strange and random happenstance

The Diamond Conspiracy by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: March 31st, 2015
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Wellington Books and Eliza Braun are reveling in each other as they return home from the United States. They are finally as one, on the field and in the bedroom. Though their luxuriant revels come to an end when Eliza gets a ping from the distress beacon she left with her maid Alice and the street urchins that are under her protection, known as the Ministry Seven. They race to their rendezvous point in France to discover that their situation is dire. Queen Victoria has decided that The Ministry is a danger to her reign, and in particular to her plans for her Diamond Jubilee, and is using her other secret organization, the Department of Imperial Inconveniences to eliminate the Ministry. The Department in their signature tweed has been dispatching Ministry agents around the globe with alarming efficiency. Though the Ministry is far from beaten. Director Sound has enacted Shadow Protocol and the disparate agents from around the world are gathering, to regroup and figure out just why they were such a danger to the Queen and how they can stop her.

Half the fun of two strong leads is the will they won't they factor. More then one story has hinged on the sexual tension between the protagonists, or antagonists as it were. The problem that arises from this situation is that if you lead your audience on for too long they get frustrated. Likewise, if the relationship doesn't successfully gel after consummation, then you are in another dire situation, and sometimes go to drastic lengths to solve this problem, yes I'm looking at you Battlestar Galactica. An unsuccessful resolution has spelled the end for many franchises; it is what I like to call the Moonlighting factor, and yes, I know I'm not the only one to use this delightful eighties show as the case study for what not to do with a storyline. Moonlighting quite literally imploded when the leads, Maddie Hayes and David Addison, slept together at the end of the third season. The show spiraled out of control with a lame marriage plot and Maddie miscarrying her and David' child, till a show that was so bright ended with a whimper and the too appropriate epitaph "romance is a fragile thing." Therefore, while I have been delighting in the romance brewing between Books and Braun, I was also very wary.

Yet the time had more then come for Books and Braun to finally get their act together. The previous installment, Dawn's Early Light, was the tipping point with their antagonism and jealous acts. The Diamond Conspiracy opens up with the agents in full blissful coupledom. And here is where I say that thankfully they have avoided all the snares and dangers that were in their paths, huzzah! All gadgets and gizmos have been disarmed and dismantled and what has emerged is even sexier then before. Pip and Tee have managed to keep the tension between Welly and Eliza while simultaneously having their relationship develop into the next stage. Their blissful journey across the Atlantic and their stolen moments are what true sexual chemistry is all about. Yet, to me, the most romantic aspect is not their sexual chemistry, but the way they work as a team. They know the other one always has their back. They are a perfect unit and it is this connection that brings back the fresh dynamic of the first book in this series as it simultaneously sets a sturdier base for continued adventures.

With this consummation of their attraction and their developing relationship we have a very character driven story which spills out into the rest of the book. I think this is the best thing that could have happened for this series. The characters have always been the heart of the story, they have always shone while the plot flounders. The Diamond Conspiracy has stripped down this unwieldy universe that Pip and Tee have created and made it hinge on the human element. They have pulled in all the disparate elements and agents from around the globe that have featured in the Tales from the Archives and parred it down to a manageable amount. At times prior to reading this installment I have felt that their world with all it's tangential stories was almost too hard to hold onto, all the different threads of all these different stories turning to water in my hands and running away from me. This felt like a great spring cleaning, the house has been made new by brushing the cobwebs away. The Diamond Conspiracy feels like a new start for all our characters and it has invigorated me, in fact after finishing the book I felt so optimistic that I didn't want to pick up the next book I had ready to go and instead I started to clean my library, and yes, this is a very daunting task and perhaps shouldn't be started late on a Sunday night... what can I say, the book did it to me!

