To be perfectly frank it took me a long time to get through this book. The concept had me highly motivated to read it as soon as it arrived in my hands, but the beginning slowly ate away at that excitement till I put it down after about four chapters and moved onto a new book. The writing is okay--I haven't read Harper before, but I have read quite a bit of steampunk over the last few years. Harper definitely combines the two worlds in a believable way, but spends so much time trying to immerse the reader in it that the info-dumping becomes really tedious really quickly.

It wouldn't be quite right to call this steampunk with traditional zombies either. The 'Clockwork Plague' victims that becomes zombies don't feast on the flesh of humans and except for the machinations of the villain don't attack humans either it would seem. They're just kind of there. The steampunk aspects are solid and inventive--plenty of cool and nifty gadgets running around (some of the Clockwork Plague victims become genius inventors until they burn themselves out and go crazy), but as I said earlier Harper spends a lot of time info-dumping to make the gadgets seem cool. More often than not we are told how cool the gadgets are and when presented with the reality in action, it's taken care of quickly and as dryly as possible.

The romance subplot was also dry. Alice is torn between wanting to do right by her family and her obligations as a daughter and wanting to do just about anything else in her life. As a consequence her romance with Gavin is put on the back burner. Not that Gavin is any better, he detests London and is only there because of his nominal interest in Alice (or so it seems). Their lack of clear communication on their wants is a real sticking point throughout the novel.

More than anything else however the novel drags on. The moments of excitement are ruined by over simplification or too much information or over much too quickly to gain much momentum. In the end this was just unsatisfying and not very enjoyable to top it off.

Review originally posted at Night Owl Reviews ( )

Mediocre at best. Which is sad, because there are some zinging ideas in there. The Clockwork Plague that may kill you or may turn you into a zombie or might (just might) make you a genius (briefly)? Superb. I mean, sure, it's a little "how does the science go on that one again?" but it's multi-layered plot-enabled worldbuilding in one fell swoop, and I can handwave like a champion if you pay me well. But the writing's quite workaday and the characters are pretty ordinary and there's a plothole I could drive a tank through, all of which combined to have me rolling my eyes way too often in the final third, and not while grinning ruefully.

I'll start with the cover mix-up. I mustn't have read the blurb properly or clearly (sometimes I don't; I get keywords, like the cover, and bung it on the to-read) because I thought this was taking place in the Wild West. I mean, she's wearing a gaudy choker and her corset on the outside of her dress, not to mention the state of her hair. I assumed she was a saloon girl. But she's not. She's the heir to a baron and a strait-laced society girl. Oh. OK. I was quite looking forward to the saloon girl, is all.

She's such a boring character, though, and the turmoils she undergoes aren't really explored with any intricacy or depth. It's the stifling and completely inhuman arranged marriage to return to proper society, or running away with the dashing American airman who makes her bosom heave. There's not really much believable tension in it, because there's no depth given to society or strength to her personal desire to be back amongst it, but still she wrestles with it for the entire bloody book - or as much of it as the author could arrange; when she finally gives in to Gavin's teenage charms, it's a puzzling distance short of the end of the book, which is part of what gives a strange lurching sensation to the final push of the plot into the finale.

And about that finale. WHAT? Oh no, if we release the plague cure, Britain will lose intellectual superiority. We can't allow there to be a plague gap! What the hell? If that's the case, you WEAPONISE THE FUCKING CURE and spray it all over China. Are you new to arms races? Ye gods.

I did really like Louisa. And look how THAT ended up. Pah.

(Also, if you keep telling me two days pass between this event and that event, and then you have our hero and heroine forever stopping on the verge of clothes-ripping passion because "oh, we don't have time" I reserve the right to call you an irritating tease.) ( )

I really enjoyed this steampunk novel. This is the first book in the Clockwork Empire series; there are four books in this series.

I liked the main characters a lot and enjoyed all the crazy clockwork inventions. The book is engaging and fast-paced and I was surprised at how quickly I read through it.

The book switches between Alice’s viewpoint and Gavin’s. Alice is the daughter of a Baron with poor prospects after the Clockwork plague took some of her family and resulted in her family being shunned. Gavin is a soon to be airship pilot whose unfortunate encounter with pirates changes the course of his life forever.

I loved Alice’s obsession with mechanical things. Her struggle to remain supportive of her father and blend with society’s conventions coupled with her love of adventure and excitment makes her a complex character that’s interesting to read about. Gavin’s incredibly skill with music and his love of air travel makes him an interesting character as well.

I enjoyed the alternate world created here. This is a world that has been ravaged by the Clockwork plague, yet enhanced by the genius Clockworkers the plague occasionally creates.

The story was filled with mystery and excitement. It flowed well and was very easy to read and stay engaged in; I had trouble putting it down!

Overall I would recommend to those who are interesting in steampunk mysteries with some action and adventure in them. I look forward to reading the rest of the series! ( )

4.5/5
Oh, I'm so glad I've read it on Christmas day and had myself quite a Clockwork Christmas :) Great book, albeit a bit manic, I had to race along with the plot to catch up plenty of times.

There are two main protagonists.

Alice, a daughter of an impoverished baron in Victorian London, secretly works with assembling and repairing automatons while struggling to keep up the appearances and find a rich husband to pay her ill father's debts.

Gavin is an 18 year-old American cabin boy on a merchant airship from Boston, captured by pirates and hauled to London for a ransom from his shipping company. The company refuses to pay for a lowly cabin boy and pirates plan to sell him into a brothel when Gavin escapes.

Apart from an unusual pairing where she is older than him, both characters are perky, brilliant and utterly charming. It's the world-building however that totally won me over.

The world in this setting has an epidemic called a clockwork plague. The majority of people who contract it die, some percentage becomes zombie and very very small percentage has their minds altered and become incredible mad inventors, whose genius can build amazing automatons, defy gravity, physical laws, space and dimensions. These clockworkers don't live longer than 2-3 years but in that span they create things that truly change the world.

Only 2 nations in the world utilise clockworkers - Brittania and China, and it's a neck to neck race between them in the war of inventions.

How Alice and Gavin fit into that? you would ask. The thing is, Alice's mind is rare enough to understand how clockworkers automatons work and Gavin with his genius for understanding and playing the most perfect musical notes makes him a sort of a clockworker pied piper :)

Oh dear, I hope I didn't give away too much! ;) Maybe just enough for you to pick up the book?

There are moments, especially Alice's indecision which are grating, however as someone who loves HR I accepted them as a part of Victorian heroine package and just let go. If you are willing to do the same, the whole book is a delightful mad adventure, and I'm really looking forward to the next instalment in the series. ( )

This was a lot of fun. I wish I could give it another half of a star because I liked it enough to start the next in the series. I had a difficult time visualizing a lot of the machinery. Whether that's my fault or the author's, I don't know. ( )