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Word on the Web:

Fantasy Cafe: Very positive

Uniquely Pleasureable, Ann Somerville, Very positive

Dear Author, Janine, A-

Mrs. Giggles, 85

In Hale’s steampunk (alternate Victorian England) world, a corrupt theocracy runs things with its special unit of power abusing priests, called the Inquisition, who, like their real historical namesakes, employ brutal methods to obtain “information” — usually in the form of false confessions. In a distant past which is not sketched in much detail, the priests convinced the Lords of Hell, fallen angels including Lucifer, to leave Hell and be saved, offering a Covenant of Redemption. Nowadays Hell is an eerie empty place, and the descendants of those demons, known as “Prodigals”, live in stench and squalor as second class citizens in Hell’s Below. Prodigals have pointy ears and teeth, brightly colored eyes, and black fingernails. After generations of inbreeding with humans, they are less powerful, but still have various special gifts, such as flight, which they are forbidden to utilize. They are not allowed to leave the capital.

Wicked Gentlemen is split into two sections. The first is written in the first person, in the voice of Belimai Sykes, a tortured soul, a cynic, an orphorium addict, and a Prodigal who occasionally works as a kind of private investigator. Inquisitor Captain William Harper shows up at Belimai’s door asking for his help in locating a missing woman. Joan is William’s sister-in-law, a member of the Good Commons Advocacy Association, which fought for suffrage for women and Prodigals.

The first half the the book is devoted to solving the mystery of Joan’s whereabouts, as well as the identity of the person who has been gutting Prodigals, probably to steal their organs to make powerful potions. As Belimai gets involved in the case, he and William begin sleeping together. Although not heavily focused on the romance (one brief love scene, for example, the rest are alluded to) I believed in the instant attraction between these two men, and I also felt that they just liked each other.

Interestingly, except for one mention of the abbot’s view of “filthy sodomites” the fact that Harper is a gay priest is given no attention. I would think gays and lesbians would not be far above Prodigals in the Inquisition’s esteem. Prodigals often try to “pass” by wearing gloves and coloring their eyes — do gays and lesbians have to pass? Perhaps I am being dense, and the big stumbling block: that Harper is respected and well to do, and Belimai is a devil, is supposed to stand in for this.

The second half of the book is told in the third person, from William’s point of view. It felt odd, especially when the author switched back to Belimai’s first person voice in the epilogue. I didn’t mind a shift in perspective but I minded the shift in points of view. I felt a first person point of view for Harper would have worked better. Then again, I like symmetry.

The second book (or second novella — although the characters don’t change, the mysteries are pretty contained in each half) focuses on a murder and cover-up which reveal to Harper the extent of the corruption within the Inquisition and force him to take desperate action.

At about 200 pages, this is not a long book, but a lot happens in its pages. Like many readers, I would have liked to stay in the world Hale created a bit longer. I have read that steampunk is not distopian, but Hale’s world is definitely a gloomy scary place, with segregation, minority oppression, corruption, abuse of power, poverty, drug abuse, rats, bad smells, you name it. It is always raining, cloudy, or foggy. It’s not clear what the government is, although there doesn’t seem to be a queen and I doubt it’s a democracy. Theocracy?

I thought the setup was really unique and had lots of possibility (once you get over the idea that the princes of Hell would consent to be baptized). The way Hale worked the religion into the architecture of the world was ingenious. To take just two examples, Belimai was once tortured by “prayer engines” and Hale never stoops to telling us exactly what they are: she doesn’t need to when the scriptural scars are evident on Belimai’s body. At one point in the story, Harper has to find his way among the pipes underground, which are labeled by biblical verse.

On the other hand, I did feel that the atmo was overworked. Too much rain, too many smells, too many repetitive mentions of gaslights.

The story moved along at a fast clip. It was actually hard to put down. There were a few moments of genuine horror — really pretty grisly — and suspense, and one terrific triumphant moment of amoral revenge taking.

I liked Belimai a lot. He is reed thin with crazy hair, and has the ability to fly. He’s very attuned to the air and the wind, almost like a leaf himself blowing in it. This made him perhaps an unusual choice to narrate a mystery — he’s really not a protagonist in the true sense. at first, I thought we were getting a truly amoral character in Belimai, but it turns out that he is deeply heroic. His addiction is actually a consequence of his heroism, and he cures himself of it completely in one fell swoop. So much for his early compelling comments like this one: “Everything they seemed to love about me came from the needles they detested.” In fact, nothing about him seems to be affected once he gives them up.

On the other hand, Hale mixes it up by letting us know that Belimai’s act of heroism was a bit quixotic, and by making Harper more complex in the second half of the book. While I didn’t understand some of his motives, I appreciated the fact that at the end, Belimai seemed more interested in justice while Harper was decidedly less so: the triumphant revenge moment is all his. Quite a tricky reversal!

I really liked this book. Wicked Gentlemen was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Foundation for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror book of 2007, and although I have absolutely no basis for comparison, I would guess the honor was deserved. I will be reading more by this author, especially if she publishes that planned sequel.