The Alchemy of Stone is the story of Mattie. An automaton, she lives—ahem, exists—in a Victorian-esque city ruled by the Merchants and Alchemists, each of whom have their agendas regarding the creative direction the city should go. One of the most intelligent automatons ever created, Mattie has a love-hate relationship with her Mechanist creator, Loharri. When she requests to study as an Alchemist, he begrudgingly allows her but retains control of the key needed to keep her heart wound, and in essence her body alive. But Mattie's situation becomes more complicated when she is secretly contacted by a group of gargoyles—immobile stone creatures who wish to become mobile and escape the city—against the wishes of both the Mechanists and Alchemists. Empathizing with the gargoyles and their non-flesh existence, Mattie embarks on a mission to find the alchemy which will convert stone to flesh.
The Alchemy of Stone is not the purest vanilla of steampunk, but certainly a flavor spin—with raisins, with rum. It does not have zeppelins, alternate history, sky pirates, gentleman adventurers, or other such classic tropes. But it does have a selection which firmly identifies the book as steampunk: automatons, artisan guilds, a strong Victorian setting, and class wars. The oasis calls, but is it a mirage?
In terms of The Alchemy of Stone as a piece of art—it's true substance, there is a lot to take in, perhaps too much. The basic ingredients of the book all fit together nicely—the automatons, the guilds, and politics, and the like. But there is more, strange things, like lizard cars and others, that don't fit the overall color palette. Sedia may have tried to squeeze in too much sensawunda. Compare The Alchemy of Stone to Ian Macleod's more focused The Light Ages, a novel which has many elements in common with Sedia's book, and the reader sees the value of having a more focused but complementary palette.
Another issue which The Light Ages highlights in The Alchemy of Stone is the balance of character vs plot vs theme vs setting. Macleod puts more of his eggs in the character and setting baskets, less in his plot baskets, which allows the theme to come to the surface. Sedia puts her eggs in every basket, then switches them around at various points, which raises the question: what is exactly is The Alchemy of Stone? Is it class struggle? Is it female identity? Is it freedom? For such a (relatively) short novel, the focus jumps around, never really deciding what it wants to be. As a result there is not a thematic core, rather a diluted spectrum.
The Alchemy of Stone also presents a paradox, a paradox which can be found in much fantastika: robots with more emotional awareness than their human counterparts. My brain cannot help but interpret such authorial choices as either A) manipulative, or B) poor writing—choice A winning out most of the time. If there is anything robots/automatons/etc. will be able to imitate about humans, emotions will be last. Sure, I understand it may be more “fictionally interesting” for writers to jam together two things that don't normally go together, but for this reader it distracts. (See Anne Charnock's A Calculated Life for more believabble machine sentience.)
In the end, The Alchemy of Stone is classic steampunk in setup. With various political factions vying for power in a world where wind-up people think and feel, there is no question the sub-genre Sedia was aiming for. Does that make it an obvious novel—a non-existent oasis in the desert? Generally, no; there is water to be drunk in Mattie—as long as she is taken as human, not automaton. But how cool and refreshing the overall drink is is will depend on the reader. It's not a tight, focused experience that leaves the reader with an impression what the novel's identity is. Steampunk certainly, but beyond? Another oasis...
No comments:
Post a Comment