Arabella of Mars

This is a great, sweeping, Mars adventure, in the tradition of Burroughs, but also striding out imaginatively into uncharted territory. The airships between the stars remind me of Timlin's The Ship That Sailed to Mars, and the "science" explaining how this could be is a marvelous iteration of Victorian understandings.

The audio book is soundly read, and Arabella herself is a winning character. There are some areas of repetition and self-inflicted drama that I found mildly annoying, but on the whole, hurrah for an epic Victorian Mars adventure! Hurrah for our plucky heroine and dashing Captain Singh! Long may they sail, and swashbuckle between the stars.

I read this as part of the Norton finalist packet.

What a fantastic read! Levine's book combines Victorian sensibilities with space-faring airships, all seen through the viewpoint of the courageous and smart Arabella who masquerades as a cabin boy to get a freighter ride back home to Mars before her cousin can commit dastardly acts. Levine utilizes many tropes of steampunk and 19th century literature, such as a mutiny aboard ship and the inevitable exposure of Arabella's true gender, but twists everything in surprising, satisfying ways. I'd love to read onward in this series.

A Victorian-era Treasure Planet-esque adventure that I didn’t know I needed!

Arabella Ashby, born and raised on Mars, is forced to return to Earth when her mother deems her “too wild,” leaving her beloved father and older brother behind with their family plantation. But after news reaches her of her father’s passing and she discovers a plot that threatens her brother’s life, Arabella disguises herself as a boy, earns a place on a Mars-bound airship, and sets off on an interplanetary adventure complete with pirates, mutiny, and automata galore!

A large portion of the story is focused on the daily life and work aboard the ship, which is actually pretty cool because you can imagine it’s similar to how a real ship (on the ocean) show more would function, but with sci-fi twists like zero-gravity and automaton navigators and forested asteroids. I also loved this protagonist! Arabella is smart, resourceful, reckless at times, bold and brave. She’s aware of her own strengths and limitations and she grows in confidence in her abilities throughout the story. show less

This book checks a lot of boxes for me, so I assumed I was going to enjoy it (spoiler: I did!) We’ve got Regency England (check), steampunk (check), space travel (check) and one tough chick that can’t stand to be forced into societal and gender roles (check).

I can’t recall having read a book set in the 1800s where space travel is not only possible, but done via wooden ships much like the ones they use to sail across the ocean. This was a fun, fresh setting for me and what was especially unique is that the air in space is breathable! Yeah, this requires maybe more suspension of belief than usual, but I jumped right on board. Imagining being able to ride what’s essentially a cross between a zeppelin and a pirate ship straight into show more the sky, then beyond into space and floating around in zero gravity with air that’s breathable made me want to be a part of the book!

Arabella is possibly your clichéd tough girl with a heart of gold and determination of steel, but I liked her. I’ve always liked the whole girl-dresses-up-as-boy-to-gain-access-to-something-she-never-could-as-a-girl element and Arabella fit right into that role. She does struggle at her new job aboard a ship and has to navigate testosterone flooded waters and initiation into the manly world of interplanetary travel. I do think hiding her ladyness was explained away with the ease of one sentence and then not really addressed again. I would have liked to see her struggle a bit more with keeping her identity a secret, but it wasn’t essential to the plot, so whatever.

The only other stand-out character is the incredibly lifelike (and possibly sentient?!) automaton navigator, Aadim. He doesn’t play a big part, but I was interested in how he worked and his silent influence on other characters. In fact, I wanted more automata! Give me all the robots, please.

I did struggle with imagining some of what took place on the ship when it came to daily routine and ship maintenance. I’m not at all familiar with nautical terms and adding no gravity into the mix left me constantly wondering why everyone didn’t just bounce away from the ship and never come back. I also wondered how their…uh…business…stayed in the head (toilet) when everything else seemed to float around the ship. Again, this is not essential and probably I shouldn’t have spent so much time wondering this. Anyway, some of the action scenes played out murkily in my head.

I don’t want to shout about this book from the rooftops, but it was excellent. I’m hoping this will be a series – I actually thought it already was one with multiple books in it and I’m not sure what series I confused it with. If you’re looking for a Regency romp through space, pick up this book (and then we can talk about the logistics of Regency era bathroom use in zero gravity together!) show less

This is set in a universe where there's atmosphere in space, and vessels that are a cross between airships and sailing ships ply the routes between the planets. We're told that Venus has swamps, in the good old tradition from before we knew what was under its clouds, but this story is about Mars.

This Mars is dry, but has a breathable atmosphere, and an intelligent native species that is crablike in appearance, but much larger, and upright. And, since this is 1813, and it was Isaac Newton watching bubbles rise that led to the airships and spacefaring sailing ships, Europeans have colonized Mars.

There's no real explanation of how this came about. But, despite what some readers will be thinking, it is a lot of fun.

Arabella Ashby, 16 years show more old, and her older brother, Michael, as well as their younger sisters, were all born on Mars. They live on their family's estate, which grows the woody plants that are the family's main source of income. It's their mother's opinion that Arabella has been learning entirely too much from her Martian nanny, and isn't at all learning to be a proper English lady. After one final outrage (Arabella is slightly injured playing a Martian strategy game with Michael and the Martian nanny), Mrs. Ashby announces she's taking the girls back to Earth.

This is boring, frustrating, too hot, and very heavy for Arabella, and she doesn't like any of the suitable young men her mother introduces her to, but it's survivable--until word arrives that Mr. Ashby has died. Then, Arabella visits her cousin, Simon Ashby, and his wife, and accidentally plants the idea that the unscrupulous Simon can eliminate Michael and essentially steal the inheritance, which is entailed on the male line.

Arabella starts running, planning to send a message to Michael to warn him that Simon is on the way, and after a series of delightfully improbable events, she has enlisted as "Boy, 2nd class" on the Marsman (think Indiaman, ships of the British East India Company) under the name Arthur Ashby. Her skill with automata, well established earlier in the story, is a major enticement for the Captain, Prakesh Singh, who has an automaton navigator. He'd like someone willing to learn to use and maintain it, and resistance in his existing crew is unhappily strong.

Soon she's learning to sail space, the rules of life among men on ships, with all the expected adventures--including a privateer attack, and a mutiny on board--as well as learning the finer points of navigation and the operations of the automaton. But all the events that make the trip more exciting, also delay this otherwise very fast ship, and the murderous Simon is going to get to Mars ahead of her.

And then there's a native uprising on Mars.

This really is a lot of fun, improbable as it all sounds. Also, Levine doesn't hesitate to comment, deftly and effectively, on the sins of colonialism, and lack of respect and understanding of different and especially "primitive" cultures.

Definitely worth a read or a listen.

I bought this audiobook. show less

Fun, light steampunk. Think of how Jules Verne pictured Mars and the passage between. Arabella runs away from home after having been forced to leave Mars for Earth. She pretends to be a boy and gets a birth on a sailing ship headed to Mars.

In the hope of instilling a better sense of decorum in her, the 16-year-old Arabella Ashby is sent home from Mars to England. After her father's death she learns her cousin is going to Mars to murder her brother so that he can inherit the family estate. She runs away to foil his dastardly plan.

Although I felt the author hadn't quite caught the cadences of Regency language and manners, I nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed this rip-roaring yarn of derring-do.