1 Book three in a series, none of which I'd read before this one

2 Steampunk

3 Fantasy

4 Romance

I gotta say, if I'd known it was all that before I got it, I probably wouldn't have bought it. But in spite of all that I did really enjoy it. Heck, I might even read the first book or two....

The fantasy steampunk thing really doesn't work for me. I can accept ice breathing dragons a lot quicker than steam powered submarines capable of 30 knots for days at a time (yeah, I'm weird that way) but never ever knowing where the heck the plot was leading kept me almost engrossed enough not to care. My only real complaint was the the large number of characters and sub plots made it long winded without spending enough time with the characters I liked.

If any or all of points one thru four sound appealing, you'll likely really enjoy this. Or maybe you'll like it in spite of them. Either way, probably worth your time. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Rejoin the adventure in the third novel of Lake’s Clockwork Earth series. Paolina Barthes, young sorceress, is crossing the Equatorial Wall, attempting to take herself and her magic away from the grasp of powerful men in the empires of the north. Emily Childress is still aboard the renegade Chinese submarine, along with her devoted Captain, and the British chief petty officer Angus al-Wazir. They are all being sought most urgently by the powers that secretly rule the Northern Earth--the Silent Order and the White Birds. And a third power, of the Southern Earth, has its eye on Paolina; she will not be allowed to bring the political turmoil of the North into the more mystical South.

My Review: It's been my habit to put these Jay Lake Pre-Mortem Read-a-thon reviews up early on my appointed blog-posting day. This one's going up almost the next day. It's been very hard to write.

I started this project as a way of making sure that one reader of Lake's novels says a public thank you to the man before he finishes his journey. To my pleased surprise, he's noticed this and graciously acknowledged it. The Jay Wake, his self-hosted funeral festivity, is in the immediate future; I'll have another review before then; but Pinion, the final Clockwork Earth novel, brought home to me just that: Finality.

While the story lines of Boaz, the Brass man from the days of King Solomon's court, Paolina the brash miracle-worker, Emily Childress the librarian-turned-avebianco-Mask, Wang the librarian and traitor whose destiny is at right angles to his desires, and even Hethor, the clockmaker's apprentice who saved the world, are wound into a charming tassel herein this is the last visit we'll pay to this marvelous, blasphemous, gorgeous alternative Universe with its radically different laws of physics.

Oh heavy heavy sigh.

Well, that said, let's get on to the story. The Chinese Empire and the British Raj are, as great empires are wont to be, on the brink of war. The Chinese want to (re)build the Golden Bridge that once connected the industrial and mechanistic Northern Earth to the Edenic, spiritual Southern Earth. The British don't want them to do that before they themselves build a tunnel to accomplish the same purpose.

Both sides want the prize, the booty, the imperial power over the Southern Earth. The avebianco and the Silent Order, opposing mystical societies with special and nonmaterial means of control, don't want the Wall that the Earth's gears travel atop (remember I spoke of the alternative physics of this world) breached for their own reasons. No one takes much account of what the Southern Earth's peoples might want. (This should sound familiar.)

At the heart of this conflict are the actors on our literary stage, the wild Paolina and the librarian/Mask Childress. They spend their efforts to prevent a ridiculous war, release a dead Queen from mechanical bondage to earth, and preserve God's ordered construction against the day that the sides can be brought together without ill will or evil intent.

What a great thing this Wall is! The almost-accidental destruction of colonialism prevented by a physical, insurmountable barrier that is peopled by scary monsters. I love this idea, and the idea of the Brass people created by King Solomon and vivified by his Seal! It's a beautiful Earth, this one. The Seal of Solomon (Place me like a SEAL upon your heart, like a SEAL on your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Song of Solomon 8:6) set the Brass into action in the world, and in their immensely long lives the world's peoples benefited from the wisdom of their detached-yet-present perspective. The slow, inevitable decline of any powerful people has come upon them. Now Boaz, a rebel from their midst and an uncontrolled actor in their controlled society, finishes King Solomon's plan for the world:

The threads within his mind were a chaotic stir, not unpleasant, but not simple. He tried to listen, to pick out what they were saying, but just as he'd wanted them quiet before, now he wanted them to speak out.
Was this what it meant to be human? To wish for the impossible, to never clearly hear the tenor of one's own thoughts?
If that was the price of love, he was willing to pay it.

And that, really, is the message of the books of the Clockwork Earth. It's fitting that the series end here, with that clear insight into the murk of having a soul, and that clear acceptance of the price a being pays for being capable of insight. Resistance is, in fact, futile: Run away, hide as best you can, life comes down to that. Do you accept the price of being conscious and aware, or do you dream your life away?

Maybe it takes a Clockwork Earth, a created artifact of a divine mind omnipresent, to make the starkness of the choice we're all required to face this clear and sharp.

Sharp things cut. Never forget that. ( )

Jay Lake somehow ties the multiple threads of his two previous novels in this series in a neat bow by the end of this third volume. Along the way, his characters develop, new wonders unfold, plots thicken without congealing. I prefer hard science fiction to fantasy, but these three books are favorites of mine. ( )

Not a great book, but some interesting concepts. Waaaaay too much switching from character to character to really care about any of them.

This is the concluding volume of a trilogy sent in a very strange world. The solar system is a giant 'device', that runs on clockwork to keep the Earth and other bodies in their 'orbits'. The Northern and Southern hemispheres are very different. The North contains two warring mega-empires, the Brtish Empire and Imperial China. They fight on land and sea and in the air using steam-powered vessels and firearms. The overt conflict between these powers masks a deeper conflict between two secret societies who use both Powers. There is a wall between the hemispheres which is all but impenetrable. In this wall live the Brass, mechanical beings, one of whom was the 'Brass Christ'.

In this book we see the Southern hemisphere for the first time, separated from the Northern one by a gigantic brass 'gear' which keeps everything moving. The British try to drill though it, the Chinese try to find a way over it but both fail. In the South live tribes more interested in magic than science. Hethor, from the first book is living in the South and he meets Paolina, the 'sorceress' from the second book. She can manipulate reality through a 'gleam', rather like a slide rule, which seems to follow 'scientific principles' (an equal reaction for every action) when she uses it to manipulate the reality of the clockwork universe. She has already used it to kill and is loath to continue killing with it, which makes some scenes much more tense than they otherwise would be.

All the various sub plots set in this book and the previous ones converge on narrative tracks to a common end point in space and time. Queen Victoria wishes to die as she is being kept alive in a fluid-filled tank. Her man Kitchens is driven mad by his promise to her to end her misery. Childress from Boston and the Chinese scholar Wang, both librarians, both pretending to be members of the two secret societies, cross paths en route to a fateful meeting. Paolina journeys over the Wall in her hunt for the 'Brass Man' Boaz, whom she loves, and she is accompanied by Gashansunu, a Southern witch-woman. Boaz is also trying to find her, his journeying given a Biblical commentary which only he can hear, whispered to him via a lost 'Seal of Solomon' which he carries.

This trilogy is a descendent of those creaky late 19th century adventure stories which used daft technology (like giant guns) to get people to the Moon or had explorers stumble upon lost civilisations hidden underground. Rather than good against evil, the plot driver here is correcting imbalances between the various structural conflicts. The final image is that of Paolina and Boaz on the Wall, with Boaz literally transformed by her love.This is a victory for romance, not virtuous force of arms, a restoration of balance rather than a removal of evil.

Finally, the images in this trilogy are breath taking and a film of this book would be a fitting challenge for the full barrage of CGI trickery to realise this monster clockwork reality. ( )