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Soulless: a book review
Nov. 24th, 2009 06:08 pmI finished reading Soulless, and my main complaint is that it isn't the book I thought it was. I thought it was a Victorian steampunk novel (the subtitle is "a novel of vampires, werewolves, and parasols"), but it really is a romance novel with a very light steampunk influence. I generally consider steampunk to be Victorian (which the novel is, nominally), all about mad science in the vein of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne with crazy steam powered science (which the novel is not; it has a few very evil scientists, but although mad scientists may be evil, evil scientists are not necessarily mad) and the apocalypse (which the novel hasn't got at all, not even a hint of burning trashcans or whatever the Victorian equivalent is). There is also only one parasol, and it is (sadly) soon lost. Almost all my complaints about the novel is that while I was under the impression that it is a steampunk novel, it really is a romance novel (and if I want a sci-fi / fantasy romance novel (which I don't), I'll read Sharon Shinn). So, while I could go on about these, it doesn't seem fair, and I will confine my complaints to those not directly related to this confusion of genre.
Soulless is based on the premise that souls exist, and that they are a substance in some sense of the word, and that a person may have more or less of a soul. So, some people survive being turned into vampires (for instance) because they have more soul. This seems dubious, but what I think really hurts the novel is that Ms. Carriger does not appear to have a clear idea of what a soul is within the context of the novel (not merely that the characters are unsure, but there seems to be no clear working definition at all). Alexia has no soul, but still thinks, feels, and has some degree of morals. She seems to lack some degree of creativity; her clothing choice is technically perfect but lacks soul. She has nifty abilities to cancel out supernatural powers, which includes vampires and werewolves. This doesn't make sense to me, because the lack of something does not cancel out the presence of something (to oversimplify, an anti-electron cancels out an electron, not a lack of an electron).
In the interview at the end, Ms. Carriger talks about how she thought of Victorian Imperialist Britain, and thought that the fashions must have been dictated by the vampires, and the military might a result of the werewolves, if such existed. I would have liked to have read that novel; Souless only has a few hints of it. Naomi Novik does this sort of thought experiment much better in His Majesty's Dragon (which also has a modern feel) or Susannah Clarke in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which has a delightful, almost Victorian feel).
Soulless is based on the premise that souls exist, and that they are a substance in some sense of the word, and that a person may have more or less of a soul. So, some people survive being turned into vampires (for instance) because they have more soul. This seems dubious, but what I think really hurts the novel is that Ms. Carriger does not appear to have a clear idea of what a soul is within the context of the novel (not merely that the characters are unsure, but there seems to be no clear working definition at all). Alexia has no soul, but still thinks, feels, and has some degree of morals. She seems to lack some degree of creativity; her clothing choice is technically perfect but lacks soul. She has nifty abilities to cancel out supernatural powers, which includes vampires and werewolves. This doesn't make sense to me, because the lack of something does not cancel out the presence of something (to oversimplify, an anti-electron cancels out an electron, not a lack of an electron).
In the interview at the end, Ms. Carriger talks about how she thought of Victorian Imperialist Britain, and thought that the fashions must have been dictated by the vampires, and the military might a result of the werewolves, if such existed. I would have liked to have read that novel; Souless only has a few hints of it. Naomi Novik does this sort of thought experiment much better in His Majesty's Dragon (which also has a modern feel) or Susannah Clarke in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which has a delightful, almost Victorian feel).