Steampunk Hands 2016 – Soulless by Gail Carriger

One of the first books I read after Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker was New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger’s Soulless in which Alexia Tarabotti deals with the trials and tribulations of her life, filled with vampires and werewolves, and her own lack of a soul.

This was Gail’s first book in her Parasol Protectorate” series, and was declared one of the “Best Books of 2009” by Publishers Weekly.

Gail did a Q&A session with the io9 Book Club, responding to the questions from the group, and I had a chance to chat with her in 2011. In that interview, Gail says:

 

With Soulless I really took a sort of Dickensian/early Edith Wharton style romance, standard romantic elements, and then built the first story on top of that to play with it.  Omniscient narration (AKA third person head-hopping) is one of Dickens’s tricks, that kind of thing.

 

I found the book to be a fun, witty, and pleasantly sarcastic read with a strong, smart, and resourceful lead character. Mystery, adventure, and world on the supernatural side of steampunk.

Steampunk Scholar Mike Perschon also has a review of Soulless.

If a bit of humor and spoofing of Gothic novel tropes, along with vampires, social dictates, and plenty of tea drinking, this might be a book to add to your reading list.

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