The Ghost Engine

What a wonderful novel! I loved The Ghost Engine by Theresa Fuller! The world building was magnificent, and so were the characters and plot! Amazing book.

I received this arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I love a good Steampunk - especially a new good steampunk, and the market is unfortunately rather sparse of well-written examples of the genre. I have found a few gems before but I've been on the lookout for a new read, and I found it in The Ghost Engine.

The Ghost Engine follows the story of Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace, granddaughter of Ada Lovelace, one of my personal heroines, and suffragette. Much to the chagrin of her brother, she much prefers getting her hands dirty with a car or a machine than looking for love or finding a husband or even dressing as women at the time were expected to.

In her attempts to break the bounds of the society that holds women in, she sneaks into an auction of a dead man's belongings and manages to procure the Ghost Engine, a machine which has been said to hold the ghost of Charles Babbage Fotheringay, who worked on the machine with his late father (who is, no surprises her, the man who has just passed away at the beginning of the novel).

On working on the engine, Elizabeth finds herself sucked into the insides of the contraption, and into the arms of the annoyingly stubborn 'ghost' - Charles Fotheringay. Together, they must discover the way out of the engine, whilst dodging the seemingly malicious intentions of the engine itself. 

This book was incredibly well written, fast-paced and not too heavy on the detailed descriptions. Whilst the inside of the machine certainly felt fleshed out and real, the action never stopped for a moment, which definitely worked within a novel involving such fast-paced events. 

Elizabeth was an amazing character, feisty and interesting, and always willing to speak her own mind and go her own way. Of course, the early 20th Century suffragette trope is a pretty overused one, to my mind, in modern-day fiction, but it was done very well here. 

There is an element of romance to this book, and I feel like it actually added to the story in this case, rather than taking anything away (as can occasionally be the case in books that triumph strong female narrators). But, overall, the main theme in this book is definitely female power and, of course, steampunk science fiction. 

Overall, I gave this book a solid 5 star rating out of 5, and I think this is one anyone who wants to try out steampunk should have a go with. It isn't too outlandish, so it's a good introduction to the genre for those who don't know a whole lot about it. However, overall, this is just a brilliant book, and one I wholly recommend.

I love steampunk romance! The premise of falling in love with a ghost stuck in a machine is wild! I enjoyed seeing Elizabeth grow and the world that is built!

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC for an unbiased review!

I loved this book. It kinda reminded me of almost a steampunk Alice in Wonderland. I loved the amount of detail in the descriptions of inside the computer and the plot. I love all things steampunk, and I was very pleased with this book.

The Ghost Engine is one of the first steam punk books I have read and I definitely enjoyed it and would read more in this genre!

The premise of the story is interesting with the use of Ada Lovelace being the first female programmer in the plot by explaining elements of the 'ghost machine's' programming as it goes, being a novice in the working of computer programmer I found this super interesting. At parts the world was confusing and I found it difficult to follow but enjoyed it none the less.

Elizabeth is a strong female character in a time when a female could do very little without permission from their husband or male relative. Elizabeth goes after what she wants even the man that she is interested in while holding to her values.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is looking to read more steam punk and is interested in the concept of AI's taking over.

*I received the ghost engine from the publisher via netgalley*

IN SUMMARY: I absolutely went in expecting to love a steampunk adventure with a pinch of technology and romance. THE GHOST ENGINE opens strongly, with a feisty heroine and a fun premise, but unfortunately fails in execution with forced romance, lifeless world-building and slow prose.

MY THOUGHTS:

DNF at 40%. The love interest, Charles, has no consistent character traits. One moment he is aloof and hostile, the next he swoons and swaggers. His personality has some leeway for in-story reasons, but the flip-flop makes it difficult to connect with his character. I couldn’t root for him when his only stable trait was his supposed hotness.

It’s equally difficult to care when his and the protagonist’s romance springs up fully-formed when they’ve known each other for less than a day. It’s fine to find him handsome, but them suddenly mooning over each other killed off my appreciation for Berd’s character, and any connection I may have had to Charles completely.

The world-building of the Engine is confusing and not at all concrete. The descriptions feel hollow and lifeless. It was so hard to imagine what the landscape looks like. Is it supposed to be a city? A collection of metals? A forest? Also, why is the Engine attacking them? How did Berd get sucked into the Engine? She never asks the obvious questions, and because nothing is explained, there’s no urgency, and the stakes feel too low to fear for the protagonist.

Some decisions the protagonist makes are utterly nonsensical; at one point, she asks the love interest not to take in the Engine’s energy as if she knows best, as if she’s lived in the Engine for a whole year like he has. Though the quirky prose style was fitting for the setting, the writing itself was too slow, wallowing and convoluted and focused on the wrong details, and especially in action scenes, it ruined the momentum and excitement.

Even some of the world-building is absurd, and not in an endearing way. For example, the protagonist and love interest are forced to perform CPR on a bunch of mutant insects for power. Enough said.

WILL I READ MORE BY THIS AUTHOR? Probably not. I'm so disappointed because I really want to read a good steampunk book.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, thank you! All opinions are my own.

Ada Lovelace is one of those historical personalities I'm most interested in. I remember reading my first study book of programming and the introduction started with her writings (along with those of Charles Babbage and Blaise Pascal) - I became fascinated with her as a female mathematician at a time when women rarely were able to ...well, be a mathematician.

I also really love scifi and steampunk.

Naturally, I was thrilled to get a chance to read The Ghost Engine, where Ada's granddaughter, Berd, aquires The Ghost Engine at an auction - in order to learn how it works and to find out about her grandmother's death, who died of cancer very early and in pain. The Ghost Engine - a so-called computer - is supposed to be able to do a lot of magnificient and scary things, some say it has the ghost of Charles Babbage Fortheringay trapped inside. And then Berd herself gets inside of the machine and discovers so much more than that.

With all its twists and turns this turned out as a fantastic, imaginative story with a fierce protagonist - I really enjoyed this.