A Review of Night's Engines by Trent Jamieson

Night's Engines
Trent Jamieson
Angry Robot Books
US/CAN
29 May 2012
416pp mass-market paperback
$7.99 US $8.99 CAN
eBook
29 May 2012
£4.49

UK/RoW
7 Jun 2012
384pp B-format paperback
£7.99 UK

This book won't be released for another week here in the States, and later in other parts of the world, so if you haven't read Roil yet (reviewed here), don't worry.  You still have time before the conclusion of The Nightbound Land duology hits the shelves.

This is a science fiction novel that reads like fantasy, but a careful reading of either book shows it's clearly science fiction (or at least science fantasy), which is why I'm reviewing it here rather than at Adventures Fantastic.  It's different than most anything I've seen lately, further proof of my conclusion that Angry Robot is one of the publishers you should be reading.

Night's Engines is old fashioned adventure, the kind we don't see enough of these days.   One of the advantages of being in the Robot Army is getting to read some of the most exciting new science fiction and fantasy before anyone else does.  And while not every title I've previewed has worked for me, most of them have.  This series certainly does.

A Roiling Adventure

Roil
Trent Jamieson
Angry Robot Books
$7.99, 432 p. mass market paperback
$5.99 ebook

The publisher's website classifies this one as fantasy, but I'm going to pick nits and call it science fiction (which is why I'm reviewing it here rather than over on Adventures Fantastic), or as a compromise, science fantasy.  Unless I misread something, this one takes place on another planet thousands of years in the future, after at least one civilization's global collapse.  In other words, Roil is science fiction that reads like fantasy.

I've never read William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, but from what I've read about it, I suspect there are similarities between that work and this one.  The subtitle of the book, or rather the title of the series, is The Nightbound Land, after all.   In addition, Roil has elements of steam punk with a dash of pulp adventure thrown in.  There are airships, but they're organic, living things.  There are examples of advanced technology in a milieu of Victorian era science.  There's a man who is at least one thousand years old.  There are strange races that are only partly human.  And a cast of Dickensian characters.  If any of these appeal to you, then you should check this book out.