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Gunpowder Alchemy (2014)

by Jeannie Lin(Favorite Author)

3.99 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

InterMix

series

The Gunpowder Chronicles

review 1: I didn't finish. I made it half-way through and it was just-- boring. The steampunk elements were minimal and the heroine was not the inventrix I was hoping for. She didn't even really have much in the way of agency-- she was kidnapped and dragged around for the entire half I read. And it turned out by halfway through the book I still wasn't sure what the _plot_ of the book was. What was I supposed to be rooting for? If it was driving the English out of China why were we spending so much time on internal revolt and other random stuff? If it was the mysteries of the opium, why did we leave that guy? Etcetera. And I'm disappointed; I like Jeannie Lin. The setting (other than the lack of meaningful steampunk) and the writing was everything I expected so I'm planning on tryin... moreg again when the next book comes out.
review 2: ARC courtesy of NetGalley2.5 Set in mid 19th century China, with some mechanical elements that suggest a steampunk world, although the society doesn't seem impacted much by the technology. Or is it that I just don't know enough about 19th century China to see the differences between it and this purportedly steampunk world?Jin Soling and her family were once members of aristocratic Manchurian society, but after her engineer-father is executed (taking the blame for China's defeat at the hands of the more technologically-advanced English in the first Opium War, even though he was the one who warned the emperor that their technology was lacking), they are exiled to the Han countryside. Soling supports her opium-addicted mother and her younger brother by apprenticing with a doctor. But her meager earnings are not enough to keep them afloat, and she must travel to the nearest town to sell one of the last things she's kept of her father's, an intricate metal Japanese puzzle box. No one will buy it from her, and what's worse, it attracts the attention of the authorities, who jail Soling. Turns out the authorities & the Crown Prince have been looking for her, hoping to use her as bait to reel in one of the men who once worked with her father, a man whose technological knowledge may help them stem the tide against the invading English. Unlike his father, the Crown Prince is open to exploring the possibilities of technology, and wants to gather the scattered engineers.Soling meets briefly with another former coworker of her father's, Chen Chang-wei, a man to whom she was once betrothed, who has recovered from disgrace and now works for the Crown Prince. Then she's used for bait to capture the other engineer, Yang Hanzhu, but the plan backfires, and Soling finds herself a prisoner on Yang's boat. I was a bit confused here; was Yang Hanzhu supposed to be another potential love interest? And plot-wise, what purpose did this interlude aboard his boat serve?The boat travels about the Pacific, with Yang apparently researching opium addiction rather than engineering. A few months later, Soling is rescued by the Crown Prince's men (and by Chang-wei's steampunk kite). The rest of the book is a road story, with the two working to make their way back to Soling's family in the midst of a rebellion. Only in this part of the book do we get any real romance; despite being understated and of the slow-burn variety (kisses only), Soling and Chang-wei's relationship does have some touching moments.I was never really sure whose side we were supposed to be rooting for during these battles, or if the Chinese rebels were linked in any way to the invading English. All in all, far more of an adventure story than a romance, with fairly flat characters. Soling in particular seemed to exist just to get pushed around by others, with no real goal of her own throughout the book. less

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