Amph The Alchemy Of Stone

Has anyone heard of this author/book?

The Alchemy Of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets - secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart - literally! A steampunk novel of romance, political intrigue, and alchemy, The Alchemy of Stone represents a new and intriguing direction by the author of the critically-acclaimed The Secret History of Moscow:

Looks like a very good book - has anyone picked it up or read the author?

 

Sorry, don't believe I've heard of them.

 

My review:

My review:

This was a surprise in my mail earlier yesterday - I?ve been trying to get a hold of this book, The Alchemy of Stone, for a little while now, and had some problems. This third book by Ekaterina Sedia was one that I was really looking forwards to reading, and it was a fun book to read - While I waited for my computer to restart, I finished the last 150 pages in about an hour.

The story follows Mattie, an intelligent automation in a world that is very steampunkish. Mattie is an alchemist, trying to discover a way to prevent the gargoyles in the city from turning to stone and dying out. They seem to predate the human inhabitants of the city, and are responsible for its construction and character. At the point in the story, the city is overcrowded, and divided. There?s a political rivalry between the Alchemists and machinists, which spills over into violence with the Duke of the city and his family is attacked and killed, culminating in civil war between classes. Mattie is at the center of this, as an Alchemist, but her creator, whom she is bound to, is a fairly cruel machinist who will not let her stray too far from needing him.

This was a fun read, but not as good as I?d hoped it would be. It felt like a quick look into a vastly complex and interesting world and I didn?t get the depth that I would have liked, and that easily could have been there. That being said, what I got was still a very good, engaging read. Where the story is somewhat lacking, it is made up for with the character of Mattie and the various struggles that she comes across in the story. Where most people would think of a robotic being as fairly robust and durable ? watching any sort of movie about robots will tell you this ? Mattie is weak, timid, and fragile, both physically and mentally. At several points, she is easily broken after being attacked, and must be rewound by her creator in order to function. She is shy, and eager to please her master, Loharri, while at the same time despising him and yearning to be completely free from his grasp, which is not possible, as he literally owns the key to her heart.

There are many themes which run through this book that all intersect with Mattie, but the dominant one can be considered one of transitions. The city is changing, physically as there is a boom in construction and the machinists are taking over, building new things daily, which precipitate in a sort of political change. Between the Machinists and the Alchemists, there is a duel nature to Mattie as well, who was built by a machinist, but rejected that way in life, instead focusing on life. While the exact roles of the machinists and alchemists in this society aren?t entirely clear, they do bring up another duality, one of life and death, or fulfillment vs. automation, role vs. job and emotions vs. logic. There is a class system, we see, as angry coal workers, forced off their fields by robots, are tasked with mining coal, while the machinists are content to blindly follow another sentient automation, the calculator.

This, to me, is an interesting theme, as it relates to themes that went on during the Renaissance period, a period of much change, but without the magic and fantasy elements. To some extent, the book has several issues that are still highly relevant today, if not more so. To what extent is a culture vibrant and full of life when it overwhelmingly utilizes machines and devices? At one point, a character that Mattie befriends, Naobi, an outsider, notes that the people of this city aren?t happy or content, they just exist. When reading that, I had to wonder how much of that was a sort of social commentary on today?s society, where the television, computers, mobile phones, MP3 players are the dominant forms of entertainment and recreation, rather than something that might be more fulfilling. It?s certainly something that I have thought about often.

Another dominant theme that the book approaches is the city?s response to the death of their Duke, where foreigners were rounded up, harassed and at times,

 

Yes. Ekaterina Sedia is a talented new writer; each of her three novels has been better than the last and she's edited a good anthology as well.

 

I haven't read her other books, but I would be interested in getting her anthology at some point.

Still, I felt like this book was a bit rushed at times - It felt far too short.