A glance at the front cover of this book lets you know what you’re in for: a weird, wonderful and occasionally disturbing race through a fantastically alternative Victorian Age. The young Queen Victoria absconds from Buckingham Palace shortly before her Coronation, and is replaced by a human–newt hybrid; New England is threatened by a mythical sea creature, and can only be saved by a prejudiced Swiss scientist; and Emily Dickinson falls for Walt Whitman, and accompanies him on a strange voyage through the Afterlife.

You’ve got to admire di Filippo’s glorious imagination: I mean, where did he get ideas like these from? It’s all so outlandish that it’s something of a tribute to his writing skills that he manages to get away with it. You even manage to suspend your disbelief on occasion, and it’s all great fun in any case.

While I enjoyed 'Victoria' and 'Hottentots', I think it’s with 'Walt and Emily' that di Filippo really hits his stride. Perhaps it’s because the strangeness and the relentless pace of the first two stories let up for long enough to let the characters really shine through: the nervous, lonely Dickinson is both charming and poignant, the hearty Whitman perfect both as her foil and her soulmate. In fact, this strange fictional love affair is so enticing in its own right that I found myself wishing that the weird backdrop against which it is set — a pseudo–scientific exploration of the spirit world — would take up less space, thus allowing the love story to take precedence. But then I am a drippy romantic at heart …

Tremendous entertainment.
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These stories were quite thought-provoking. I really enjoyed the story about Victoria...a fascinating take on some pseudo-historical figures. The alternate history feel of the story allowed for some shortcuts in characterization that worked well. I also enjoyed the second story in the book. The main character is appallingly racists and offensive, but the action around him shows him for the fool he is and it all works out well in the end...sort of. I found the final story less unique but still worth a read.

I give this book a B. ( )

Originally published in 1995, Paul Di Fillippo’s The Steampunk Trilogy, three novellas, is among the standard-bearers bringing the mechanical tech science fiction genre forward to its 21st century blossoming. Di Filippo’s stories include historical characters with fantastical elements—say, a less-than-human Queen Victoria, and a love affair between the great American poets of the last century. These are wonderful stories, if not true classics of the genre, and its great to have them available in ebook form.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com ( )

The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo.

Victoria
As scientist and author John Cramer defines it, in Einstein's Bridge, "hard science fiction" is "that sub-species of the science fiction genre in which the protagonists are often working scientists, careful attention is paid to the scientific accuracy of technical details, and scientific problem solving is an important plot element." [Bridge, Kindle location 5975]. Now, put the timeline in the mid-19th century, but follow all of Cramer's dictates, and you have the beginning of "Victoria." Cosmo Cowperthwaite is an inventor, a scientist of some renown, who has played with the energy he has derived from the newly discovered mineral called uranium, using it as a power source for train engines. Cowperthwaite also writes his lab notes and manuscripts using a carefully described machine of his invention that keeps his pen filled with ink and the paper rolling along with the pace of his scrivening. Fascinating - hard steampunk!

However, Di Filippo goes one better, at least in terms of keeping one's interest - the situations and dialogue in "Victoria" are frequently hilarious! Just as one minor example, the name of the antagonist in the story is Chuting-Payne and he lives on his ancestral estate of Carking Fardels (look it up.) England's Princess Victoria is about to have her coronation as Queen but she has disappeared. The Prime Minister calls for Cowperthwaite's assistance and the story moves from hard steampunk to a Shakespearian-style comedy - occasionally bawdy, maintaining a light tension as Cowperthwaite and the PM search for Victoria, with a double taking her place until she is found.

Hottentots
It's odd that a roller-coaster ride such as that presented by "Hottentots" could be so tedious. The reader is immersed in misogyny, anarchism, racism, slavery, superstition, malformed female genitalia, Teutonic imperialism, and all manner of disasters before the conclusion, but the story just didn't hold this reader's interest. Perhaps the problem is that the purpose of the story seems to be more to provide a forum to display Di Filippo's not inconsiderable erudition rather than to entertain or educate. The historical references are given precedence over the plot.

The story takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1800s. A creationist scientist, Louis Agassiz, wants to disprove the new theory of evolution by finding one of creationism's Cosmogonic Loci, a place where new forms of life are born, whole and complete, unchangeable. This leads to involvement in a quest to find a magical fetish which gives power to the bearer when employed at a Cosmogonic Locus. It is this power that attracts all the various antagonists and provides the motive power for the story. Di Filippo delves into great and mostly accurate detail in describing Boston and its environs, some local disasters such as the Great Molasses Flood in Boston's North End, the arguments behind all of the disparate political and social movements at play, and the extremes in prejudice and bias that seem to have existed at the time. The story itself, however, is weak - essentially an episodic chase by an unlikable protagonist to find the magical item, but with no real tension or suspense developed at any point.

Walt and Emily
As far as we know, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson never met in person, but if they had, that encounter might have been very much like the one this story describes. It's also probably unlikely that the two poets actually spoke in the same manner as they do in the story - Emily talking in cryptic symbolism and idiosyncratic capitalization, Walt continuously gushing in free verse - but the story's dialogue does capture the spirit of their poetry. Random thoughts and snippets of off-hand conversation foreshadow the word play found in their poems, even to the point of one individual influencing the other's composition.

The narrator throughout is Emily, from a first-person omniscient point-of-view. Her thoughts and perceptions describe the underlying motivations behind her paralyzing shyness, her phobias and fears and attractions; the events of the story reflect the mysticism that intrigued many in that age. We also observe the sexual mores of the period, as experienced or observed by Emily.

Emily's brother Austin, who lives next door to Emily, has hired a medium who claims to provide the means for him to physically visit the ghosts of his aborted children. He invites a number of people to accompany him on his "journey," including Walt Whitman. Emily is more than skeptical but involves herself anyway. She meets Walt, whose poetry she has admired, and they understand each other on a different level. After a longish build-up, the journey takes place and while it is predictable (hint - Allen Ginsberg makes an appearance), it is also suspenseful. The story is entertaining, but its real attraction is Di Filippo's adroit use of language to mirror and capture the essences of Emily and Walt and to depict the congress of their minds.

I had a visceral reaction to each of the stories - the first story invoked humor and entertainment, but the second repelled me: I felt a strong dislike for the characters, the artifacts of the story and the long, drawn-out storyline. The only thing that appealed in the second story was the scholarship that went into researching it. The third story was amusing with its tongue-in-cheek fantasy and its adroit word-play. Actually, the handling of that story's subject matter, characters and dialogue made it the best of the three! Of course, another reader might have a different, but equally visceral, set of reactions. This underlying emotional power is sufficient for me to recommend the book, with three and one-half stars, even though I intensely disliked one of the three stories.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )