Bartleby and James:
Edwardian Steampunk Chronicle
DETAILS: Series: Galvanic Century, Book One Publisher: Pomoconsumption Press Publication Date: September 10, 2014 Format: Kindle Edition Length: 123 pg. Read Date: January 7, 2023
“Good news, James,” he said. “We are to be detectives.”
I looked up from my workstation, the jeweller’s loupe in my eye distorting his otherwise handsome face. “I’ve no desire to be a detective.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Bartleby said. “For it’s what we’re to be.”
What’s Bartleby and James: Edwardian Steampunk Chronicle About?
Alton Bartleby is something of an intellectual dilettante—he has some degree of brilliance and uses it to flit around from idea to idea, interest to interest, and so on. He gets very invested in some sort of project or occupation for a little while, and then plunges wholeheartedly into something else. Thankfully (for him) he has the wealth to indulge his flitting attention span.
James Wainwright is his friend—Wainwright’s a brilliant engineer, who is far more interested in whatever device he’s fiddling with than interacting with anyone. He seems to go along with Bartleby helping him out with whatever flight of fancy he’s on. But he’s not so sure about his latest idea—after meeting a certain retired Consulting Detective who now keeps bees, Bartleby wants to be a detective.
He sticks with it for longer than Wainwright or his fiancé expects—this book collects four short stories recounting some of their earliest cases. The Duo tangles with an automaton assassin, an out-of-control airship, a rogue spiritualist, and more.
The Tone
“I may be able calibrate my Forensic Viewers and attune them to his particular N- Ray signature.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“My science goggles can track him.”
“Brilliant!”
These stories are told with a very light touch—they’re not comedic, but they have their moments, but they’re definitely not stories that take themselves too seriously.
That doesn’t stop them from brushing up against serious thoughts or emotions—and there is a little bit of character growth (and the “little bit” is solely a function of the brevity of the collection based on what I’ve read). Bartleby is largely the same man we meet in the beginning, except that he doesn’t seem to be tiring of being a detective. James, on the other hand, is definitely not someone he’d recognize from his pre-detective days.
So, what did I think about Bartleby and James: Edwardian Steampunk Chronicle?
Bartleby shook his head. “Look, can you invent… detective things?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. You’re the engineer.”
This was a fun, quick read—a nice little dose of Steampunk with a thin coating of Victorian P.I.
The stories were all a little too brief for me, I could barely get my teeth sunk into them—I’d prefer one story told over 120 pages rather than four.
But these were fun enough that I can see myself going on with the books. And think just about anyone would, too.
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