Soulless by Gail Carriger (2009)
Risqué frivolity
Book cover blurb
ALEXIA TARABOTTI IS LABOURING UNDER A GREAT MANY SOCIAL TRIBULATIONS.
First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.
Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire - and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.
With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia is responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?
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My Review
After reading a sample of this book, just the first chapter, it looked like it would just be a lot of frivolous fun. And I was up for that because sometimes that's just what you need. All these long, overly intense novels can get a little bit wearing after a while, and you need to escape from escapism.
Anyway, I had so much fun with that first chapter I jumped right in and bought all five books in the series. Overly optimistic? Perhaps. But why the hell not? I've noticed that if I'm getting a lot from the prose itself, the actual story isn't that important. Well, to a certain extent of course.
With this first instalment of five, I wasn't disappointed. I got exactly what I was expecting. This book was so much fun. Yes, you may consider it to be aimed at the female gender, but I'll be damned if I'd let something like that spoil my fun. This thing was like a dessert compared to the tough-to-chew main course of so many of the heavy novels out there. Unfortunately, too much dessert is going to get sickly after a while, and Soulless was no exception.
However, that's exactly where the author shows her talent. Approaching the point where I was starting to want something a little more meaty to chew on, Carriger obliges with a timely injection of tension and danger. Coincidentally, this is also the point you discover, without even realising it, just how invested in these characters you've become. Obviously, you have your favourites, as in every book, but each character within these pages makes a place for itself, either in your heart or your mind. This author and her book are a lot cleverer than that first sample chapter led me to believe.
I did encounter one small drawback, and this is possibly just me, but all the character names are a little hard to get your tongue around. Possibly a reflection of the era in which the story is based, but those names are also repeated exhaustively, causing me to pause more than was comfortable. But having said that, it forced me to make a concerted effort to focus on pronouncing those names, correctly or wrongly, and read each occurrence rather than skip over them as usual, getting me over those irritating pauses. Usually, I only bother trying to hold a small number of characters' names in mind, being content with knowing who's speaking without concerning myself with monikers.
Then there's the ending. We build towards it very well, a lot is happening, and the crescendo is developing nicely, except, well, it doesn't. The big ending comes, but you don't notice it. Proceedings seem to just continue and gently run off the boil. It's not exactly an issue, more of a style choice by the author. But when you've got big snarling beasties and bad guys you sort of expect that building thunder to the crashing lightning strike to come just at the end of the chapter so you can catch your breath.
However, those hiccups are minor and mainly pointed out because I'm trying to be fair and informative. This book, and hopefully the rest of the series, is tremendous fun. Go into it with that mindset, and you'll have a blast.
My copy of this novel
Orbit Books paperback edition.
Published in 2010
291 pages
ISBN 9781841499727