A phlegmatic gentleman by nature, some mistook Sleepy’s
somnambulant Demeanor for muddle-mindedness. Given nuanced consideration, this
was rather true after a fashion.
-“Pimp My Airship”
I’ve made my distrust and general dislike of sci-fi and
steampunk known in the past. I’m not into the fine details of your gew-gaws and
widgets so much as I am into people. I want to see unusual situations and how
they affect individuals, not argue the vagaries of M theory and steam engines.
Whether it be revelation or change, that’s what gets me all excited in the
morning. So then I get a gander at my mail and see the next entrant in Apex’s “Apex Voices” series, containing both a science
fiction and a steampunk tale. Ugh. But they’re by Maurice Broaddus and he tends
to be pretty awesome with the wordings. Yay.
The bulk of the book is the eponymous novella, a riff on
the buddy cop tale with doses of Gibsonish cyber-noir, political intrigue and
issues of socio-economic inequality. That’s a lot to cover in a story
ostensibly about a detective looking into the possible murder of his ex. It
also contains “Pimp my Airship”, Maurice’s stab at an often ignored aspect of the
usually idyllic steampunk worlds.
I Can Transform You
fails a bit when it comes to the big picture portions of the tale. I don’t
think I’m tipping too much of the man’s hand when I tell you that a conspiracy
is revealed. However, the revelation of the conspiracy is a tad sloppy and
choppy and a bit jumbled to make clear sense to me. It seemed thrown in too
quickly and wasn’t developed as fully as my feeble little mind needed to absorb
it. This disengaged me from the narrative more than I prefer.
However, on the micro level, it totally worked. I bought
into Mac, the broken, disenchanted and general sour-sac asshole with a heart of
coal that he is, in every way possible. He felt real to me, instead of another “bad-boy
who plays by his own rules” cardboard cutout. He kept the tale grounded in his
own misery and kept the narrative focused on the small, personal details. Even
the end isn’t about enacting huge change so much as digging out the small piece
of justice we need to keep moving.
Also, much is said about the lack of diversity in sci-fi.
Hell, every alien species still seems to have a fundamentally Euro style and
approach with slight pigment distinctions. But that isn’t nearly as noticeable
before reading something like this, that contains such a pervading,
encompassing feel of what this type of future would look like with the
continually compiled baggage of race and economic relations heaped on your
shoulders. I especially appreciated a version of slang that wasn’t the usual
over-reaching and goofy dive for cool, instead opting for minor fluctuations on
current slang. It made the whole come across much more organically.
“Pimp My Airship” may account for the first time a
steampunk story has made me smile. Here, Maurice goes on the attack (quite
literally) against the whitewashing of historical context that occurs in the
genre. At the same time, he shows these worlds from an angle that most
certainly must exist in most, if not all, of them but is consistently pushed to
the background. Add to that the presence of the three types of people who seem
to be a part of every revolutionary movement (the brain who actually has the
knowledge and willingness to accomplish something, the voice of overwrought
foolishness that everyone believes must be deep because they don’t take time to
realize he is using large words to spout nonsense and the simple grunt with
neither the vocabulary nor the intellect to properly voice his outrage but the
determination to see it done) and you have a good time. At least, what I consider
to be a good time.
Certainly, PMA was my favorite of the stories presented,
even if the language was a bit too overblown for my taste (entirely intentional
and a necessary part of the parody, I’m sure). The title tale could’ve used a
bit more development in the grand scheme end, but I adored the character work
and the bones of the narrative enough to make it worth my while. I’ve actually
managed to enjoy myself in two genre’s I normally shrug at. Take that for what
you will.
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