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The Iron Wyrm Affair
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The Iron Wyrm Affair
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The Iron Wyrm Affair
Audiobook10 hours

The Iron Wyrm Affair

Written by Lilith Saintcrow

Narrated by Moira Quirk

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Emma Bannon, forensic sorceress in the service of the Empire, has a mission: to protect Archibald Clare, a failed, unregistered mentath. His skills of deduction are legendary, and her own sorcery is not inconsiderable. It doesn't help much that they barely tolerate each other, or that Bannon's Shield, Mikal, might just be a traitor himself. Or that the conspiracy killing registered mentaths and sorcerers alike will just as likely kill them as seduce them into treachery toward their Queen.

In an alternate London where illogical magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head, Bannon and Clare now face hostility, treason, cannon fire, black sorcery, and the problem of reliably finding hansom cabs.

The game is afoot..
Bannon and Clare
The Iron Wyrm Affair
The Red Plague Affair
The Ripper Affair
The Damnation Affair (e-only)
For more from Lilith Saintcrow, check out:
Gallow and Ragged
Trailer Park Fae

Dante Valentine Novels
Working for the Devil
Dead Man Rising
Devil's Right Hand
Saint City Sinners
To Hell and Back

Dante Valentine (omnibus)
Jill Kismet Novels
Night Shift
Hunter's Prayer
Redemption Alley
Flesh Circus
Heaven's Spite
Angel Town

Jill Kismet (omnibus)
A Romance of Arquitaine Novels
The Hedgewitch Queen
The Bandit King
Blood Call (coming August 2015)
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 7, 2012
ISBN9781611134865
Unavailable
The Iron Wyrm Affair
Author

Lilith Saintcrow

Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing in second grade. She is the author of the Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet series, as well as the bestselling author of the Strange Angels YA series. She lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her children, dogs, and assorted other strays.

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Reviews for The Iron Wyrm Affair

Rating: 3.5219999308000003 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I tried, I TRIED to like this story. At 89 pages in I felt sure the story was almost over (it wasn't), and at the book's halfway point I finally gave up.

    I'm generally a fan of Lilith Saintcrow's work, but "The Iron Wyrm Affair" was bulky and overwrought. The writing needed vigorous pruning, and the worldbuilding needed an EMT, stat. The plot itself had a great deal of potential but ended up drowning in descriptions of a world that was supposed to (but failed to) enchant us. Emma Bannon felt flat too often, like Saintcrow couldn't figure out who she was beyond meshing a few strong-female-character stereotypes. Archibald Clare started off as a rip-off of Sherlock Holmes, and while his own character improved and grew away from the Holmesian ideal, he never struck me as intelligent as he was supposed to be.

    I'm glad I got it for cheap, but I'm still so, so disappointed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Synopsis: Bannon is a witch charged with keeping Britannia, the spirit of England living in a vassal called the queen, safe from whomever is attacking. Clare is a mentath who uses logic to solve mysteries. Together they take on an army of mechanicals set on destroying the empire and raising the sleeping dragon.Review: This is an interesting tale with lots of action and sly humor. The characters are well developed with just a hint of mystery to make the reader want to know more.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is well-planned and readable, but the characters are so two-dimensional they would give paper cuts if approached in the wrong way: fine as a bit of light enjoyment. The characterisation meant that this hovered only a little way from the Eight Deadly Words, but the plotting finally pulled ahead to make it a readable light jaunt.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love this new crime-solving duo! Set in an alternate Victorian London, Emma Bannon and Archibald Clare have to sort through a series of murders (real and fake!), discover who is creating a mechanical army, and keep a sleeping dragon from being awakened. Oh, and, of course, save the Queen. Will they all survive the magic, mechanicals, and mayhem? Emma is the most intriguing character with many references to haunting past. Guess I'll have to stay tuned for volume 2!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good gracious, this was fun!

    More when my heartbeat goes back to normal.

    Ok, brain is back to normal, or at least as normal as it ever gets around here. Let's count this off.

    First, I have a lot of enthusiasm for this book, in part simply because it's the first book in a VERY long time that I picked up and just HAD to finish. This in and of itself inflates my overall enjoyment of the book, so everything else goes via that lens.

    Next, I'm a Saintcrow fan, and I like how she handles phrases and characters and plot and other writerly stuff. She used some standard phrases, sort of catch phrases, that could have been annoying except that she seemed to be so consciously using them that it became shorthand. It didn't get annoying and instead gave some layering. So there's THAT.

    Third, you'd have to be blind not to see the nod to Sherlock Holmes in this, although it is handled with a good bit of skill and finesse. This isn't a Holmes rip off translated to an alternate world and gussied up with Magick. This is decent homage, which means it steals just enough that I notice the source, but not enough to feel like a rip off.

    Fourth, although these are some fairly troubled and complicated characters, there was a refreshing lack of angst! Oh the angst! and a maturity to the characters that I appreciated. They aren't STUPID and they don't suddenly do STUPID stuff, nor do they ever act without a motive that coincides with the character construction up to the point of the action. Hey, that's important. The characters aren't really presented in order to show their growth -- this is a steampunk tinged adventure, not a Bildungsroman -- but it's there in subtle touches. Even characters who were not all that competent manage to reach their own levels of competence and just don't go stupid in order to create a plot need or hook. I mean, that's good writing.

    Last, speaking of subtle touches, my favorite part was how many threads of development were revealed in the tiniest bits and trailed off to be continued in later books. Lots of threads, lots of questions, lots of mysteries yet unsolved, but the primary mystery was sufficiently mysterious and that unraveling of it sufficiently gripping. The world built behind all this plot stuff was also revealed in touches and visuals -- no big fat info dumps of author notes disguised as word count.

