Kage Baker, The Women of Neil Gwynne’s
Subterranean Press, 2009.
By now you’ve probably heard that Kage Baker died of a particularly aggressive form of cancer on January 31 of this year. I did not know Baker (I may have said hello in passing one Armadillocon), and thus have no particular insight into her as a person. Her death probably makes The Women of Neil Gwynne’s, the tale of a bordello in the employ of a cabal of Victorian Steampunk inventors, a prohibitive Hugo and Nebula favorite.
Alas, I have the same response to this that I had to Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, another Subterranean novella from her I read last year: Competently executed work that largely failed to engage me. Not everyone can be Tim Powers, but there’s an art to writing mock Victoriana, and Baker just didn’t nail it here. There’s a certain dry English reserve, but nothing from Ben Johnson/Oscar Wilde axis of cutting dry wit that really makes a work of this sort sparkle. Plus it doesn’t help that the real plot doesn’t get started until a third of the way into the book.
Tags: Books, Kage Baker, Science Fiction, Steampunk, The Women of Neil Gwynn’s