Clockwork Legion - Jamie (J.G.) Sedgwick

 2016; 342 pages.  Book 4 (out of 5) in the series “Aboard the Great Iron Horse”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Steampunk Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    All aboard the Great Iron Horse!  Socrates and his crew have departed Dragonwall in order to continue their mission of searching for remnants of civilization in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

 

    They are short a couple of crewmembers, but that can’t be helped.  Kale has remained at Dragonwall to take on the role of "First Knight" for Queen Aileen.  And Shayla has chosen to stay there with Kale as well.  Methinks some romantic possibilities may be a factor.

 

    Shayla’s staying behind quickly becomes a timely event.  Queen Aileen's city has been plagued by a series of poisonings lately.  She wants Kale to investigate.  But she’s also just received a letter from the mayor of Ravenwood, a town well to the south of Dragonwall, begging the queen to dispatch troops there immediately due to some unspecified threat.  Queen Aileen wants Kale to lead a squad of knights down there.

 

    Well, Kale can’t be in two places at once, so perhaps Shayla can look into the poisonings while he travels to see what’s endangering Ravenwood.  Best of luck to both of you, Kale and Shayla!

 

    You’re going to need it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Clockwork Legion is the fourth installment in the five-book “Aboard the Great Iron Horse” series, although see below for the recent reorganization of this.  There are three main plotlines to follow, involving Socrates, Shayla, and Kale, as briefly described above.  The common thread in all of them is a magical substance called starfall, which serves as a “super-fuel” for Socrates’s steampunk locomotive, but has a very unhealthy effect when inhaled or ingested by creatures, whether they be living or already dead.   

 

    As with any Jamie Sedgwick novel, there's plenty of action and intrigue.  If undead baddies are your shtick, you’ll like this book, and if dinosaurs make you tick, you’ll enjoy it too.  Even better, if undead dinosaurs appeal to your literary tastes, you’re going to love Clockwork Legion.

 

    Being a chemist by trade, I liked the bits of chemistry woven into the book.  Ozone from lightning lays a small role in the storyline, so does powdered iron.  I also thought the timepiece called a chronoforge was a nice detail.  The title reference comes at 84% Kindle, and it was great to see two main characters from a related series make cameo appearances in the Epilogue.  Here’s hoping they play a bigger part in next book.

 

    The story ends at a logical spot, but it needs to be said that zero plot threads are resolved.  Queen Aileen and Kale make some important plans, but will those come to pass?  Socrates and the Iron Horse are out in the boondocks, so how will they impact the impending invasion of the baddies?  Shayla’s life is undergoing some changes, but will this be for the better or for the worse?

 

    Presumably, all these plotlines will be tied up in the next, fifth, and final book in the series: Starfall.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 206 ratings and 36 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.50/5 based on 109 ratings and 5 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “How do I make them respect me?”

    “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you how Dane did it.”

    “How?”

    “He threatened to kill ‘em, or worse.  And they knew he meant it.  But that only worked because they knew Dane had the guts to do what he said, and he knew they didn’t have the guts to stab him in his sleep.”

    “And you think that’s what I should do?”

    “Absolutely not!  These men wouldn’t hesitate to kill you in your sleep.”  (loc. 262)

 

    Shayla had a refined, elegant beauty about her that was a natural advantage.  She also had years of training to supplement that beauty.  As a child, Shayla had been trained in every manner of espionage and survival.  The soldiers knew they might not always be there to protect her, and she might need the ability to defend herself or to blend in with other people and cultures.  One of the most useful skills was one that had always come natural: flirtation.  (loc. 1497)

 

Kindle Details…

    Clockwork Legion is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other four books in the series range in price from free to $4.99, with the cost increasing as the series progresses.  Jamie Sedgwick (aka: “J.G. Sedgwick”) has several other fantasy series for your reading enjoyment, and in the same price range.

 

“Great plan. (...) When the horde of undead warriors gets here, we’ll just ignore them to death.”  (loc. 1896)

    Incredibly, I didn’t note any cussing in Clockwork Legion.  Either I’m falling down on the job, or there was none.  I also don’t recall any “adult situations”.  When an author/can keep the story interesting without R-rated material who—and this book does that—I am deeply impressed.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, such as: tired/tire, phased/fazed, and leech/leach.  The insertion of dashes somehow resulted in them all being off-center and incorrect spacing.  But I suspect this occurred during the reformatting-for-Kindle stage, and was therefore beyond the author's control.     

 

    My copy of Clockwork Legion had a big problem with the chapter tabs.  There were none.  After the usual opening sections there’s  a “Table of Contents heading, but all it links to is the cover image.  After that, there is nothing else in the Table.  UPDATE: in looking at the current Amazon “Read Sample” blurb, that seems to have been corrected in later versions.

 

    The main quibble is the fact that none of the storylines get tied up.  That means this is not a standalone novel.  Therefore, if you’re not reading this series in order, you’ll probably be really disappointed in the storytelling in Clockwork Legion.

 

    So take my advice and read the earlier books before this one.  In the proper order.  Then you’ll find Clockwork Legion to be a light, fast-paced, enjoyable read whose purpose appears to be to get all the major characters properly positioned for the final episode.  We shall see about that.

 

    7 Stars.  I’ve had Clockwork Legion on my Kindle for quite some time.  Meanwhile the author has altered his name for this series from Jamie Sedgwick to J.G. Sedgwick, both of which are actually pen names for Jeramy Gates.  To boot, the author’s 5-book Aboard the Great Iron Horse series and the 3-book Tinkerer’s Daughter series are now combined into an 8-book Age of Steam series.  The other books and series penned by this author remain credited to "Jamie Sedgwick".

    I’m sure this has to do with some sort of revised marketing strategy, but frankly I fail to see the logic of it.