinematic scenes and reflect careful research of the times and place. All of the story threads—romance, cloud covers of rabid bats, a plot to kill the queen—are as skillfully drawn together as a surgeon’s stitches. Black-and-white spot drawings at the beginning of each chapter foretell the key component for the next episode.
This steampunk novel has it all: deceptions, a brainy and courageous girl, violence, inventions and mystery set in Victorian England. Charlotte’s tale is indeed incredible—in a good way. (Steampunk. 10-15)Pub Date: April 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2737
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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