Review of Zeppelin City by Eileen Gunn and Michael Swanwick

Different readers have different reactions to stereotypes and cliches. Some forgive, ignore, or even embrace the overt depiction of communal cultural phenomenon. Not this blog. It's difficult, painful to read “the thing” laid bare exactly as the lowest possible common denominator would have it. Ready the tylenol with Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn's novella Zeppelin City (2011).

Zeppelin City is the story of Radio Jones, Amelia Spindizzy, and Rudy (no catchy last name; he's the commie). Jones is a plucky electronics wiz who has an idea how radio signals can be overheard, an idea she hopes to bring to reality so she can make a dime off listening to the autogyro operators and their crews during the big races. Spindizzy is an autogyro pilot, and a damn good one. But she has her rival—her “Red Baron” in the skies—who may or may not have her number. And there's Rudy, a single-minded lad if ever there were. He spouts commie logic all the way to the halls of the brains in jars who rule Zeppelin City. Yes, brains in jars...

Zeppelin City is a difficult story to say much more about. It's an empty, soulless 'Aww shucks!' type of story. It's every steampunk stereotype distilled into nothingness. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it hangs in the air, and stinks. The type of fiction you might encounter in a 1940s pulp magazine, the characters are so flaky as to be actively disagreeable.

Beyond the cheesy fun, the novella possesses minimal cohesion. Swanwick and Gunn throw the reader into the world, provide a spot of detail here and there, but by and large play fast and loose. Things happen, sometimes out of the blue, sometimes according to some foreshadowing, which all leads the reader to believe anything can happen. And as we all know, when everything is possible, nothing is interesting. It needed a tighter world to have a chance.

In the end, Zeppelin City is perhaps the most overt, flaming piece of steampunk I've ever read. Like a seventh tier Hollywood influencer who after two years has 617 followers on Instagram and is thinking of doing porn, it desperately wants to be FUN STEAMPUNK, but ends up being throwaway, zero-substance fluff.