Liberator

Earlier this year I read a YA steampunk affair by Australian author Richard Harland called Worldshaker. As these things go it wasn't bad at all, it told the story of an alternate future where the bulk of the great civilisations of Europe had been forced onto world travelling ships called juggernauts and how a young man from the Upper Deck ruling class; Col Porpentine, had teemed with a determined Lower Deck member of the working class, commonly known as Filthies, to overthrow the order of things and turn Worldshaker into a democratic society with equal rights for all.

Liberator picks up a few months after the end of Worldshaker. The juggernaut has been renamed with something more fitting to its new status and all are adjusting to the new society. Unfortunately generations of mistreatment and poor behaviour from both sides have created divisions that may never be healed. The Filthies call the Upper Decks people Swanks and relish their new position of power...some of them relish it a little too much.

Col is trying to help his family adjust to the change, without a lot of success in some cases, and at the same time come to terms with his feelings for his friend and fellow revolutionary the Filthie known as Riff. That's when a saboteur strikes and threatens to unsettle everything.

As things come unglued on the Liberator, Riff fades into the background, Col finds himself fighting for his life and the zealot Lye takes over.

There's a very clear message in the book that you can't simply unsettle an old order without something viable to take it's place. There are echoes of the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution and in some cases Hitler's rise to power and the formation of the Third Reich.

Liberator is attacked by juggernauts from other Imperial powers and eventually does to a Russian juggernaut what happened on Liberator, freeing the Russian Filthies and giving them the power to decide their own destiny. Col has to also sort out things with Riff, not easy when your former wife is still alive and largely insane.

It ends up happily enough, with scope for more should the author go on, although I'd advise against it. The idea has legs, but not enough to support another book. He has learned from Worldshaker and given things time to happen, I felt they were a little rushed in the first one. He also let violent situations play out that way, many YA authors don't like to cross certain boundaries. It's a good followup and deserves an audience, if only for Col's amazing baby brother Antrobus.

Worldshaker

Worldshaker by Richard Harland is a steampunk YA novel. There must be something about Australian authors and YA steampunk, one of the others I know is Michael Pryor's marvelous The Laws of Magic series.

Worldshaker is set in an alternate world where a fifty year war between the large European imperial powers of the 18th and 19th century has devastated the landscape to make it unliveable. The imperial powers have abandoned their colonies and taken to giant ships that travel over land and sea, known as juggernauts.

The book is set on the Worldshaker, Britain's great juggernaut. There are 3 distinct classes of people aboard Worldshaker; the Upper Deck, representing the upper class, the Menials who are the servants and working class and then below decks are the Filthies, they would have been factory fodder in the old world. There are also sub classes amongst the Upper Deck. The whole thing is overseen by the ship's Supreme Comander who is under the rubber stamp authority of Queen Victoria III and her consort Prince Albert.

The two central characters are Colbert Porpentine, the grandson of the Supreme Comannder; Sir Mormus Porpentine, and Sir Mormus' chosen successor. The other main character is Riff, a fiery young Filthy, who is part of the Revolutionary Council, and determined to overthrow the current ruling class.

Col and Riff meet and she forces Col to investigate his life and history of the world. He finds out that the Filthies are not a separate species of subhuman as everyone has been told. The Menials are people who have been lobotomised to make them more obedient and his family are as guilty if not more so of abusing their servants. Circumstances force Col into action and he and Riff are at the forefront of the new order, it turns out that they are the only ones who can prevent Sir Mormus from blowing up the ship in order to preserve his own legend.

For a YA story it's not too bad, interesting idea and settings. There are echoes of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in the Menials and the Filthies put me in mind of those below the cities in David Williamson's Chung Kuo. In fact the themes of class were present in both of those novels and in Chung Kuo civilisation had been forced into giant domed cities.

The book was a little uneven in terms of pacing and characterisation. I became convinced that Col and Riff were about 12 or 13 only to be told that Col was in fact 16 and Riff was 15, they both often seemed, especially Col, so much younger, he was also a very passive protagonist for most of the narrative, springing into action in the last section, the sub story with his sister; Gillabeth, was also never satisfactorily resolved. The last section was all action, which was rather at odds with all the setup that had taken place throughout the majority of the story. For the YA set it was an involving and interesting story with sympathetic protagonists and a rather novel idea and setting. I did enjoy it, although I accept that I'm not the intended audience. The fact that it's standalone is another point in it's favour.