A steampunk novel. Incurable curmudgeon of a spinster Alessandra Tarrabotti doesn’t just have Italian blood to rend her unpalatable to the London elite, she is also soulless, a walking antithesis to the soul-abundant immortals of society: vampires, werewolves and ghosts. The entire novel feels like a walking pratfall, which was an entertainingly humorous approach, though it makes the reader looking over the narrators’ shoulder feel like they are constantly on the lookout for a hurled custard tart.

When unfamiliar vampires begin appearing, starved and weak, in London, ascerbic Miss Tarrabotti unwillingly joins forces with brusque, savage werewolf Lord Maccon to track down the source…blah, blah, blah. Dear reader, I am too tired to even bother finishing that formulaic description; you can do it for yourself, and you probably won’t guess wrong. Insert tab A into slot B and pull the lever for a formulaic romance inserted into the story as uncomfortably as a hand into a three-fingered glove. It’s so tiresomely familiar. Tempestuoustly argumentative man and woman fall for each other as passionately as they fight each other. A romantic trope which is incredibly annoying. Just consider someone who you cannot stand, who puts your teeth on edge, who you are forced to associate with in a professional manner. You possibly work with someone like that, and I would suggest practically never do such feelings transform into a mild romantic fondness, let alone a Rome and Julietesque, panting passion.

So forgive me if I skip over that aspect of the storyline, and bid you examine the social fabric of Carriger’s universe.

Because that is a brocade worth going weak at the knees over. Vampires and werewolves have been a part of the fabric of Great Britain since their open acceptance in the Dark Ages; vampire congregate in hives, with a queen in each the only vampire able to even attempt to transform humans, whilst in the werewolf packs, only an Alpha able to assume the ‘Anubis form’ is able to bite and potentially convert a human. This rather neatly explains why an immortal population remains so small; the ability to survive the transformation is dependant upon a human possessing an excess of soul, which is not known until they die whilst being literally torn apart by the immortal attempting the transformation.

Due to their long presence in society, all three classes of supernatural have been absorbed into the woodwork of bureaucracy, rather more interesting than the common ‘outsider, hiding in the ignorant masses’ approach to supernaturals in fiction. When these supernatural classes are threatened, members going missing, the Empire shudders upon its foundations. Werewolves command the armies; Vampires enforce fashion and foreign policy. Diverse plots ensue…

In summary, I heartily recommend Soulless for the world it constructs, and the personalities involved, but did not enjoy the apparently inevitable romancing. 

Still, it sets the series up nicely for the next book to come…

K.L gives Soulless 3 out of 5 trifle-covered vampire dandies.

 

 

 

SPOILER ALERT! DANGEROUS WORDS AHEAD!

Ugh. Brusque Alpha werewolf Lord Maccon. Why does no one ever fall for the sensible, capable, second-in-charge? Are we all still limited by the fairytale idea that we must become princesses by making ourselves limpets to a man more powerful?