Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½
As the title suggests, this is one of those literary mash-ups, similar to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. However, beyond the steampunk influence apparent from the title, this adds another major twist, with the universe here being a gender-swapped one. For in this world, women run everything, with men being largely reduced to waiting for the opposite sex to woo them. Specifically to the novel, meet the Bennet family, who have five sons, whom their parents are increasingly keen to see married off. However, that’s going to be easier said than done in some cases. Elisander, for example, has some newfangled notions about the place of men in contemporary society: that they should be allowed to pilot airships, for one. Another brother is gay, a needless conceit which feels shoehorned into proceedings, in a particularly clunky fashion.
While Elisander represents the main protagonist of the book, it’s the unusual setting which qualifies it for inclusion on this site. Of particular interest is Darcy Fitzwilliam, a female military captain who initially enters the plot as the best friend of a landowner to whom the Bennett parents are keen to wed a son. More or less any son. She takes an instant dislike to the family in general, and Elisander in particular – the antipathy is largely mutual. But you likely won’t be surprised to hear, that over the course of the book, the relationship between the two thaws out.
Also of interest is Darcy’s foster sister, Georgette Wickham, a pirate in the high skies. She owns an airship, which Georgette and her female crew use to carry out robberies. The Bennet family are one such victim, though Georgette turns out to be a bit more complex than she initially appears, particularly in her relationship with Darcy, and her half-cyborg sister. I’d like to have read more about them, and indeed the gynocentric society as a whole. I have… questions. How did it become this way? How does the issue of having and rearing children get handled? Despite an enticing cover, the book is annoyingly uninterested in things outside the Bennett clan and their marriage plans. The tech is also vague, being whatever is needed for the plot. For instance, there’s a throwaway reference to a “chip”. But just the one.
I will confess to not having read Jane Austen’s 1813 original, so that aspect of this mash-up is completely lost on me. As a steampunk story on its own terms, this is okay, though I’d liked to have seen more action from the women. In particular, it feels like it’s setting up a confrontation between Darcy and Georgette. While this does eventually take place, it’s over, almost before it has started. Perhaps there is more of note in the follow-up volume, Pride & Prejudice & Pirates? But there’s not enough here to make me more than marginally interested in finding out whether or not that is the case.
Author: Caylen McQueen
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 2 in the Steampunk Pride & Prejudice series.