When my editor Doctor Q asked for someone to review Freerunners by Joseph Chandler Cain, I was excited to take a shot at giving it a review. I had yet to venture outside the realm of music reviews, and steampunk dystopian horror? Sounds right up my alley!

Freerunners was certainly that, but my excitement quickly turned to confusion as I progressed through the novel and tried to figure out how to ultimately assess it.

Freerunners is the debut novel by Joseph Chandler Cain, and it tells the story of Mirra Mantle. Mirra is a 17-year-old girl living in the city of Transatlantica, a retrofuturistic dystopia where the High Ones have those who are figuratively and literally below them under an iron fist and the streets are overrun at night by the undead Possessors. Deciding that she is tired of being locked in; Mirra decides to become a Freerunner, her world's equivalent of a freedom fighter, alongside her twin brother Burrow and the mysterious Poe. As the novel progresses, Mirra becomes further entrenched in the movement as she learns horrifying secrets of the High Ones.

There is a part of me that really enjoys this book. It's a fairly solid story set in a universe that is a crossroads between the America in Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century, Panem in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, and the Alliance in Joss Whedon's Firefly. The pace is a bit slow as the novel begins, but by the last 100 pages, it is nearly impossible to put down. The characters are fantastic, and Mirra is an especially refreshing teenage protagonist. She feels like an actual stubborn teenage girl tossed into an extraordinary situation. She's no damsel, but she's not hardened either. She gets emotional and scared, but she can still come to the help of those in need. That kind of teenager is rare in fiction, so it was a real treat to get to know Mirra.

However, while there are really good parts of Freerunners, they get dragged down to street level to fight the Possessors really quickly. There's a lot of cool and interesting ideas that Cain is throwing around, but oftentimes, they're skimmed over in order to get to the next action scene or just come from absolutely nowhere. The pacing of the novel is hardly even, and there are a lot of passages that leave the reader confused as to what just happened. No spoilers, but the last few chapters are a big example of these three issues. When I got to the last page, I really had no idea of what just happened. Those who like their dystopian horror with a little romance may find these issues to be an especially big problem. Mirra starts the novel with a massive crush on Poe, and a few chapters later, they're an item. I can understand not wanting to focus on it, but it's ultimately unsatisfying when there's no suspense involved in their relationship. Also, with Mirra's first person perspective, the reader gets a very limited view of the universe and of the character development of those around her. Which is really unfortunate for readers like me who want to know more about characters like Drie the tinkerer or the reasoning behind the slang the characters speak.

The biggest issue that took me out of Freerunners the most though were the continuous grammar and punctuation errors that plagued the novel from beginning to end. Perhaps it is the stickler in me that keeps the Associated Press style guide in reach under her bed, but I cannot begin to tell you how many times I groaned as I highlighted yet another error that my professors and editors would have killed me for. I understand that writers make mistakes all the time, but it is distracting to wonder who edited the work while reading about a zombie attack.

If you're able to turn off a critical eye, Freerunners is a decent Steampunk story that is quick to get through and can be rather enjoyable. If you're not, all the problems the novel has are going to be painfully obvious and kill the reader's suspension of disbelief. Either way, the universe Cain has created has a lot of potential to grow into something really fantastic in future novels. He just might want to find someone who can help mind the garden -- or at least keep it free of Possessors -- along the way.

Liesel Hindmann is a contributor to the Steampunk Chronicle. She is the Apprentice of Internal Machinations and Operations for The Extraordinary Contraptions and considers herself a lover of media from multiple dimensions. You can follow her on Twitter as well as her blog: The Diary of a Dimension Hopper.