Clockwork Watch

Clockwork Watch: A Penny Dreadful Review

            It is difficult to review an immersive multimedia experience. That is the challenge I face in this review. I have purchased two graphic novels and a comic that are but a piece of the world of the Clockwork Watch. I can only convey fragments of the fascinating world at which these works hint.

            I shall begin with The Arrival. Queen Victoria has invited an engineer by the name of Chan Ranbir to come live in England to work on a project. This project is clockwork automatons. The Arrival is told through the eyes of Mr. Ranbir’s young son. It is the beginning of a strange new world.

            The automatons, or Clockworks, multiply. They are servants in every home, workers in every factory. Advanced models think and feel. Some love them. Some hate them. Janav Ranbir, the estranged son of the man who invented this new race of clockwork people, hates them. He joins an agency called the Clockwork Watch, devoted to policing the activities of these Clockworks.

            Each graphic novel contains articles, and flyers, editorials and mini-stories about various denizens of this strange world. These are derived from the blog posts and live role-playing events on the website. YOU, the reader, the consumer, become the creator. This shared experience is kind of incredible. Five gears out of five, all around.

            The graphic novels are brilliant. I love the art of Jennie Gyllblad wherever I see it, and here she’s just brilliant. The story was dreamt up and begun by Yomi Ayeni, and now it is so much more. Visit www.clockworkwatch.com to see where it is now.

Your Correspondent From the Aethernet,

Penny J. Merriweather.

Clockwork Heart

Clockwork Heart: A Penny Dreadful Review

            Somewhere in the multiverse lies Ondinium, a stratified city-state powered by a lighter-than-air element and governed by a council advised by an enormous analytical engine. Above this society, between the rigid castes, flit the Icarii, messengers with fantastic clockwork wings. Behold the wonders of Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti.

            By chance, the heroine Taya, one of the Icarus messengers, happens to be in a position to rescue a woman and her child from the Exalted caste – the city’s leaders – from a sabotaged cable car. She finds herself drawn in to the investigation and the politics of the upper caste. The sabotaged wire ferry was only the beginning…

            The characters in this book are fantastic. From the dour clockmaker Cristof to Taya’s conspiracy nut friend Pyke, each and every one seems alive and nuanced. You could easily believe that they go about their lives when you close the book, loving, reading, and shopping.

            The world-building, too, is great. The technology is described well enough to give the reader a good idea of what it looks like and how it works, but not in such detail that it slows down the plot. The caste system might be a little confusing at first, because the way this society is set up seems so alien to most readers, but by the time the reader hits chapter two, he or she has a good idea of how Ondinium works. The exposition is masterfully handled. In the hands of a lesser writer, the complexities of this fantastic world might be clumped together in awkward chunks of text, but in the hands of Dru Pagliassotti, the information is seamlessly integrated into the narrative.

            My only complaint is that this book isn’t long enough! Clockwork Heart leaves me wanting so much more. It is a fantastic taste of an entirely new world, and I, like Taya, want to travel and explore the whole thing.

            I give this excellent book five gears out of five, and would venture to say that it is essential to any Steampunk reading list. The best thing about Clockwork Heart is that it is the first of a series.

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,

Penny J. Merriweather