Automatic Woman
Nathan Yocum
Curiosity Quills Press
August 2012
I requested Automatic Woman from netgalley on a whim, as I do like steampunk as a rule. I certainly was not expecting to meet someone like Jacob "Jolly" Fellowes. By his own admission, Jolly is fat, ugly and violent. The violent part comes in handy as he acts as muscle for the Bow Street Firm, chief thief catchers in 1888 London. The fat and ugly part is handy as well- Jolly quite often can intimidate people with his looks alone.
Jolly is called in to search for "the Swan", a remarkable automatic woman in an equally remarkable dance troupe built by Dr. Saxon, mechanical genius. Things very quickly go south and Jolly is accused of murder and on the run from both his employer, Lord Barnes, and the Metro Police. Charles Darwin, Bram Stoker and Dr. Conan Doyle romp through the pages of this shortish novel. Along with Jolly's love interest, a prostitute named Mary, Jolly must solve multiple mysteries and go up against some of the great minds of the age to avoid hanging.
I began the novel thinking that Jolly was simply a thug- one that I could never root for. But Jolly is also good hearted, a smart investigator and surprisingly erudite under all that thuggish veneer. Automatic Woman has some wonderful characters, chief among them Jolly himself.
3.5 Cogs
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