The Rising

November 9, 2015
Tregillis’s splendid sequel to The Mechanical is a vivid alternate history tale filled with action sequences, fascinating characters, and great worldbuilding. Jax, a Clakker (clockwork automaton) who has gained free will, is now hobbled and on the run, hoping to find the possibly mythical land ruled by a Clakker known as Queen Mab. Its rumored location is deep in the French Canadian wilderness. Meanwhile, exiled French spymaster Berenice escapes the Dutch and becomes a fugitive, and Hugo Longchamp, the foul-mouthed guard captain in Marseilles-in-the-West in tiny New France (located in what we call Canada), prepares for the inevitable attack by the Dutch and their army of enslaved Clakkers. As their adventures intersect, these unlikely heroes work to find a way to free Clakkers from their magical obligations and to save what remains of France (in Europe) from the Dutch Empire. Tregillis falters a tad with an ending that can be seen from a mile away (and serves as a cliffhanger to set up the sequel), but the novel until then is engrossing, with plenty of mid-story twists, and it’s well worth the ride. Agent: Kay McCauley, Pimlico Agency.

Starred review from November 15, 2015
War overshadows this second volume of an alternate-world trilogy (The Mechanical, 2015) set a few hundred years after the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens blended clockwork and alchemy to create the robotic Clakkers. The Dutch and their legions of Clakkers are preparing an assault against Marseilles-in-the-West, the Canadian seat of the Kingdom of France-in-Exile. Capt. Hugo Longchamp struggles to assemble a sufficient defense against the Dutch incursion, knowing that it's doomed to fail. The ruthless, rash Berenice Charlotte de Mornay-Perigord, formerly New France's spymaster until a dreadful miscalculation, pursues both revenge and redemption by attempting to penetrate the secrets of the Clakkers' metageasa. If she can understand the hierarchical programming that enslaves the Clakkers, she can then twist their loyalty from Dutch to French. And Jax, the freed Clakker desperately fleeing his many enemies, finally reaches Neverland and discovers the truth about the fabled community of rogue Clakkers and its sinister ruler, Queen Mab. Meanwhile, Luke Visser, the French spy and priest forcibly modified by alchemical surgery into an assassin against his own people, threatens to strike again. The chases, the battles, the brutal violence, and the scheming are nonstop. As always, Tregillis offers richly textured and genuinely likable personalities with shades-of-gray morality; it's clearly no accident that the most purely good person in the novel is the mechanical Jax, although even his sterling qualities are severely tested by the terrible situations he faces. Middle volumes are always tricky; they can often read as an obstacle to overcome on the way to the forgone conclusion of the third installment. Tregillis commendably avoids this trap, deepening his story and keeping it moving along toward an unknown horizon. Part 3 can't come too soon.

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Starred review from December 1, 2015

The last redoubt of old France in North America is in danger of falling to the forces of the Dutch and their mechanical men known as Clakkers. In The Mechanical, Clakker servitor Jax won his freedom from the alchemical binding that the Dutch use to control the metal men. He heads to the far north, where there is a rumored colony of free Clakkers. Meanwhile, former French spymaster Berenice has been exiled from New France, but she can't stop seeking a way to stop the Clakkers and Captain Longchamps is left to defend the king against the approaching Dutch armies. VERDICT Tregillis ("The Milkweed Triptych" series; Something More Than Night) continues to thrill with his daring alt-history story of robots in the New World. While splitting off from Jax's story might have slowed the book's momentum, instead the author keeps up the tension by shifting the perspective among Jax, Berenice, and Longchamps as they all struggle to find a way to stop the Clakker army despite differing ultimate goals. Thrilling action scenes and breakneck pacing will leave readers desperate for the next volume.--MM

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