Mechanique

Come inside and take a seat; the show is about to begin...

Outside any city still standing, the Mechanical Circus Tresaulti sets up its tents. Crowds pack the benches to gawk at the brass-and-copper troupe and their impossible feats: Ayar the Strong Man, the acrobatic Grimaldi Brothers, fearless Elena and her aerialists who perform on living trapezes. War is everywhere, but while the Circus is performing, the world is magic.

That magic is no accident: Boss builds her circus from the bones out, molding a mechanical company that will survive the unforgiving landscape. But even a careful ringmaster can make mistakes. Two of Tresaulti's performers are entangled in a secret standoff that threatens to tear the circus apart just as the war lands on their doorstep. Now the Circus must fight a war on two fronts: one from the outside, and a more dangerous one from within...

“There are books that blend genres, like a steampunk romance. And then there are books which take all the toys in the genre box and throw them onto the ground, assembling a brilliantly glittering collage from the shards. Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique, a steampunk/post-apocalyptic/magical-realist/paranormal adventure, is one of those rare books that will transform your understanding of genre. It’s a genuinely literary book that uses the elements of genre to tell the truth about people. Fittingly for a book about acrobats and tumblers, this book both soars and confounds your expectations.”—io9

“Though Valentine’s book is set in an earthly future brought down from its height of progress by a series of unspecified wars, this “Tale of the Circus Tresaulti” doesn’t resemble steampunk so much as Gothic in the tradition of Poe and Mary Shelley, where a lone inventor’s creations mingle science with the occult. Beyond every revelation, setback, and dramatic moment, the wonder remains...”—Locus

“As a slice of sumptuous atmosphere, Mechanique evokes two of the best: Angela Carter’s Nights At The Circus and Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love, especially in the way all three use the Big Top as a backdrop for allegories of transfiguration and otherness. To Valentine’s credit as an aerialist of the literary sort, Mechanique is metamorphic but never grotesque, even as it sustains fabulist weightlessness between raw flesh, poignant insight, and glimmering fantasy.”—The Onion’s AV Club

“Mechanique is a brutal gem of a novel—a fierce, gilded textual circus.”—Cherie Priest, bestselling author of Boneshaker and Dreadnought

“This steampunk-flavored circus story begins with a disturbing undertone, like an out-of-tune calliope, and develops in hints and shadows. Fans of grim fantasy will love this menacing and fascinating debut.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Mechanique will re-instill in you the sense of wonder, awe and terror of a small child’s first encounter with a circus. The gorgeous, war-torn aesthetic and the stunning literary prose will captivate the reader, but I warn you that the Circus Tresaulti, replete with the denizens and ideas it gives birth to, is as dangerous as it is glamourous.”—Tor.com