Review: Engines of Liberty Trilogy, by Graham Bradley
An American Revolution where it's steampunk technology versus wizards.
At one point in the Upstream chat, there was some frustration over how many of us had also written novels. Because that would occasionally just come up out of nowhere that someone had written a book. So we dumped all of our e-ARC books into the chat.
That was how I pulled Graham Bradley’s Engines of Liberty trilogy out of the hat—Rebel Heart, Suicide Run, and Patriot’s Game.
The Story
In 1776, George Washington massed an army to go to war with the mages of King George III. British propaganda convinced the fractious colonists to turn on each other.
Over two centuries later, in 1984, teenager Calvin Adler picks a fight with some of the extortionist mages, and finds himself recruited into the technomancers: rebels who want to take the fight to mages with the latest in weapons technologies.
Unfortunately for Calvin, just because the technomancers want to rebel against the King, doesn’t mean that they’re the good guys. Any any attempt to walk away from this movement only leads to more trouble.
On top of that, one mage has a bone to pick with Calvin, so our hero has his own Javert, an unrelenting nemesis who will stop and nothing to see Calvin, and the rebel movement, utterly destroyed.
The ensuing steampunk versus magic adventure leads Calvin across the eastern seaboard of North America, the legends of this alternate history, dark mystical cultures, both real and fantastic, the key to magic, and one heck of a climax.
I will admit that I was probably not target audience for the the Engines of Liberty trilogy. It was probably meant to be YA, and has many of the tropes I generally dislike, including unrelenting, borderline psychopathic bullies and the occasional overemotional decision making.
Despite that, I went through all 860 pages of the trilogy in a few hours.1 I’ve enjoyed the steampunk technology versus magic concept since David Weber’s Hell’s Gate in 2006.2 Having a sympathetic, primary character dumped into the middle of a war, where we don’t like either side felt an awful like of the Richard Sharpe novels of Bernard Cornwell… come to think of it, given how many times the primary villain dies, we might want to call him Hakeswill.3
The magic vs tech aspects are creative. The world building leads to a tense and creative climatic battle. And I suspect you may takeaway some interesting elements.
The Characters
Most of the characters are drawn out very well. Heck, our primary antagonist may have more background and character development than our hero does—he certainly goes through a lot more. Seriously, some Terminators were easier to kill than this guy.
But yeah, there are at least a dozen named characters. I mostly skimmed their backstories, and I still walked away with more character biographies than I wanted.4
Graham has a well-developed cast, complex with multiple dynamic variables.
The World
There is a lot of world building here, as you’d expect from an alternate history. Some of it is just explaining to our heroes—because the year is 1984, and British despots have gotten a lot of mileage out of rewriting or just plain deleting history. A lot of the magic world building is done with our villain, who goes through bayou warlocks and voodoo Bokors, in an attempt to gather enough power to kill Calvin. And some of the world building is done along the way as Calvin tries to survive as the war goes on around him.
Politics
The politics here are in-world.
Content Warning
None, really.
Who is it for?
This is for people who like DJ Butler’s Witchy Eye, steampunk v magic alternate history, and Richard Sharpe. Only YA.
Why buy it
It’s a fun little alt-history military fantasy that works for all ages.
Rebel Heart, 200 pages. Suicide Run was 260. And Patriot’s Game, 460
No. That series will never be reviewed here. Book one was brilliant. Book two seemed to be one long wargame. And book three came out decade later, long after I gave up.
If you saw the Sharpe films instead of read the books, that would be the character played by Peter Postlethwaite. Damn, I liked his acting
One of my reading flaws is that I occasionally just want to follow the main characters. This was a problem when reading Honor Harrington. You can imagine.
I bought the series. It was fun! Excellent entertainment value, if not quite crossing the line into "give it shelf space". I think it would make a killer anime
YA tropes
"borderline psychopathic bullies and the occasional overemotional decision making"
And do not forget the navel-gazing self-absorbtion moments and love woo-woo. I'm being sarcastic, but strong YA gets this in because young people are self-absorbed and hormonal! It is the storytelling craftsmanship that keeps the reader turning the pages. This one has it. The average Tor* "Oh, God, here comes the B story slog in the middle", not so much.
At the time, I remember having reservations about this one to give to teens. But I do not recall why.
I wonder if it had anything to do not with the politics, aka the Left / Right economic narratives, but the core moral narratives? Take the so-called left/right heat maps, which if you read your Screwtape you know maps out more to nihilism and hating humanity? Not politics per se, and not IIRC applicable to this trilogy, but something like that? Or maybe it was just the drawings: I found them distracting.
Like Attack on Titan: Great YA appeal, OK politics, gore not the problem as such, but the moral core, including biting kids' heads off for titillation, very much so.
Perhaps the trinity of storytelling virtue can be used? Craftmanship/construction, spirit of the story/integrity, and redemption?
*From the Campaign Days. Haven't read or reviewed since. FAIK their editors are on the ball again. RIP Mr. Hartwell: You are missed.