A great idea and wonderful steampunk setting but a seriously underperforming work. I had to check after a few chapters that this book was not aimed at a 12 year-old age group. It is aimed at adults as is apparent from the cringingly described graphic inter-species sex. The plot plods resolutely through a succession of poorly described stereotypical adventures with characters lacking in any depth. If you are twelve you might like it, but if you are a parent of a twelve year-old you might balk at its descriptions of oral sex. What a disappointment; it has a great premise but it ends up as a missed opportunity for a good read. ( )

Hethor is an aprentice clockmaker who lives in a literal clockwork universe. One night the brass angel Gabriel comes to him and charges him with the task of finding the Key Perilous so that he can wind the mainspring of the world so that the Earth will continue turning.

There were some things that threw me when I first picked up the book. First, I hated "Hethor" as a name choice. It made me cringe every time I read it, tossing me out of story. Second, while I'm all for starting in the middle, this book launched so quickly into the action of the story that I didn't have a chance to know anything about Hethor, so I just didn't care about him.

But these issues were eventually overcome. I started to ignore the oddness of the name, and I learned to care about the character through how he faced the challenges presented to him. The book also grew on me further as he journeyed into an ever-weirder world. Some of the oddities might be jarring, but I found them delightful, and I grew to thoroughly enjoy this strange and heretical book. ( )

This fantasy has the bizarre and interesting premise of a literal clockwork universe. The Earth’s mainspring is winding down and young apprentice clockmaker Hethor Jacques is charged with finding the Key Perilous and winding it up again by a Brass Angel. The equator of the Earth is a giant gear that meshes with another for Earth’s journey around the Lamp of the Sun. Set in an alternate 19th-century Earth where Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria rules over England and Her American Possessions, the story is set up in an interesting fashion with the promise of armed zeppelins to boot. But then the sluggish pacing sets in and before you’re halfway through you’re half convinced the protagonist is a dull-witted simp who often just gets lucky to get out of any particular scrape he’s gets into. It often seems that deus ex machine is at work several times within the story. Until finally, the story completely sputters out and leaves the reader wholly unsatisfied. There wasn’t even a compelling villain to hate. And also, several questions go unanswered. This was a waste of time. ( )

Its an edge of the seat sort of book. Just as soon as you figure out what is happening, the plot goes in a completely different direction. Great Steam Punk book. I can't wait to read the next one in the series. ( )

Inventive story that's a great example of Steampunk. Loved the worldbuilding and imaginative way Lake describes a world runs on a huge brass gear. Glad that the main character is a teen boy since the book was published for adults but this gives it older teen appeal as well. ( )

At what price is your faith worth placing aside?

This is an interesting piece of world building and thought provoking development at a personal worth level. The period and airships aside, we are immersed into a world on the verge of ending in an 'untimely' wind down. The journey is not one so much to a destination but is a searching of one's soul to ascertain a value placed upon creation itself and God's role for that creation.

I liked this title and would recommend it. Not for the "steam punk" aspects which are merely window dressing. I would not make this a part of any 'cannon'. It is simply a pretty good page turner on its own level. ( )

It was the cover that got to me, pure and simple. Especially the design and layout of the hardcover, as seen here. To be honest, the premise never really appealed to me, but Jay Lake is one of those big, up-and-coming names in the genre, and I felt compelled to give the book a shot when it came out in mass-market paperback. The only reason I tried to read it now was because he's got a new release, Green, that I'm somewhat interested in, but I have a personal rule: if I already own a book by an author I've not read before, I'm not allowed to buy ANOTHER book by that author until I read the book I've already got. The logic is simple: what if I hate the book I've got? If this happens, then I'll have saved money. Anyway, moving on.

The premise: because I didn't finish the book, here's what Barnes & Noble is sporting on their website: Jay Lake’s first trade novel is an astounding work of creation. Lake has envisioned a clockwork solar system, where the planets move in a vast system of gears around the lamp of the Sun. It is a universe where the hand of the Creator is visible to anyone who simply looks up into the sky, and sees the track of the heavens, the wheels of the Moon, and the great Equatorial gears of the Earth itself. Mainspring is the story of a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster to the planet will ensue if it's not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God.

