I really liked Monica Marier's Madame Bluestocking's Pennyhorrid, and I am here, dear readers, to explain why. A good melding of high fantasy and Steampunk, the novel starts off with a bang and continues to entertain and surprise the reader as it progresses. In this new twist on a penny-dreadful novel, Marier takes the reader on an entertaining and fantastical journey that is reminiscent of the classic Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road movies.

An Elf, a wizard and a dragon set out to save an undersea city from an unspoken doom. Their ensuing adventures cause strife, mayhem, and generalized calamity throughout the community, upsetting everyone from the city elders on down. Comedy, debauchery, and witty banter are by-words for the day. The doomed city faces cataclysms of Titanic proportions – the migration of a gigantic whale, the Monoceros, and its pod and a conspiracy that threatens the entire city – and it actually rains fish. Through their combined talents in machinery and magic, a little help from their dragon, and the genius of the world's greatest wizard, the miscreant heroes manage to save the city and escape civil punishment to carry on their dreadfully effective sort of heroism.

Meet the Dynamic Wingaurd and Kelly, whose skill sets are rivaled only by their rap sheets. Evelyn Kelly (it can be a man's name, too, he'll tell you vehemently) is an alcoholic wizard who is literally phobic of most everything. His partner, Lynald Wingaurd, is an Elf (one of the last) and a skirt-chasing machinist on the run from everyone, including himself. Together, along with their dragon, Philomena, they must save the underwater city, Poulipolis, from a certain but mysterious doom. Summoned only by a cryptic and minimalist note found pinned to Lynald's coat one morning, they begin their misadventure by crash-landing in Poulipolis. They are unwittingly duped by an agent of Lynald's ex-fiancee into setting themselves up to steal a magical jewel that protects the city from annihilation and are hunted by the strange and determined Poulipolis Police Inspector Slaven for, essentially, not being at home when he called. It is only the fact that they are actually good at what they do (magic and machinery) that allows them to succeed and avert disaster.

Like Hope and Crosby in those classic movies, Winguard and Kelly find themselves in predicament after predicament, each one just a bit more ridiculous and perilous than the last. There is, of course, a girl, one Betsy Faber – who catches Kelly's eye even as she herself falls for the charming and dashing Winguard – who later not only turns out to be working for the true criminal of the tale, but then pulls another cross on the adventurers by writing down and selling the account of their time in Poulipolis as a popular penny-dreadful. Winguard and Kelly only find this out in the end, after they have recovered from injuries sustained in saving Poulipolis from a watery doom.

Amidst all this, the reader is treated to rousing and humorous bouts of friendly and not-so-friendly banter between Kelly and Winguard. Truly, the dialogue is the shining point of this novel, as the author has managed to catch that elusive sense of friendly rivalry that makes good partnerships work.

It's hard to top crash-landing a dragon in an underwater city, but even if Monica Marier doesn't manage to build upwards from this dramatic opening scene of Madame Bluestocking's Pennyhorrid, she definitely keeps the comedy and action on the same level for the remainder of the novel. There are a few slow parts in this entertaining read, mainly during character histories and back-stories, but they are few and do not detract from the novel as a whole. The action is smooth, with little of that jumpy feeling that can arise from having one calamity fall on the heels of another. There are no glaring errors in continuity or editing, which made reading this novel a pleasure, in high contrast to my past couple of review pieces.

All in all, I liked Madame Bluestocking's Pennyhorrid for several reasons. The comedy and pathos were in good balance, with neither one taking too much of the book for itself. The story is well rounded, with depth and breadth to both the plot and the characters, enough so that I look forward to another offering from Ms. Marier. The writing style was fun and adventurous, with a modern edge to the slang and banter that made it feel more contemporary than other books in the Steampunk genre.

If there is a negative to the novel, it would be that the action does not build upwards from the opening, but, like I've stated, it's hard to top a dragon crashing into a city. Everything, with the exception of the Monoceros whale, which is one of the cataclysms the city faces, pales in comparison to Philomena's spectacular entry into Poulipolis. Even so, I cannot say that this book is a great book, though it is a good book. It lacks that certain panache, that turn of phrase that elevates a book to where I cannot put it down, that I can't wait to see what happens next to each of the well-made characters. Otherwise, it is a fun and entertaining read that shows real promise as a series, and I very much look forward to the next installment of the adventures of the Dynamic Wingaurd and Kelly. On a ratings scale, I would give Madame Bluestocking's Pennyhorrid a firm three and a half out of five. 

Madame Bluestocking's Pennyhorrid is available for pre-order on Marier's blog, via Hunt Press: http://pennyhorrid.blogspot.com/ or from Amazon as a Kindle edition e-book. 

Zora E. Sternbilt is the Chronicle's newest correspondent.  Look for her upcoming reviews and commentary on the steampunk media scene.