The feeling of this new beginning though needs to have follow through. The Big Bad of these books has gone a little blurg. While Doctor Jekyll does have a lot going for him as the ultimate puppet master, I seriously might go crazy if Sophia del Morte shows up yet again. In my mind she has never nor will never bring anything to these books. There comes a point when new evils need to be faced and the old evils put away. If there's one thing that I can't stand is the magical return of some long defeated foe. Pip and Tee have defeated quite a few, now let them all rest. Bring in a new villain to go with the new outlook on this series. Keep developing the villains just as Books and Braun's relationship has developed. But don't bring in new angles on old foes. Yes, that little twist that you end The Diamond Conspiracy with is interesting, but still, it's just the old with a twist of the new. The worst season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is easily season seven, because they brought back a villain who could also mimic every other villain ever seen on the show. Please. Move it along.

Despite my little rant there, the villains and their dirty deeds were really just a blip, they were part and parcel of the story and is more a warning rant then anything specific in this volume. The truth is this was a near perfect return to form if it hadn't been for the H.G. Wells factor. In previous volumes august personages have made appearances, as is logical for there are distinct people who unknowingly formed what we now know as Steampunk. From Edison to Tesla to Wells, their visions of the future formed the literature of the future, and the television shows, and the movies. The problem I have with Wells is that it comes too close to another Steampunk franchise I love, and that's Warehouse 13. There is no denying the similarities of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences and Warehouse 13. With Wellington's archive and the Warehouse, we have two places that collect and store dangerous Steampunky artifacts, occasionally using them to solve their cases. One is present, one is past, I have no problem with them coexisting in my brain or in the world. What I do have a problem with is H.G. Wells being in both in such a similar manner. And H.G. was part of the Warehouse team over a year before the very first Ministry book came out. Just saying, even if Wells is so important to the Steampunk movement, perhaps Wells needs a little distance from the Ministry to not feel like a rip-off.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawn's Early Light, H.G. Wells, Moonlighting, Pip Ballantine, Steampunk, Tales from the Archives, Tee Morris, The Diamond Conspiracy, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Warehouse 13

Dawn's Early Light by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: March 25th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

While Wellington Brooks and Eliza Braun did pull off the impossible in their last adventure for The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Doctor Sound has thought that it might be a good idea to get them out of the limelight for awhile and ship them off to the colonies to help their sister agency, The Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical, which is attached to the US Marshals. In the United States Books and Braun meet their American counterparts, Felicity Lovelace the librarian, which is totally different then an archivist, and Wild Bill Wheatley, who Eliza has a grudge against from a previous mission in which their paths crossed. But the mission must come first, not revenge for past slights. Off the shores of North Carolina, known as the graveyard of the Atlantic, airships have been vanishing quite literally.

But Wellington and Felicity don't really care about the mission once they learn that Thomas Edison will be speaking at their hotel! After an eventful night it looks like Edison might be involved in their mission... he might be using a lighthouse as a death ray to cause all these wrecks! Seeing that Edison is their only real lead, the gaggle of agents decide to follow him. First they venture north, to Detroit, and the very hub of Edison's Empire. By the end of their mission they will have travelled coast to coast and hopefully staved of an international incident with the Prince of Wales. Yet questions remain, how involved was the nebulous House of Usher in this scheme? Did her majesty, the Queen, have ulterior motives with regard to her son? And does Wellington want to kiss Eliza again? Or will Eliza end up kissing Bill?

The thing that drew me to Steampunk in the first place was the essential Britishness of it. The fog bound streets, the pub brawls near the docks with a side of a cockney accent, a cup of tea after a day of daring do. This is what Steampunk means to me. So when at the end of the second book in this series, The Janus Affair, it became apparent that our esteemed agents Books and Braun were headed stateside, I wasn't that thrilled at the prospect. Yes, Steampunk isn't limited to Great Britain, yes Pip and Tee have done a good job to have this series, in particular the Tales from the Archives, show the worldwide scope of Steampunk, yes their are authors like Cherie Priest, whose Clockwork Century is very much ingrained in America, but despite all this precedent, Steampunk to me is British. I won't try to explain the logic of my mind, because I don't think I could. But I was seriously worried that Dawn's Early Light would have to overcome my own preconceptions. I should have had more faith in Pip and Tee. The book combined all the Britishness I love and added a Firefly vibe (fangirl sqwee) while also taking on the historical figures whose inventiveness fuels Steampunk, but are decidedly American.

