Good Steampunk is Hard to Find

The obligatory introductory definition of Steampunk: Victorian Science Fiction. This is oversimplified, has many arguable diverging theories, and has many variations (alternate realities, possible futures, not to mention the many related or offshoot genres of Clockpunk, Gaslamp Fantasy, Dieselpunk, etc.), but when one has to explain Steampunk to someone in three words, “Victorian Science Fiction” is what I opt for.

Theoretically, Steampunk is one of my favorite genres. It combines my favorite TV genre (Sci Fi) with my favorite period of literature (roughly 1830-1915). Often Steampunk attempts to “recreate” the brand of sci fi that the original sci fi authors wrote, such as Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or H.G. Well’s The Time Machine. Other genres tend to get spliced in: Horror, akin to H.P Lovecraft, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; mystery (particularly Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories); and high adventure (such as the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs or H. Rider Haggard). Historical figures (whose true lives were larger than life) like Nikola Tesla are often fictionalized or at least used as guidelines for the technological wizards that often populate Steampunk stories.

In practice, unfortunately, very few steampunk novels have reached my expectations. Too often, what should be merely an homage to Verne or some other author instead is overused until it’s practically a retelling. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it also can come across as lazy when applied to storytelling.

That’s why it’s such a treasure to find a Steampunk book that not only carries all the bells and whistles of what one hopes to find in a Steampunk world, but also tells a good story with well-rounded characters.

Arthur Slade's The Hunchback Assignments was just such a rare find. Comprised of four books, this series follows the adventures of a young man named Modo, a foundling rescued from a freakshow by the mysterious Mr. Socrates. Modo is intelligent, sensitive, brave, physically strong, and witty, but was born severely deformed and so ugly that he’s obliged to wear a mask in public.

There is one other quality that Modo possesses, that helps him to hide his true form from the judgmental outside world: he is a shapeshifter, able to mimic other people or make up completely new personas and hold that appearance for hours at a time. For this reason Mr. Socrates found him as a toddler and had him raised in secret, taught the art of mimicry by his governess (a former actress called Mrs. Finchley) and trained in martial arts by an Indian named Tharpa. All of this training is put to use in the first book, when Modo is activated as an agent of the Permanent Association, a secret society sworn to protect the British Empire, and unknown even to the Queen herself.

Modo is joined on his assignment by Octavia Milkweed, an orphan and former pickpocket and fellow Permanent Association agent. Although still young teens, these two find themselves in the thick of a cold war between the shadowy Permanent Association and the sinister Clockwork Guild.

Though whether the Permanent Association and Mr. Socrates are actually good guys remains ambiguous, the evil nature of the Clockwork Guild is clear: its criminal mastermind the Guild Master is aided by an airship pirate, Miss Hakkonsdottir (who sports a mechanical hand after Mr. Socrates cut off her original appendage), mad scientist Dr. Hyde (his unnatural experiments on animals and children are bone-chilling even in a YA book), and a variety of assassins, invisible spies, and cyborg soldiers.

With all of these colorful characters it would be easy for the protagonist to fade into the background. This is pleasantly not the case with Modo. Central to this series is his fear of rejection because of his appearance, his longing for a real family, his moral struggle with the Permanent Association’s sometimes-shady tactical decisions, and ultimately his quest to be accepted for who he truly is. I found these deeper, poignant themes a pleasant surprise, and even the more clichéd YA tropes of love triangles and such were dealt with from a refreshing angle.

There were a few things that I didn’t like about the book. The aforementioned scientific experiments of Dr. Hyde are sometimes described a little too in detail, and there is quite a bit of violence and gore described in this story.

The other main thing I didn’t like was the end, which I felt was too soon. Until this point, the books had slowly been gaining momentum and building up to a very exciting climax. The denouement of that climax, however, felt underwhelming to me. It was almost as if this four-book series was meant to be five books, but the author was told at the last minute that he only had one book left to tie everything up. Some plot points are concluded in ways that felt off to me, or ended abruptly without a satisfactory payoff. Other plot points were left  hanging—almost like a sequel-hook—or introduced too late in the last book to develop in full.

That said, I would still recommend this book to any Steampunk fan. Slade deftly blends elements or references to Victorian literature (such as Modo being obviously patterned after Quasimodo from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame) into an otherwise original story, and it becomes almost a game to spot these “easter eggs.”