My Rating

Couldn't Finish It: no offense to Jay Lake, but here's the deal: from what I read, the world-building is amazing. It seems provide the punch of wonder that seems to be a requirement in the genre, especially back in the old days. Being a more modern reader of the genre, I don't require such a punch, and while I admire the imagination of what I read and what is clearly going into this book, I reached a point at the end of chapter one where I put the book down, mentally threw it across the room, and told myself it wouldn't work. I then went to Amazon.com to read reviews, and they confirmed what I suspected: characterization is lacking and people are good or they are bad, and our sympathies are meant to align on these very simple principles, and conflict comes out of these very simple principles. At the end of chapter one, there is a scene where Hethor is mugged, and the reason for the mugging is so infuriating that it triggered that mental throw I referenced earlier. As a reader, I can't stomach stuff like that. I want a certain complexity, and I want conflict to be an organic part of the plot. Now, it may very well be that the adversaries Hethor finds at the start come back later (surely they must!), but between the 35 pages I read and the reviews I read afterwards, I don't believe I'd be satisfied. The world-building is the star in this book, and while I love fantastic world-building as much as the next person, I have to have something else to go along with it.

And here's the thing: I got the book suspecting it wouldn't work for me, and I shouldn't have done that. I've reached a point where I'm getting pickier and pickier, and just because an author is the latest and greatest thing doesn't mean I'm going to go back to my trend-whore ways and read the book regardless of my instincts. This past month, I've taken certain proclaimed "jewels" and read several online reviews, and I've saved myself a lot of money because of it. This doesn't mean I won't EVER read those books, as there's always a chance a reviewer will speak directly to me as a reader and tell me exactly why I'll love a book others convinced me I'd not like at all, and this ALSO doesn't mean I won't EVER try anything by said author ever again. It just means I'm passing on that particular book.

Had I instituted this rule before I bought the Mainspring mass-market paperback, I would've passed on it. That doesn't mean I won't give Jay Lake a shot in the future: Green looks like it's far more up my alley, but I'm happy to wait for the mass-market, because I'm getting uber-picky about what I buy in hardcover as well. :)

I’ve steered clear of Steampunk up until this point, not out of any particular prejudice, but more because it has its roots in the era of industrial revolution and that’s not, generally, a period that I’ve ever been drawn to. So when Jay Lake’s ‘Mainspring’ fell into my lap (a reward for being his 500th follower on Twitter), I wasn’t sure what I’d make of it.

I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be such an intriguing, compelling story.

The main character is as engaging as he is innocent, and the world he explores is a fascinating and well-envisioned parallel of the familiar Victorian-industrial era, coherent and by turns dazzling and terrifying in its differences.

The attitudes and social mores, the obsessions with order and outward propriety are both familiar and therefore credible links from our own recognised history into this world, and serve to set up the conflicts in which the main character, Hethor (the clockmaker’s apprentice), struggles to unravel the mystery set for him by the angel, and to work out which of the powerful figures he encounters along the way he can trust. Hethor’s quest is simple enough: to find the Key Perilous and wind the Mainspring of the Earth, but the lack of information available to a boy with no social standing and little education AND the active opposition of theological factions, imperial ambitions and the physical barrier of the ‘Wall’ – an equatorial division on which the mechanism of the Earth turns, where heaven and earth meet – all deepen the conflicts and confusion Hethor must overcome if he is to realise his purpose. The storytelling is subtle, apparently random events driving the plot towards its climax, an unexpected realisation that flows in a satisfying way from the individual Hethor has become over the course of his various trials.

