Nick Valentino

There are many great examples of steampunk fiction (though, I admit, it works better as a visual media or as a fashion), unfortunately, Thomas Riley, by Nick Valentino, is not one such book. It’s technically steampunk, but not a good example of such.

As I mentioned just now, steampunk works better as a visual media. This is because in visual media, the storyteller does not need to derail the narrative to explain in minute detail what everybody is wearing (and a pair of goggles). TR does this almost every time a new character enters the scene. “Stop the story!” it almost screams, “We need to have a fashion show!”

Aside from this, my next biggest complaint about the book was that the plot zipped along. Since we’re discussing steampunk, I’ll stick with the train analogy. Imagine, sitting on a train, trying to enjoy the passing scenery, only the train starts going 300 miles per hour, rendering the passing scenery as a blur (and probably pushing you into your chair, or into the person sitting across from you, depending which way you’re facing).

You’d think, then, that the constant breaks for fashion would be a welcome respite. Well, they are, but only so much as a sudden stop on said 300 mph train is a welcome respite from zipping along at breakneck speeds. To be honest, the stop-and-go pace of the book left me literally nauseated at times.

Within the book were several characters. Most, if not all, of them were very, very flat, and just about every single of them underwent dramatic behavioral changes with little to no justification. It made parts of the book in which some characters were only acting under a guise of betrayal actually believable enough to convince the reader, but not in a good way.

Another thing that bugged me was the cover. It looked so familiar. Where else had I seen a brave hero with goggles looking to the right and holding a stopwatch/compass thing in his hands while airships flew by in the background? Oh, yeah, on the cover of Michael Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams (in my opinion, steampunk done very well). Look it up if you don’t have a copy handy.

Since our time on this planet is limited, I’ll only address one more problem I had with the book (which logically follows from previous problems): I was not convinced that the author knew what was going to happen next in the story any more than I did, giving the book the feeling as if he was just writing by the seat of his pants. While giving a synopsis of the book to another person may intrigue a reader’s imagination, the actual execution was quite lacking.

My recommendation for Valentino: if you write a sequel (I got the impression that one was considered, based on the number of loose plot ends left unresolved), or ever feel the need to release a “revised and expanded” version of Thomas Riley, please do the following things: (1) Copyedit!!!; (2) Assume your reader is knowledgeable enough about steampunk to avoid massive infodumps of each character’s dress; (3) Focus on the storytelling; I know you’re excited about the story, but slow down and let the reader enjoy the scenery; there were a lot of potentially good scenes that just fell flat because the story rushed on ahead; (4) Work on the dialog; characters do not need to narrate what they’re doing, and people in real life (and good fiction) tend not to tell each other what is already known between them (often called “Rod & Don Conversations”); and (5) Use scene breaks; this cues the reader that there has been some passage of time or space between one paragraph and the next, otherwise, the story just plows ahead without allowing the reader the necessary indicators. The story was interesting, but the delivery hardly did it justice.

My recommendation for the reader: If you’re new to the genre, don’t start here. It will most likely disappoint you. I’d recommend starting with Boneshaker by Cherie Priest; but I’m sure your local steampunk community center or library can give you better personal recommendations.… (plus d'informations)

This was by far one of the worst-written genre novels I have come across in several years. About the only positive thing I have to say about it is that it was short. Young Adult novel? If I still were a "Young Adult", I would be insulted by categorizing it as such. The story does not flow well, the characters are flat and uninteresting and the action is many times pointless. On top of that, the publisher needs to hire an editor. There are free grammar and spell checkers available that the publisher could have used on this. Instead, it appears that they published a draft prior to checking simple things like spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Save yourself some money, as there are several other good choices available in this genre.… (plus d'informations)