REVIEW | Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine

In a post-apocalyptic landscape a circus wanders around the waste from small enclave of life to the next in a never ending journey to entrance audiences with their wonders and grotesqueries. They may only visit a town once in a lifetime, if you're lucky, so get in while you can. Just don't tag along unless you have a strong heart unless you don't have a problem with it being replaced with scrap metal.

Last year Paul Jessup wrote an article for this corner of the web. An article that served as almost a call to action on what he was hoping for out of Steampunk in the future. A Steampunk novel that wasn't just Victorian. That wasn't just all about cogs and steam. That wasn't about colonialism and white people. Well the answer to his mandate has been answered by Valentine with a very dark and melodic first novel that consists of an unforgettable story that stays with you long after you finish the last page. Mechanique will haunt your dreams.

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is a novel of disparities. Disparities of time, love, and of what life is and should be. Even of what life could be, but probably shouldn't be.

Life in any circus can be hard. Hard for all the traveling, setup, and performing. But the Tresaulti circus is an entirely different beast. Like none you've seen before.  It is filled with moody characters desiring what someone else has even if that something is another person or a part of a person. Somehow Valentine makes a group of mostly unlikable characters into a family. A family you end up caring quite a bit about. I was surprised how much I came to care for each and every one of them. Even those I loathed and couldn't entirely comprehend.

The pacing and style take quite a few chapters to get a handle on, but all the hard work pays off in this slim volume that is heavy with meaning. We flip back and forth through time seemingly at random that starts with the mention of the death of a character who we only relive through the memories of others.   Each chapter acts almost as a standalone short story as Valentine has gone with her strengths of less is more. Each and every word is important and has reverberations throughout the narrative as the characters search for what comes next.

The Steampunk aspects appear more magical than mechanical, but each and every touch is done thoughtfully and with verve. Sure there are people with mechanical arms and wings, but this story is so much more than Steampunk. Mechanique actually has more in common with New Weird given its horror influences. Fans of early Mieville and VanderMeer will fall in love.

Mechanique is best experienced for yourself rather than reading an analysis. All those that like challenging reads should give this a chance and even a few of you who don't. On it surface you can simply enjoy it for the circus motifs and post-apocalyptic side. For you Steampunk fans this is one of the most original novels you'll ever find around the genre. For those that go deeper you'll be richly rewarded. I give Mechanique 8.5 out of 10 hats. I can't wait to see what Valentine has in store for us next. She is a voice to watch.  Be sure to check out an earlier post I did on the related short story work available online for the Circus Tresaulti.


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FREE FICTION | A Ticket to Genevieve Valentine's Circus Tresaulti

Greetings ladies and gentlemen! Please steel yourself as you are in for quite a dark delicacy of a very strange and metallic kind.  For you have entered into the Circus Tresaulti! The one and only mechanical circus of wondrous and sometimes hideous proportions!

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is Genevieve Valentine's just released debut novel.  It is quite an original piece of fiction and once I found my footing in the world I carried away with the circus . I'm nearly done with it and although it is short I can't bring myself to finish it as this is a world unlike any others. The style challenges the reader like few do as it is at once both beautiful, mystifying, and horrifying.  I'll hold most of my thoughts until my final review, but if you couldn't tell I think quite highly of Valentine's work.  The closest comparison I can think of is Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris books as Mechanique is a very fractured story jumping around in time and also perspective.

Valentine has been working on her dark Steampunk circus placed in a post-apocalyptic world for many years and it has its origins in the short story work. Below are three stories of the Tresaulti Circus, which will give you a very good idea of what to expect in the pages of Mechanique. Each piece adds a new facet to this world and at least one is placed during the events of Mechanique.

The recently released “Study, for Solo Piano” is available though Fantasy Magazine here or as an audio piece here.

"The Finest Spectacle Anywhere" can be read at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which just went live today, I believe.

“Bread and Circuses”can be read online at Beneath Ceaseless Skies or as an audio version here.

More about Genevieve Valentine and here work can be found on her site and a special site setup just for the Circus Tresaulti.

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Cover Unveiled for Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine

As soon as I announce Steampunk Month is over of course I find a new cover that I have to share with all of you.

Genevieve Valentine might not be too familiar to many of you unless you read a lot of short fiction. But she should be as her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies such as The Living Dead 2, Federations, Running With the Pack and as well as in Clarkesworld, Jabberwockey, Apex, and Shimmer. I stumbled upon her work in Paper Cities and The Clockwork Jungle Book and both really caught me off guard.

It was over a year ago now that I found out Valentine sold her first novel Mechanique to Prime Books and since than there has been hardly any news. That is until now.  Feast your eyes on the fun and colorful cover to the post-apocalyptic Steampunk Circus novel of a different future: Mechanique.

Art by Kiri Moth

The coloration and title font is good as is the illustration, but I'm not a fan of all the gears at the bottom.  At the top the gears look good, but it feels like it was pushed a little too far.  Not much has been released in the way of a description except this info from Valentine's blog:

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is coming from Prime in 2011. It’s about a post-apocalyptic steampunk circus, and what happens when a dozen brittle, vicious people are forced to form a makeshift family whether they like it or not. Also, there’s war. This is the vaugely-back-cover-copy logline:

The Mechanical Circus Tresaulti travels the landscape of a ruined country under the spectre of war, but when two of its performers become locked in a battle of wills, the circus’s own past may be the biggest threat of all.

According to Amazon Mechanique will be released in April 2011.  UPDATE: Beneath Ceaseless Skies has a story from Valentine placed in the Tresaulti Universe available that is well worth checking out and whets my appetite even more.

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