Prosperity

First things first: right now, before you read any farther, go to Amazon and wish-list this book. Even better, pre-order it. Then go to Goodreads and add it to your "want to read" shelf. Because seriously, it's that good. Here are the links again:

Amazon link Goodreads link

It doesn't come out until October 27th, but I got a sneak peek at a copy from Netgalley, and it flat-out blew me away.

"Y'know, not everything has to be about everything. Sometimes it's just about now." (Piccadilly to Ruben, on the difference between love and sex.)

The story is told from the point of view of Piccadilly, an "urchin with a heart of gold". He's a petty thief from the Stews of Gaslight who's traveled to the sky town of Prosperity with simple goals: acquire enough cash to eat and sleep, and if there's someone to warm his bed, all the better, regardless of the bits under their clothing.

Piccadilly runs a successful caper, which gets him in the cross-hairs of Milord, an evil and amoral and absolutely honest crimelord. Instead of ending up dead at Milord's hands, however, Piccadilly gets adopted by the crew of the Shadowless. Over the course of his adventures, he loses some things and gains others, though in the end, his biggest achievement may be finding a place he belongs.

Here's what I loved about it...

The perfect language and cadence. For this post, I was half tempted to just compile my favorites out of all of Mr. Hall's fantastic sentences, and while I did include a few, I figured it would be more informative if I included my thoughts as well.

So here's my most prominent thought: Piccadilly's voice rocks. It's a consistently creative mash-up of periods, like a British Steampunk version of Huckleberry Finn. There were a few bits of modern slang, but the whole thing was such a patchwork I found them entertaining rather than annoying. Beyond the voice, I found the language was colorful and surprising, and the rhythm kept me humming along with pleasure. (And I'm not even exaggerating. This is the kind of book where I'd read a sentence, then re-read it juts because it was fun.)

Piccadilly's surprising wisdom.

'Tis often the way, I find, when the job is done. Cos I keep thinking sommat's waiting on the other side. I dunno what, but I'm sure it's there, just out of reach... But there's nowt. There's only silence. And the things you filch ain't ever the things you want, and I reckon living itself is a filched business. (Piccadilly, on the consequences of living life as a thief.)

Because of his creative grammar and self-professed inability to make letters behave, Picadilly's observations always came as a bit of a surprise. He's a deep and wise and charming soul, and his thoughts on life will stay with me.

The absolute boldness of the story. Prosperity is a Steampunk fantasy with romantic elements, and those romantic elements are almost exclusively same-sex. I'm putting that out there because, while I've been reading a lot of queer romance, not everybody's been hanging out in my head. The romance was part of the story, not the point of the exercise.

More interesting to me was the character of Byron Kae, captain of the Shadowless, and the best gender-ambiguous character I've read in a long time, possibly since Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand Of Darkness. I didn't mind the use of the plural pronouns when referring to Byron Kae, possibly because my kids are growing up in a world where asking a new friend which pronouns they prefer is considered good manners. Byron Kae was beautiful and mysterious and I hope they star in one of Mr. Hall's upcoming novels.

There. I've compared Prosperity to Huckleberry Finn & The Left Hand of Darkness. That's bold. That's ambitious. That's a whole 'nother playing field from most of what I've been reading lately.

Any concerns? The denseness of the language. While it's gorgeous and amazing and entertaining as all hell, it took me a while to learn it. On my first read, I moved slowly through the opening chapters, intrigued, fascinated, but a little confused. The more I read, the easier it got, though in all honesty I felt a greater emotional impact on my second read-through, even though I already knew what would happen next. I was more fluent in the language, and the critical scenes near the end tore me up.

I give this book five stars, simply because it reaches higher than anything I've read in a long time. I'm in awe of the author's ability to create vibrant characters and to weave thoughtful commentary about real life throughout a wonderful fantasy. And you know the best part? There are four more books in this world scheduled for release in January! I hope you look for Prosperity on it's release in a couple weeks. It's a truly amazing ride.

Peace,
Liv

She was black, with fittings of silver, except 'twas a kinda black beyond the everyday, as though it'd swallowed down all the other colours in the world and they was swimming about inside it like rainbow fish. (Piccadilly, describing the airship Shadowless.)

