This book is a bit difficult to sum up, which may explain the somewhat inaccurate blurbs and summaries I've read, and the common use of "steampunk" toThis book is a bit difficult to sum up, which may explain the somewhat inaccurate blurbs and summaries I've read, and the common use of "steampunk" to describe a book that doesn't meet any of the criteria for the steampunk genre I'm familiar with.
So this isn't a steampunk novel. It is also not a "high fantasy." And it isn't a story of an "alternate America," either—the world it takes place in is so different from ours in all ways that it would be hard to call it an "alternate Earth," let alone point at part of it and call it an "alternate America." It has the trappings of a Western, but not the soul.
What it is, is original. Apart from a few chapters where the characters hike through an endless, unchanging wilderness, it is engrossing and enthralling. It is not satisfied with easy answers and pat moral solutions.
If Gilman writes a sequel I will be all over it....more
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