Soulless

Review originally posted at: http://bloodygranuaile.livejournal.com/33729.html

I don't even remember who first told me to read Gail Carriger's Soulless but I am sure glad they did!

Soulless is the first book in a series entitled "The Parasol Protectorate" and its subtitle/tagline is "A novel of vampires, werewolves, and parasols." Yeah, yeah, don't judge a book by its cover and all that but for real, somebody in the marketing department at Orbit Books knows exactly how to get my attention.

Soulless is a sort of steampunk fantasy absurdist mystery-romance-comedy of manners, written in a ludicrously correct Victorian style that I personally found hilarious, but anyone not already into That Sort of Thing might find annoyingly twee. Our heroine is Miss Alexia Tarabotti, a 25-year-old spinster with the misfortunes to have a dead father and a very silly mother and half-sisters, to be half Italian, and to have no soul.

In this particular version of Victorian London, vampires and werewolves are "out" and are respectable (mostly) members of society. As far as their current understanding of science can tell, different people have different amounts of soul, and people with enough excess soul—usually artists and actors and the like—are able to survive the transformations to werewolf or vampires. (The others just die.) Being a vampire's drone (blood donor and servant) or a werewolf's claviger (keeper who ensures they are properly locked up at full moon) are fairly popular if somewhat risqué lifestyles/career paths. Far more rare than persons with enough excess soul to become supernaturals are people with no soul, known as preternaturals. Alexia's father was one, and she is as well (her living family has no idea). Being a preternatural means that Alexia can nullify the traits of supernaturals upon contact; for example, when she touches a vampire, their fangs retract into teeth; when she touches a werewolf who is at all wolfing out, they revert to entirely human.

Alexia is a bit of a bluestocking and enjoys reading, eating, going on walks, more eating, using her trusty silver-tipped buckshot-loaded brass parasol, tea, being endlessly sasstastic, and hanging out with Lord Akeldama, a cartoonishly flaming vampire who is nonetheless absolutely deadly. She also manages to get into a lot of fights with Lord Maccon, the Earl of Woolsey and head of the London werewolf pack, who seems to have had a massive grudge against her ever since an often-referenced incident involving a hedgehog.

Lord Maccon, of course, turns out to be the love interest, so that he and Alexia can sass each other endlessly, including while they are making out, leading to some of the very few makeout scenes I have ever read that I was actually thoroughly engrossed in. I am not a big one for makeout or sex scenes, generally, but the combination of absolute nonstop no matter what was going on sass and the very Victorian and analytical way they are written was actually very engaging. Alexia doesn't really do the vague sentimental thing; or the getting lost in the moment thing; her perspective on various amorous activities is all very question-and-answer and mentally cross-referencing what's going on with the stuff she's read in her father's books (her father had a rather inappropriate book collection) and generally Scientifick. Lord Maccon's perspective is less intellectualized but still quite funny. (The POV shifts in this novel are a beast, to be honest; they shift around all over the place.)

The plot begins with Alexia being rudely attacked by a vampire at a party, and proceeds to involve vampires and werewolves disappearing, and new vampires appearing who seem to have no understanding of vampire society whatsoever, a club of scientists called the Hypocras Club, a deeply creepy automaton, and investigations by the Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR).

This book, while being entirely fluffy and absurd at all times, is also extremely well-researched, and manages to sneak in quite a few critiques of Victorian England's various social justice failings, including the insanely silly and restricting views of "appropriate" behavior and life choices for women, the overemphasis on and narrow standards of physical beauty for women (Alexia, being half Italian, is pretty much universally regarded as unmarriageably ugly by all the English humans), prejudice and stereotyping of Italians and the Scottish, restrictive sexual mores, the utter unpracticality of nineteenth-century clothing, and the danger in underestimating people just because they are outrageously campy and dress like circus ringmasters (seriously, Lord Akeldama is quite uncomfortably the Sassy Gay Dude, until shit goes down, and then… well). It's nothing as deep or going-to-save-your-life as, say, Tamora Pierce's stuff (plus it is not YA), but it avoids unduly glamorizing or glossing over how utterly stupid the Victorian era really was in many respects.

Overall I enjoyed this novel as much as Miss Tarabotti enjoys treacle tart; the rest of the series is definitely going on the TBR list. Highly recommended for anyone who likes absurd steampunky things (and only for people who like absurd steampunky things).