The Clockwork Dagger is Beth Cato’s debut novel and as the title may lead you to believe, it is very much a steampunk story. The story features a gifted healer, a hidden princess, goblins, a mysterious man with a mechanical leg, a war, and much, much more. The protagonist, Octavia Leander, is a medician (supernaturally endowed healer) on a mission to war-ravaged lands to work her powers on the soldiers of her homeland of Caskentia. Octavia was orphaned at a young age, her parents and entire village were killed in an airship accident. She was taken into Lady Percival’s boarding home where her healing talents were cultivated. As the novel begins, Octavia’s powers connected to “The Lady” and “The Tree,” supernatural elements that border on the religious, are known throughout the lands to be the most potent.
When she arrives at the airship Argus which will transport her to the front lines where she can help the troops of Caskentia, she meets the steward Alonzo Garrets, the aforementioned man with the metal leg. Her trip is to take her to the towns of Vorana, Leffen, Mercia, and Delford. She recognizes Garrett’s name and bearing as a man with not-so-positive connections to her past. That doesn’t halt the feelings she has for him; however, and she can’t stop thinking about him nor does he shy away from her. Octavia finds herself sharing a room with the forthright and eccentric Mrs. Stout, with whom she soon finds a close companion. Passengers on the Argus are plenty and varied, allowing Octavia to have different levels of interaction with them; some annoy her, some she engages with well, while others she find distasteful. The voyage is far from uneventful, from gremlin attacks to attempts at Octavia and Mrs. Stout’s life, it is quite chaotic. Octavia comes to learn a long game is being played with her as the prize and the players aren’t who they seem to be.
At this point, I should point out that Steampunk, as a subset of Speculative Fiction, is very hit or miss for me. I find the aesthetic and setting fascinating, but often the stories themselves don’t always work for me. That having been said, I couldn’t have been more pleased with The Clockwork Dagger. I was especially pleased that Beth Cato set the story in a secondary world, rather than an alternate past, which I think gave her much more room to breathe with the characters, setting and overall story. The setting of a secondary world, the supernatural elements, as well as Octavia’s stature as an orphan and the aforementioned hidden princess, give this steampunk novel a heavy and enticing dose of epic fantasy.
The powers that enhance Octavia’s abilities, “The Lady” and “The Tree” are touched upon as powerful, yet enigmatic and even disbelieved by many. Octavia, on more than one occasion, defends her faith of these two entities to people who pass off her healing abilities for something they think it is (science), superimposing their beliefs on what she knows to be as faith. Enough is revealed about The Lady and the Tree to make me want to learn more. As Octavia’s journey and character arc develops, things she assumed as fact about the Lady and the Tree come into question, as her powers evolve.
The greatest element of The Clockwork Dagger has to be Octavia herself. Orphaned at 12, she is taken in by Miss Percival, who helps her along with other young ladies in the ways of a medician. Miss Percival; however is never seen, though her absence in the way that Octavia and other characters speak of her maker an invisible presence in the novel. Cato did a spectacular job introducing Octavia in the first chapter; we see her motivations, who she thinks she is; her powers of healing; it adds up to a wonderful foundation/launch-pad for the novel and I was immediately in Octavia’s corner rooting for her and hanging in the background of her story to watch follow her journey. She is an empowered, engaging, progressive, proactive, take-no-shit character who has a great deal of agency even in her more dire circumstances. In short, Octavia she is defined by herself in all the important ways and is just a fun character to follow.
Octavia’s growing feelings for Alonzo, from the time the characters were introduced through the course of the novel, make for a believable and welcome romantic element in the story. As I said before, he has a prosthetic leg as a result of his time in the war, but it is not treated as an impediment for him which makes or a more plausible scenario. Of course one might say his leg is something of a Chekov’s Gun in that if you introduce a prosthetic leg at some point it is going to come off the body. Any more details than that would spoil the experience of the story.
In the end, The Clockwork Dagger was an immensely fun and entertaining novel that got off to a wonderful start with that introductory chapter for Octavia and kept me hooked into the narrative and turning the pages at a dogged pace through to novel’s end. I’m looking forward to picking up Octavia and Alonso’s story in The Clockwork Crown.
Recommended
© 2015 Rob H. Bedford
Trade Paperback, September, 2014, 368 Pages
ISBN 978-0-062-31394-3
http://www.bethcato.com/
Sample Chapter http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/03/the-clockwork-dagger-excerpt-beth-cato
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Harper Voyager
Great review, Rob and this sounds like something I would enjoy. On my to-be-read list!