Hethor is an intriguing character. In his naivete and innocence, his lack of awareness and education, there are strong echoes of de Troyes’ Percival (indeed, there is a minor character called de Troyes – coincidence? I wonder…). The overtones of both the chivalrous quest for the Holy Grail and darker, more Wagnerian interpretation of the story (Parsifal) in the construction of Hethor’s character work well with the religious nature of the task he has undertaken. His status as the ‘pure fool’, unknowing and unformed, does, of course, mean that we learn about this world alongside him, and as his learning and development evolves out of his experiences, so too does our understanding and interpretation of the societies, situations and characters that push the story along. His evolution into an almost Christ-like figure – a man with wordly knowledge and understanding and yet still set apart by a simplicity of thought and behaviour – with magical/mystical powers of connection to the mechanisms that drive the Earth and all within/upon it develops naturally out of the callow boy we meet at the beginning – the first clues to this potential sown early on, and refined through the trials and treachery that envelop him right up to that moment of final realisation. In places, his naivete is frustrating – in the early stages of the story, he places his trust too easily and walks into traps with a wide-eyed stupidity, which undermines, to a degree, the later demonstrations of intelligence. Of course, a more charitable interpretation is that those early betrayals forge the determined and intelligent man of the latter stages, but the initial perception persists. His progression from simple (manipulated?) boy to a man confident in his own understanding and abilities comes with the transition from his rational, ordered existence in the Navy in the Northern hemisphere over the equatorial wall to the chaotic, factional, fractured societies of the Southern hemisphere, a powerful dividing line in so many ways in this story, not least of which is the evolution of Hethor’s magic. The form his powers take is absolutely consistent with the world with which we are presented. His magical abilities are hinted at, the potential is touched upon, but never fully explored in the Northern hemisphere, and only in the South, beyond the equatorial Wall, do these (conveniently) take on their full form and allow him to overcome the barriers of language, culture, technology and climate that are set in his path. Again, I think there is an understanding that the escape from the ordered restrictions of the Northern hemisphere sets him free and allows these powers to blossom in the less rational, more mystical and intuitive culture in which he finds himself, but there is, nonetheless, a touch of deus ex machina about its manifestation in a couple of places.

With the evidence of Divine workmanship on permanent, incontrovertible view in this clockwork world, atheism is an untenable position. However, theological factions exist in terms of the interpretation of Divine Intent – Rational Humanists, who claim god abandoned the world after creation and the world should therefore be freed of god, and a more spiritual faction who believe the Divine manifests in the ordinary, that god still has a care for his creation. Our earliest encounter with a Rational Humanist – the clockmaker’s son – sets them up as the natural enemy of both Hethor and his quest, and this perception is borne out with the arrival of William of Ghent. What is interesting is that William of Ghent is a magician and a prophet, a position that seems to sit strangely with the scientific precision of the faction he represents. It works, though, because the ambiguity means that right until the end, we are never sure that Hethor has judged him correctly. It works on other levels, too, particularly in terms of linking back to Wagner’s Parsifal, where William of Ghent could be interpreted as the magician Klingsor, though the impact of Hethor’s ultimate wisdom and compassion upsets that interpretation to an extent. The opposing faction, the mysterious ‘white birds’, are never fully glimpsed, but their agents assist Hethor at every turn, rescuing him from some seemingly impossible situations. This more spiritual, mystical interpretation of the Divine again echoes back the legend of the Grail, and also offers an interesting comment on our own society’s conflicts between the rather hard-edged obsession with rational, scientific progress and a more spiritual, earth-centred stability/sustainability, and it’s interesting to see this expressed and explored in this novel.

The two factions also demonstrate the conflicts and hypocracies within the Northern hemisphere society (and absolutely consistent with Victorian double-standards), contrasting a requirement for outer order and conformity with a hidden, internal chaos. This contrast is emphasised and deepened by the equatorial Wall dividing the Northern and Southern hemispheres where the reverse is true in the civilisation in which Hethor finally comes to rest. Although boundaries are blurred between human and animal, outward chaos is contradicted by inner calm, coherence, acceptance and, ultimately, love. I didn’t expect the romantic elements of the story to develop in the way that they did, but the relationship between Hethor and Arellya develops out of their mutual understanding and ability to communicate, mixed with a sense of curiosity, eagerness and simplicity the two of them seem to share. It’s effective and convincing, but also offers a wider comment on how a culture judged as uncivilised or primitive can actually have more coherence than those that attempt to detach themselves from the basic rhythms of life.

The juxtaposition of these two views of civilisation not only provides Hethor a framework in which to understand and question the values he has been inducted with, but also offers an interesting comment on the interpretations of Victorian analyses of civilisation and social structures from a contemporary perspective: are the societies we label as uncivilised truly so, or is it we who are the savages? The answer Hethor finds is not, perhaps, what one would expect, but it is internally consistent.

