Last year (JUST KIDDING, CBR informed me it was actually February; OMG we have lived ten years since the election, you guys), I enjoyed David D. Levine’s Arabella of Mars, which was billed to me as Jane Austen meets Jules Verne. It’s an accurate comparison. I was excited to see a new adventure come out a mere year later. I immediately grabbed it from the library and read it on top of my unread-stack. Because this is a direct continuation of the first novel, I’ll […]
Not quite as romantic and dashing
Arabella and the Battle of Venus is the second book in “The Adventures of Arabella Ashby” series. Last year I reviewed the first book, Arabella of Mars, and was delighted by it’s fun combination of the Regency era and sailing ships that travel interstellar winds between planets. In fact, its escapism was sorely needed when I read it in November of 2016. This time the adventure has its high points but also a lot more drudgery, making it less romantic and dashing than its predecessor, but […]
Jane Austen steampunk space adventure
I’m a picky science fiction reader, but that doesn’t mean I’m against it. And if you throw a sci-fi or fantasy novel at me and say anything “Jane Austen,” chances are I’m going to read it. See: Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories and Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars books. I was scanning my library’s new science fiction and fantasy books, when David D. Levine’s Arabella of Mars appeared and had the tagline of “would have amused Jane Austen” attached to it. Obviously, I […]