The more I think on it, the American desire for invention, exploration, and looking forward is what drives Steampunk and the Steampunk community. So while my brain always goes "British British British" it is really a combination of the two that create the perfect balance in Steampunk, a perfect balance that was caught in this book. Writing a successful series of books itself is a balancing act. Round about book three is when you start to get bogged down with too much backstory and too many characters being on stage. By sending our beloved agents to the states, Pip and Tee were able to streamline the story and bring it down to the necessary few characters that were needed. While I did occasionally miss all the other agents and the archives, Dawn's Early Light had a cleanliness to it that made it a stronger book. Plus the introduction of Felicity and Bill (aka Jayne from Firefly), Books and Braun's counterparts and also romantic rivals, brought a breath of fresh air into the book. Having our hero and heroine not only trying to deal with their own feelings, but then having these two Americans continually throwing a wrench into any possible hookup brought a frisson of excitement and a worry that the delayed gratification to the inevitable hookup might never happen. Books and Braun belong together... but that doesn't mean temptation and distraction won't be a delicious plot device.

Another plot device that might have overplayed it's hand in this installment is the celebrity cameo. As I said before, everything is about balance. Celebrity cameos are always a fun narrative device in historical fiction, even if it's alternative history. Yet there can be one too many historical figures and this can upset the apple cart. The perfection of some of the cameos is marred by the superfluous ones. Back in undergrad I took film classes for fun. It's ironic that I thought art versus comm arts was a more viable career path. The history of film cannot be told without talking about Edison. Yes, he was brilliant, but yes, he was also a class A bastard. In fact, I had a friend play bastard on my Edison card to win a game of Apples to Apples once. And speaking of Apples, in describing Edison, I liked that Edison really sounded a lot like Steve Jobs and Apple's MO, ah the parallels. I reveled in the introduction of Edison, the asshole. He's a perfect villain, unlike the ill defined House of Usher. And his evilness is not just in his villainous death ray designed to level the competition, but in the slights to women scientists and his raging ego. It was the perfect cameo. To balance that we had Tesla, still surrounded with mystery, dubious morals, and pigeon jokes. Edison and Tesla, Tesla and Edison, the battle for the ages, and the perfect duo for this book. But Henry Ford? Ah Henry Ford, you were one cameo too many. It made me cringe a bit. You upset the apple cart.  

Though the pedant in me now has to put on the lecturing voice and say what I've been saying for two books now. I know this is an ARC, so there will be errors... but seeing as these errors have persisted in the finished copies of the first two books, I have a feeling they might remain. The grammar and the spelling needs a polish. I will seriously do this for free. Yes, I am serious. I love this series and it pains me when errors still abound making it a flawed text... at one point their own character's name is misspelt. Also, it's chaise lounge not chez lounge... unless it's the house of lounges and not a piece of furniture. Aside from the obvious errors, there were also a few anachronisms that got under my skin. Blackbeard's dates are off by a hundred years. Why would Edison being going through Wisconsin to get to Arizona? There's this lake that I've gone over between me and Michigan... plus, to get to Arizona aka, the southwest, you wouldn't go northwest now would you? The OSM seems a little too much like Victorian SHIELD with the reference to Thor's hammer... plus, can we sing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when talking about Wellington's car? I know they are all nudge nudge wink wink, but they are just too modern, and like the typos, pull me out of a story I don't want to leave, like ever. In fact, can the next book be ready now?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Apples to Apples, Dawn's Early Light, Edison, Firefly, Henry Ford, House of Usher, Jayne, Ministry of Peculiar Occurances, Pip Ballantine, Steampunk, Tales from the Archives, Tee Morris, Telsa, Wisconsin

Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Tales from the Archives by Pip Ballantine, Tee Morris et al.
Published by: ImagineThat! Studios
Publication Date: August 23rd, 2011-June 17th, 2012
Format: Kindle
Rating: ★★★
To Buy Collection 1
To Buy Collection 2
To Buy Collection 3
To Buy Collection 4

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris have been more willing than most authors to embrace the possibilities of new media. Not surprising when you look at their bios and realize how much they have done with podcasts, facebook, twitter, all of which Tee has spoken on. So short e-pub stories don't seem much of a stretch. Yet most authors don't bother to embrace something that could so easily get you new readers and make the returning ones giggle with glee. To find that in the dark hours while you are desperately waiting for the next installment of your favorite new book series that there's a short story to tide you over is a wondrous discovery. The world of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences also lends itself to this expansion of its universe. While there are Books and Braun, who we love dearly, there are not only peripheral characters to be explored, but also characters that have never been mentioned. The Ministry is a world wide organization that has been around for quite a few years, their archives are easily full to bursting with stories to tell. Telling some of the stories themselves, or relying on other authors, the world that Pip and Tee have created is becoming more and more rich.

At last count there are sixteen short stories set within their world. You can buy them individually or in collections of four for your reading pleasure. As with any collection of stories written by a variety of authors, the quality varies from some of the best short stories I have ever read to ones that I just desperately wanted to end. Yet, they do a very good job of showing the scope of The Ministry's power, as they take place from South America to New Zealand, India to remotest Africa, Siam to the American West, and scary houses just over the road in Islington. We get old questions answered, like why did Eliza really leave New Zealand, what happened on the river in Paris between her and Harry, how hard was it to get all those seven vases that lead to El Dorado, before Eliza broke the last one, to how bad is the situation between Books and his father. We get back stories and side stories and the Ministry Seven, the Ministry's own Baker Street Irregulars, before they where the Ministry Seven. Tons of new questions to have answered, that one can only hope for in an upcoming tale.

The first collection seems to be centered on all the evil jewels can bring. You never want to get a cursed ruby or bauble... bad luck will surely befall you! While the second collection seems to be more action, adventure, daring-do, with men being men in far off places and saving the world for Queen and Country! Rider Haggard, eat your heart out! The third collection contains my very favorite stories of all. Some of the best ones I've read. If you have a desire to read some of the best spine tingling stories, this is where to find them. Collection four is a hodgepodge of stories that didn't really catch me due to tropes of Terracotta Warriors and masturbatory jokes that seemed to key into this year's movie Hysteria. I just think the jokes fell flat and I felt sorry for Books.

Yet of all these stories, there are two that I must single out as being sheer perfection. The first is Dust on the Davenport by O.M. Grey and the second is Hanuman's Gift by Helen E. H. Madden. It does not surprise me that Dust on the Davenport won the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice Award for Best Short Story. This little ghost story about a junior agent investigating what the other agents think is just another haunting false alarm starts out as a sweet little story about a grieving widow leaning on a green agent and slowly evolves into full on heebie-jeebies land. I don't think I've had this much spine tingling since the first time I watched The Legend of Hell House, which still gives me nightmares! Pure Victorian Ghost Story perfection! While I think Hanuman's Gift will easily be a contender for this year's Reader's Choice Award. Told by Eliza's old partner Harry to the sceptical and inept archivist before Books, it shows the horrors that face agents out in the field and that local myths and legends might best be followed or you could get some zombie monkey action going on that has overtones of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Also, we learn a lesson that is best repeated, be careful what you wish for! World peace might mean a world devoid of humanity and spending you days relaxing in your pajamas, might just indicate Bedlam.

I look forward to more of the promised stories. I'll need them if I'm to be patient till the next book comes out!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Coraline, Dust on the Davenprot, H. Rider Haggard, Hanuman's Gift, Helen E. H. Madden, Kindle, O.M. Grey, Pip Ballantine, Tales from the Archives, Tee Morris, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences