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Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “Mainspring is one of those books that makes me think about other books I've read. Jay Lake describes a world that initially just seems like one of those fantastic conceits: suppose the mechanical universe imagined by the ancients was real. Suppose the Earth really was a wind-up machine, orbiting...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “"Mainspring" starts with a bang, and promises a lot of adventure and excitement down the line. Unfortunately, Mainspring's clock soon winds down, and all sorts of gears begin poking out of the work, until one is left with broken pieces of plot. |
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“The world in this was ingenious in its creation, but very sacrilegious. An alternate reality in which God is the Master Clockmaker, who made the Earth a large clock. Hethor, a young man, is commissioned one night by the archangel Gabriel to find the Key Perilous and wind Earth's mainspring, which is winding down. Hethor embarks on a quest fraught with pain, peril, and religious controversy. ”
anna r wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“"Mainspring" starts with a bang, and promises a lot of adventure and excitement down the line. Unfortunately, Mainspring's clock soon winds down, and all sorts of gears begin poking out of the work, until one is left with broken pieces of plot.
Daniel Roy wrote this review Thursday, September 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
(SPOILERS: I discuss some specific plot points and themes of the story that will spoil it for you.)
The first half of "Mainspring" was an inspiring adventure romp. Unfortunately, the second Hethor passes the Equatorial Wall, and enters the Southern Earth, things take a turn for the worst.
I expected some Arthur Conan Doyle-style adventuring; what I didn't expect from Jay Lake's debut was embarrassing writing. In the heart of the jungle, Hethor encounters, wait for it, a tribe of ape-like pigmies who show him their prehistorical wisdom. Think it can get worse? You should read the furry fanfic-level erotica he gives us as the wise and wild woman of the tribe gives herself to him in all her furry glory. Ugh.
The further the book went, the less fine-tuned it became, until the writer pulled a Deus Ex Machina - literally; Hethor can change reality by seeing God in the clockworks. By then the novel had devolved to poor fanfic.
As for the big revelation at the end... I had it figured out in the first 20 pages, and hoped against all hope it wouldn't turn out to be true. Alas.
A fantastic setting that unwinds into meaninglessness. Perhaps the sequel tweaks the machine, but I won't be bothering with it.”
“Most peculiar story.
Margaret Taylor wrote this review Wednesday, January 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Remember how you learned about deism in your AP European History class? A bunch of French philosophers thought they would be clever and decided that God had created the universe, wound it up like an enormous watch, and left it to run its course. What would happen if the universe really was a huge watch? What would happen if a talented short story writer tried to build a novel around this central conceit?
The result is ... interesting. This is a world a lot like your usual steampunk Earth, you know, Great Britain never lost the American Colonies and airships are floating around everywhere. And everybody can see the brass gears in the sky that define Earth's orbit. The universe, or the solar system at least, runs on clockwork.
The clockwork that powers the Earth is running down, and only our hero, Hethor, can rewind it. Why the angel Gabriel chooses Hethor for this mission is never made clear, but it might have to do with the fact that he has a magical ability to tell time. Unfortunately, for the first half of the book, Hethor's kind of a twit. For the second half of the book he reminds me of Dune Messiah. It's an improvement, but ... still.
And now for some quibbles. Earth is anchored to its orbital gearing by a miles-high toothed wall around the equator. The airship's crew says that the air should be unbreathable if it weren't for the blanket of air that magically coats the top of the wall, so let's say the wall extends to the top of the troposphere. That's about 6 miles. (And that's a conservative estimate; it could be much taller.) During northern hemisphere winter, this thing is going to cast a shadow of 6 * tan 23.5º or 2.6 miles long*. Wouldn't this have some pretty weird effects on global climate? You've got a narrow strip of tropical land that gets six months of night each year just like at the poles. And that's not to mention the fact that the Equatorial Wall prevents the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere oceans from mixing.
But Lake spares no time for such plotholes. He'd rather explore what happens to people in a world where evidence of God's creation is, well, pretty obvious. There are freaking gears in the sky! And yet, astonishingly, there is a group who calls themselves the Rational Humanists. I don't quite understand their philosophy, but they seem to believe that mysterious beings called clockmakers built the universe, not God. That doesn't seem to make sense. Isn't it the Rational Humanist thing to do to seek a natural explanation for the gears in the sky? What does it accomplish to transfer the responsibility from God to a bunch of magical Keebler elves?
I'm probably trying to approach this story like too much of a Rational Humanist myself; I should just sit back and enjoy the ride. Despite the protagonist, there's a lot to like. There's lots of airships and plenty of good action scenes. One of the ships seems to run on hydrogen fuel cells, which is cool. There's a strong implication that one of the characters is a cyborg. Then again, this happened at the end of the book, at which point I would not have been too surprised if Elvis had walked on stage. (If you read the ending you’ll understand.) Oh, whatever. I'm over-analyzing. Go check it out.
* I'm assuming Earth's a flat surface. At a scale of 2.6 miles, it's not going to matter much.
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“I liked this book. The begining was interesting then the middle got a little slow then it sped up agian for the end. Set in an alernate history with an earth made of clockwork gears and springs. It reminded me of Treasure Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Gulliver's Travels.”
Heather G wrote this review Monday, November 3 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
0 of 1 members found this review helpful“STEAMPUNK
fab K.M wrote this review Friday, June 13 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I did not realize there was such a genre until reading this. My apologies to Jules Verne et.al.
A fascinating read, with juxtaposed intrigues.”
0 of 1 members found this review helpful“A religious quest on clockwork Earth.”
cirrostratus wrote this review Tuesday, December 4 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No1 of 1 members found this review helpful“Mainspring is one of those books that makes me think about other books I've read. Jay Lake describes a world that initially just seems like one of those fantastic conceits: suppose the mechanical universe imagined by the ancients was real. Suppose the Earth really was a wind-up machine, orbiting the Sun on a gigantic brass track. Suppose the mainspring that kept things going wound down? That's the premise, and Hethor, a young clock maker's apprentice, is chosen by Archangel Gabriel to go find the Key Perilous to wind the Spring. Except, of course, things aren't quite so simple. Which is where I'll leave it, to avoid giving away the story. It is a great read, regardless of what you think of the author's message. After finishing the book I thought I had not just read a great story, but also a thought-provoking response to Pullman's His Dark Materials. Where Pullman writes a critique of organized religion, Lake's book is a critique of humanism. It's not, of course, a reasoned argument, no more than Pullman's story was. But it does lay out the position that opposes humanism. If Lake wanted to convince humanists like me that there is something to this other perspective, he didn't quite manage that. Hethor is in many ways a modern character, but his attitudes reflect long discarded ideas about the world. Lake doesn't really manage to make Hethor a very sympathetic character. At least I kept wondering if I would eventually learn what motivated him, and to the end of the story that never happened.”
Helge M wrote this review Friday, November 2 2007. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
1 of 1 members found this review helpful“So, I thought the premise of Mainspring and its imagery were both brilliant. I loved reading it. I found the ending weak and inconclusive. I hope this means that Mr. Lake means to follow up with more fiction in this universe.”
martimr1 wrote this review Monday, October 15 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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