Oh. My. God. What a read!! Alexis Hall, I salute you (yet again), you are such a Wordsmith, you make me swoon...honest!! 5 paltry stars for a story of this magnitude is wholly inadequate, but all I can offer I'm afraid.

The skymining town of Prosperity in 1863. A rip-roaring, rollicking, and completely magical steampunk tale. There be lust and passion a plenty, drug addled kickass heroines with clairvoyant tendencies, extremely confused defrocked clergymen (Ruben, I ♥ you), Krakens, Sky Pirates, filthy villains (boo!! hiss!! Milord), a young guttersnipe called Piccadilly (think Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist) who is another of our story's heroes - ♥ you Dil, and an ethereal creature named Byron Kae, skycaptain of the aethership Shadowless. Just glorious, in fact I ♥♥ it so much, I've already pre-ordered the sequels from Riptide.

ARC kindly provided by Riptide via Netgalley.

It is a unique book, like nothing I have read before and I loved so much that it's really difficult for me to write a proper review. I'll start by trying to define its genre/style - for me it's a steampunk, adventure, m/m romance, coming of age, fantasy love story. Mr Hall spins a complex, whimsical, profound and most of all beautiful tale of the life and sorrows and loves of one Piccadilly.

This is my first book by this author and I was drawn to it by the steampunk in the blurb and the krakens (I recently read Meljean Brooks’ The Kraken King and I absolutely loved it). The stories don't have much in common, though. Even the krakens are different, yet in the end I loved Prosperity very much as well.

I wasn’t sure what to expect initially and at the beginning it took me some time to get used to the writing style and language used. I was drawn into the story right from the start, a sort of memoirs of the hero, told by him in a curious mixture of street slang, made-up words and high-brow literary style.

The message of the strength of love coming in all shapes and forms was a strong one throughout all the misfortunes and the rare happy times for Piccadilly. There is a lot of humour along with the philosophical messages. The characters are all unique and you get invested in them despite or rather, because of their flaws and failings. They all seem the have hidden inside them hearts of gold, even the ruthless Milord.

It was fantastical, beautifully written journey that I couldn't put down till the very end. I'm more than happy that there will be more stories about this characters in a series of novellas set in this semi-mythical, semi-realistic universe of rainbows, aethermancy and sky cities.

It's a recommended read for anyone who is looking for something different than traditional romance. Now, I'm going back to read Mr. Hall contemporary M/M romance, Glitterland, which my GR friends have rated very highly.

Honestly, I'm not normally what people might refer to as a gusher, but this book is LUSH! There are moments of such painful poignancy that I literally found myself momentarily devoid of reason.

It's not perfect. It took me a long time to get comfortable with Piccadilly's dialect and at times I thought it was overplayed. I really wanted to see Byron Kae's happily ever after and there is a lot of empty space between the bits we know about the characters. But it's close enough for jazz.

What it is that I love so much about this book isn't necessarily the aetherpunk or krakens or action. It's not the romance (if that's the word for it), though that's wonderful. It isn't even directly the characters themselves, though they're worship-worthy. It's the brutal honesty of those same characters' fragility. Yes, I know, it's an oxymoron. But read the book; you'll understand.

The mixed up crew of the Shadowless inhabit a world in which they won't allow themselves the comforting self-deceptions we all so often clothe ourselves in. What would life without your mask feel like? As a result these same miscreants sometimes ring with peals of emotions so pure they put me in mind of crystal bells wrung by aery angels draped in the gossamer threads of God's tears...or some such bollox. You get the point. I felt for these characters. And you see fairly early on that whatever happily ever after they may get aren't the ones they want. But you root for them anyway.

Now, the whole thing isn't to be taken too seriously, 'cause the book is also damned funny in an occasionally dry, very British way. But it's self-aware enough to play with the expectation it builds in the reader, slipping punchlines in unexpectedly. Not often, or not often enough to be predictable, but there all the same.

Goodreads says that this is the 205th book I've read this year and this is probably one of, if not my absolute, favourites. It wasn't at all what I expected and I'm so glad for that. Go read it right now!