The Wildenstern Saga, an unusual series in the steampunk tradition, reaches the climax of its Nate/Gerald thread in the third book, Merciless Reason. The Wildensterns are a powerful family living in an alternate-universe Ireland during the Irish potato famine. The family Patriarch, Nate, is missing, presumed to have taken leave of his senses, and his cousin, Gerald, a mad scientist (every steampunk story requires one), has taken over as the acting Patriarch. However, unlike Nate, Gerald is harsh and cruel and blithely squanders the family's resources in the single-minded pursuit of his research - the use of "aurea sanitas," a kind of intelligent particle found in the blood of the Wildensterns that imparts superb healing and long life. His ultimate goal is to achieve power over all of humanity through the control and manipulation of intelligent particles.

In an exciting prologue, the crew of a whaling boat off the coast of New England is battling an enormous leviathan of the deep, among the largest enigmals ever seen. Enigmals are living machines, found in the wild, but defying all attempts to explain their origins and how they operate; they also seem to be imbued with intelligent particles. The prologue reads like a mash-up of two Victorian-period novels - Moby Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (later in the book, the mouth of a similar leviathan is referred to as "Moby," just to drive the allusion home.)

The energy developed by the prologue diminishes somewhat, but the tension and suspense increase as Nate prepares a return to his murderous family, which only allows ascension in its ranks through assassination of higher ranking family members (extra-long lives have a dark side!) and to face the mad genius that he once tried to kill - Gerald, who, it seems, has become extraordinarily powerful through his growing ability to manipulate intelligent particles. The energy returns in full measure in a tense, rousing, action-filled climax.

The main tropes of steampunk - science, technology, mathematics and the joy of researching and inventing in the Victorian Age - are emphasized less than they were in the first two novels in the series. Instead, the focus shifts toward a more modern problem - fear of the machines, of the possible unintended consequences of scientific research. There is much palaver and hand-wringing in today's blogs and in the popular press over the potential for AI to take over, to cost people their jobs and livelihood, maybe even to kill without feeling, based only on the logic of a strange (the unknowable, dangerous other) artificial intelligence. Gerald is the personification of this danger and he has already, in previous volumes, shown himself to be cruel and merciless, guided only by what he says is pure reason.

Allusions to Victoriana are rife throughout Merciless Reason. Character types and situations from stories by Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Herman Melville, H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, as well as tropes from Victorian theater and popular themes from penny dreadfuls all play a very large role in the series. Identifying these as they occur is one of the fun parts of the novel! The humor is infrequent and understated but always elicits a chuckle. However, the action, the adventure is the mainstay of the story and it is not understated. It is violent, pounding, and totally satisfying. I whole-heartedly recommend the entire series for its skill in immersing the reader in the Victorian culture, with its fashion and mores, its fears and concerns, while at the same time evoking a thrilling science fiction adventure!

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

I'm almost sorry that it's all over, I did enjoy the read, though some of the explinations were a little handwavy they were fine. Oh man but Gerald is evil, nasty, malicious, pulls wings off flies but explains it's for science and for the good of the world really, evil. He was so calm and rational about his evil that it was purely scary and you could imagine him managing to survive in a victorian world.

Daisy and Titania stood out as the best of the characters, interesting and of their time, you can imagine Titania being a suffragette after all the dust dies down. While Daisy's frustrations aren't ennumerated, you can see them leeching through the story, where she couldn't do what she needed to do to keep the business going, though she does go around a lot of things and knows more than she pretends to.

This series is fun, I love the characters and it really drew me in and kept me reading. I'm only sorry it's over. ( )