Time to get this party started with my first official review of The Devil in Chains. Ho yes, it says:

This is a bright and breezy steampunk tale, narrated in a suitably archaic style by a chap called Doctor Clarke and featuring much mystery, several marvellous technologies and a creeping sense of impending doom.

The world building is great and the writing is very visual – the Empire is threatened by the Northern Republic, the long-lived Prince has an interest in the esoteric; there are telegraphones, air-ships, solar rifles. All of this is solid enough to fix the story within a realistic alternate historical setting, but never so heavy that they gets in the way of the journey. As this is part one there’s plenty of set-up; the story begins with a narrative hook that hints at confronting a great, unknown, evil and then switches back to outlining how the characters reached that fateful moment. It works well – poses questions, makes you interested in the answers.

Some of the twists and turns of the story seem, not so much cliched as slightly traditional, but it’s all extrememly entertaining. I look forward to part two.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a result! Add to that my first unofficial review:

Loved it. I was honestly surprised and a bit disappointed when I reached the final page so soon – and that has to be a good sign.

Get in!

So now I need to finish editing part two for Pantechnicon – it’s not due until December, but I made one or two changes in part one which have ramifications later in the story, and the longer I leave it, the greater the chance I’ll forget completely.

Work on Dark Heart itself has, as usual, stalled for all the wrong, miserably, pitful reasons. Too busy, too tired, too hot, too cold. The usual. Do I want to write a novel or not? If anyone has some tips on motivation, feel free to drop me a line. I have reached 25,000 words, and I’m starting to think that 100,000 is not enough, but so far I’m taking that as a good sign. Certainly the chapter introducing the Interregnum of 1937 took a life of its own and grew to three-times the required length. But hey, still good. That’s writing.