Candy is Dandy but Steampunk is Quicker << Prev Next >>
Reviewer Emilie P. Bush discusses her thoughts on the M/M romance novel, The Inventor's Companion ,...
By EBush on Jul 05 2011 Category:SpC,Media,Literature  There’s seldom call to start a review with the word “SQUEE!!!,” especially as a (former) professional broadcast journalist, but sometimes one gets a little peanut butter into her neighbor’s chocolate – and a delectable creation is born. I love a good Steampunk tale, and I love me some M/M (NO, not the candy that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. If you don’t know – perhaps you shouldn’t look it up. One can’t unlearn things sometimes, no matter how hard you try). So here goes: Squee!!! Finally, a good gay Steampunk romance novel. The Inventor’s Companion, the fifth romance novel by Ariel Tachna, follows inventor Gabriel Blackburn as he encounters his first Companion, an expensive plaything from the lowest rung of the city’s social hierarchy – the Pleasure Cast. Gabriel, an active member of the Cast Equality movement, vows to take no pleasure in the companion, Lucio, who was hired for an evening by the inventor’s employees as a birthday gift for the boss. Lucio, fascinated by a “guest” who is interested in him as a person and not as the human equivalent of a toilet, falls quickly in love with the handsome inventor. The obstacles that the two must overcome to have a relationship are large and multifaceted, and the emotions bubble forth powerfully. (Let’s be honest – the sex is WAY HOT.) So, full marks in the M/M column of this sweet recipe.
Unlike the many so-called Steampunk romances, which simply take a standard bodice-ripper and glue on a few cogs whilst two airships pass in the night, Tachna guides the story to a place that showcases the versatility of the genre; she takes the moralities and social conventions of a Victorian-esque Era and subverts them, challenging social issues that still foul our better angels today. Specifically, she examines the fettering mindsets of a forced cast system. All of the inhabitants in Gabriel’s world – short of the Aristocrats – are tattooed at birth with a symbol which locks them into their cast. The back of Gabriel’s hand bears the balance scales of the merchant class, whereas Lucio’s inked fan marks him as little more than a slave to his handlers, or if he’s lucky, as the sole companion of an Aristocrat who purchases his contract. The rights of the haves overshadow the abuses to the have-nots. The outward glamour of the Companion’s lives, with fine clothes that please the eyes of Aristocrats and polished manners, hides the dehumanization and abuse that each of them suffer. Gabriel’s interest in Lucio as a man opens the companion’s eyes to what love and respect ought to be, making his lot in life both better and worse. Furthermore, the tale goes deeper than just Lucio and Gabriel, as the decisions that each make to love the other send ripples into the lives of friends and acquaintances in casts both above and below them. Really, a well developed and completely satisfying Steampunk story. (And the sex grows all the more hot for it. Did I mention my urge to yell “Squee!!!!?”)
If you are not an M/M reader, I would caution you to what you are getting into. It’s not PG-13 in any sense, and a few moments are more than R-rated. But for Steampunk fans that like this branch of romance, I say this is your lucky day. Feel free to act like a kid in a candy store. I look forward to finding more Steampunk romance like The Inventor’s Companion.
More about Ariel Tachna’s novels, include All for One, Checkmate, A Summer Place , The Matelot, and The Inventor’s Companion, can be found at DreamSpinnerPress.com.
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