Is it a straightforward re-telling of the Grail, or Wagner’s Parsifal? No, not by any means. It draws on elements of both to set the stage, but the internal complexities of the world in which the story plays out make this quest something else altogether. It’s a riveting read, a layered story of contrasts and conflicts that come together in the end to create an exciting and satisfying finale. I loved every minute of it. ( )

The big selling point for Mainspring is the world Jay Lake has created. The world looks much like earth in the late 1800s. Earth is a mechanical world. Massive brass gears around the equator spin the Earth around the sun on a brass orbital track. Young Hethor of New Haven, Connecticut receives a visit from the Angel Gabriel, telling him that he has to save the world. What follows is a very by-the-book fantasy hero quest, other than the fine world that Hethor explores along the way. It has a somewhat promising beginning, but goes slowly downhill and more or less falls off a cliff by the end.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

Treated as an adventure story this is a good book and I liked the steampunk elements. The curious thing about it was that if you excluded the occasional bouts of swearing and inter-species sex it reads like a children's adventure story! I have to confess I didn't like the ending and there were a couple of plot inconsistencies that annoyed me. Also I couldn't fathom whether this was supposed to be an explicit Christian allegory (well it obviously is on one level) but to what end?
In summary a good read with some minor irritations. A distant cousin of " His Dark Materials" but certainly not in the same league. ( )

I found this so-so. The book has a great premise and, as the characters are introduced, they are quite interesting.

However, by about the mid-point of the story, we have been reduced to a long travel story where totally unexplained attacks occur, are beaten off, and then immediately forgotten as far as the plot is concerned.

Ten pages from the end of the book, I was sure that a sequel was in the offing because there was no way such a grand plan could be wrapped up so quickly. I was wrong. There's a quick, unsatisfying resolution to the main character's problem, followed by a trite ending.

I'd give Lake 4 stars for originality and conception, 1½ to 2 stars for execution. The result is a book that passed the afternoon for me, but which I wouldn't recommend. ( )

Coming-of-age adventure and travelogue. I wished for a deeper - rather than broader - exploration of the world than was presented. Full review here. ( )

A typical episodic hero's-journey, coming-of-age, save-the-world story, with a disappointing ending. Scalzi's blurb notwithstanding, the plot does not proceed with clockwork precision, but veers off into deux ex machina moosh after 300 pages of tease. Feh. And steampunk? I don't think so. ( )

What started out as an interesting world with a mechanistic universe in evidence quickly caroomed into the tale of a young man who has given himself whole-heartedly into a quest he never really understands. Dragged along by events usually precipitated with honest ignorance, Hethor ends up on a grand tour of the earth, encountering pleasures and horrors in equal degree. Things fly by so quickly and roll towards and ending that is both predictable and maudlin, and wrung through with not a little religious fervor. Points for a great setting and taken away for not having enough time to appreciate it. Oh, and it was nice to see a powerful librarian providing the entree to the secret society that moves Hethor along the way, even if she comes off as a little stereotypical. (I'm a librarian, it's nice to be remembered). ( )

I got really excited when I saw Mainspring on the list of new items at the public library. I'm a fan of steampunk/clockpunk, and was really intrigued with the idea of a literal clockworks universe. In Mainspring, the clockworks is running down, and a young apprentice clockmaker is tasked to wind it back up. But it's not an easy task since he has to cross the whole world to get to the Earth's mainspring. Jay Lake has conceived of a marvelous world, but things are a little lacking on the "punk" side of things. Instead, there's wonder in the natural world and faith in the Creator so readily demonstrated by the clockworks that everyone can see.

Lake's plotting gets off to a bit of a bumpy start, but once the apprentice, Hathor, gets on board an airship, things smooth out well and the story becomes captivating. The prose was not consistently the lyrical prose of China Mieville, but there were positively brilliant moments. All in all, I had trouble putting it down and was happy that I had a rainy Saturday morning to devote to Mainspring. ( )

Lake (Trial of Flowers) envisions the universe as an enormous clockwork, put in motion by God, complete with gears and a mainspring hidden at the Earth's center, in his intriguing first trade hardcover novel, a fantasy set in the magic-tinged late 19th century. Archangel Gabriel charges clockmaker's apprentice Hethor Jacques with a quest: he must find the lost Key Perilous so that the Mainspring of the World can be rewound.

Adventurer not the Messiah, maybe.

This starts off as an entertaining quest for a teenager, who, in a solar system that has planets moving thanks to large clockwork mechanisms, is visited by an Angel and told there is a Serious Problem to be solved.

This problem being that the world is out of whack, and needs attention from your standard magical artifact to get it back into synch.

Needless to say, clockmakers and other serious types don't jump to belief in a boy's angel stories, so off he goes alone after a falling out.

The majority of the book is quite charming, dealing with this boy's journey. England, America and China all exist, and he ends up with the English air-navy. A book like this I think it is probably de rigeur to have airships. These actually have a bit more emphasis on the ship.

An attack by winged savages on this flying machine precipitates the rest of the story, and our hero ends up again relying on himself, gaining some aid from your garden variety inscrutable oriental and a fellow naval man who is not what he seems.

In following the latter across a bridge visited daily by some seriously dangerous gears, the book loses its way somewhat, as after this section it, and the character, transmogrify into a far more tedious, not to mention predictable messianic state. The rapid change in character for the protagonist over such a short period didn't seem to believable to me. The rest of the story is pretty obvious from there, it would seem, which would be ok if the tone matched.

I'd give the first 2/3 4 out of 5, or just about, but the end only a 3.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/02/mainspring-jay-lake.html ( )

http://www.skyseastone.net/jvstin/unj... ( )

Science fiction, where the science in question is Ptolemaic astronomy.

This adult fantasy novel strongly reminded me of some young adult fantasies I have been reading--The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, The Hungry City Chronicles by Phillip Reeve, and Kenneth Oppel's Airborn series. It's the combination of clockwork, automatons, and airships that made me feel this novel wasn't anything new. It was an okay read, but I didn't feel like anything new came out of it.

Hethor is a clockworker's apprentice who is unfairly pushed out of his position after a visit from the angel Gabriel. The earth's clock is winding down and Hethor can sense its slowness. And so begins the quest. Hethor visits the strange southern hemisphere, meets many strange creatures (think Patterson's Maximum Ride) and finds love with a monkey-ish woman.

I won't be purchasing this for my high school library. Some scenes were thrown into the book as an afterthought and didn't fit the storyline at all. The plot moved along slowly and I think the young adult novels that I mentioned earlier are much better reads. ( )

I know Jay Lake. I have given up on a Jay Lake novel. I have critiqued a short story by Jay Lake that amounted to "what the hell is going on here?"
That being said, I enjoyed Mainspring. I enjoyed reading a novel that takes God seriously, but not so seriously that science is "an evil satanic thing designed to lure people away from faith." The story is a standard quest/hero's journey: Save the world. Leave everything behind and save the world. The world is quite nonstandard, something only Aristotle could have imagined, but not like this. The world is a real clock work world, and to save the world,Hethor, an apprentice horologist, must wind the mainspring.
The novel then takes the reader on a tour from New England to Antarctica, which means Hethor must get past the Wall, a massive structure that juts from the equator several miles (if the exact number is in the book I missed it) above the surface of the planet. Along the way he meets varied strange peoples, has more adventures than anyone probably wants, and gets abused in vastly creative ways. Everything he thought was serious before his quest began is ripped away from him. Yeah, that's what quests do to a character.
The villain seems to be at first one of the minor obstacles to Hethor's journey, and returns later to assert his world view dominance. But looking at what William of Ghent says, he seems to be just as religious asHethor, so the struggle of worldviews isn't so much a theism/atheism but a theism/Scientology debate.
The quest usually has a sad ending: in order to save the world Hethor must give it up. But Hethor doesn't lose it all. As cruel as Jay is to Hethor, he seems happier in the end than he started.
I am looking forward to Escapement, the current working title for the next book in this world, but by saving the world in the first book, I'm not sure how he will top that in book two. ( )

Jay Lake’s first trade novel is an astounding work of creation. Lake has envisioned a clockwork solar system, where the planets move in a vast system of gears around the lamp of the Sun. It is a universe where the hand of the Creator is visible to anyone who simply looks up into the sky, and sees the track of the heavens, the wheels of the Moon, and the great Equatorial gears of the Earth itself.

Mainspring is the story of a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel. He is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth. It is running down, and disaster to the planet will ensue if it's not rewound. From innocence and ignorance to power and self-knowledge, the young man will make the long and perilous journey to the South Polar Axis, to fulfill the commandment of his God. ( )

Once again I have found a book that makes me go " Wow!". This is a novel that more than entertains, it takes you places you never knew existed, even in the human imagination. Jay Lake's Mainspring, from TOR, is such a book, a work that is both an intriguing story and an astounding experience, one that you'll remember long after you finish reading it. More at Fast Forward TV ( )