    So that's pretty much why I enjoyed the hell out of this book and have the next on preorder.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This steampunk novel introduces Clare, a mentath reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Bannon, an elite sorceress loyal to the Queen, and Mikal, her Shield. There's a good mix of illogical magic and logical reasoning, dragons and creatures altered with mechanical limbs, and a thrilling race to save the world as they know it.Someone is killing unregistered mentaths and in the process of uncovering the killer, an alarming conspiracy is uncovered. Clare, Bannon and Mikal need to overcome distrust and fear if they are to discover the reason for the murders and who's behind them. The dangers they face escalate and they seek some surprising companions to help them with their quest.This is the first in the series and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great world building and plenty of action but the best part was the fun characters
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fun little romp through Steampunk Land. Kind of hard to read a times due to some purple prose. Enjoyable none the less.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Metallic horses, mentaths, giant iron spiders, sleeping dragons, and lots of action. What's not to enjoy in a book with all that?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked aspects of this book. The world Saintcrow has created is vividly imagined. There are fantastical creatures running amok, and magic has taken the industrial revolution in a completely different direction. While this is fairly standard steampunk fare, it is a world that is unique. Being familiar with steampunk makes this book easier to read and follow, because Saintcrow pretty much drops the reader in the middle of the story. There's not tedious back stories and explanations, it takes off running and leaves the reader to figure it all out. Knowing the lifestyle/aesthetic/vocabulary of steampunk makes it easier to catch up with the world.Generally speaking, I find the "be horribly injured and magically healed" plot device annoying. I find magic deus ex machina, with it being able to solve all problems. In this case, it seemed to fit well. It wasn't the look-at-me-I'm-too-stupid-to-live type of character, rather it was part of what made Emma a sorcerer and willing to go into dangerous situations for queen and country.Even though I thought it was a great book, I had a hard time getting into it. Maybe it was because I was reading it on the plane, or because it was a *real* book and not on my Kindle, or maybe it was something else entirely. I just couldn't seem to be able to read more than a chapter or two at a time before being distracted by something else. It was great and definitely worth the read, but it didn't have the "grab your attention and suck you in" quality to make it a truly fantastic read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The world building in this book was fantastic - a gritty, magical yet logical, Victorian Britannia that was a joy to explore. The character development was equally as wonderful; Saintcrow's characters - Emma Bannon, Archibald Clare, and the rest - simply LEAP off the page. But, I didn't connect with those characters. I don't know why - maybe they were both a little cold and unemotional for me - but I just didn't connect. Will I read the sequel? Probably, but I won't be waiting with bated breath.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I absolutely love reading a brand new book in a brand new series. I rarely ask for books from The Library Thing, unless I really, really want one, but I saw this, put in for it, and then forgot I put in for it. Then it came in the mail - unfortunately it didn't come in time for me to post about it before the release date, but it's close. The Iron Wyrm Affair is one of Lilith Saintcrow's newest novels, and it is unlike anything she's ever done before. Although - I know she's written some paranormal romance that I haven't read (the Watcher series- I think they're romance, anyway). I have read her two urban fantasy series and they are dark urban fantasy, both of which I enjoyed very much. If you're looking for something like that, you're not going to find it here. However, this is a very well written steampunk novel. There's magic, clockwork horses, altered people, Victorian setting and dialogue...Saintcrow has done a wonderful job of writing something completely different.The Iron Wyrm Affair is the first of the Bannon and Clare series. Bannon is a sorceress, a very powerful one. Clare is a mentath - a man who MUST use his brain to solve patterns, problems, etc. or his brain will go mad. They live in an alternate historical London - it's actually called Londinium. In this version of history - there are sorcerers, prime (the most powerful of sorcerers) witches, gryffons, etc. It's a very rich world. As the story unfolds, you learn a bit more about the world and it's history.Mentaths and sorcerers have been found murdered and Bannon is in charge of not only keeping Clare alive, but finding out just what the threat is, and who the real threat is ultimately for.Lilith Saintcrow has once again delivered a novel that is full of plot, believable and fitting dialogue, rich environments (not $$ rich, rich in atmosphere) and mysterious pasts of characters. There is plenty of action, and just the barest tease of relationships. There is danger and twisty plots. A very enjoyable book - and I am looking forward - very much - to the next novel in the series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Her discipline may be Black, but her loyalty is unquestionable. Prime Emma Bannon's goal may sound simple - protect the new Queen Victrix and Britannia from the manipulative plottings of those who mean to control her. Unfortunately, Emma's closest ally may be willing to kill her, and the enemies ranged against her are great in power and steeped in deviousness. As the pages turn, the body count rises and the plot thickens... Saintcrow has created a London populated by the Altered, flashboys, clockhorses, sorcerers and witches, where magic sparks and dawn and dusk bring the flooding power of Tideturn. In Archibald Crane lives the spirit of Shelock Holmes at his best, and in Mikal and Emma a hero and heroine both with flaws, strengths and doubts enough to be engaging. Excellent!Note: A few typos and the occasional rough spot, but as the edition read as an ARC, it's expected this small problems will be smoothed out prior to publication.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I love the story,but didn't like the words couldn't understand some of it
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Had to stop 1/2 in. Couldn’t listen anymore just confusing and doesn’t explain things well.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Too slow and drawn out- couldn't get hooked. I was hoping it would pick up but after getting over half way through I just had to throw in the towel. may be for others, just not my cup of tea.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm kind of ambivalent about this book. I loved the idea. I thought the steampunk elements in the story were good and prevalent as well as the magic. But the characters fell a little flat. Or maybe they just didn't live up to my expectations. I was expecting a Holmes/Watson relationship; however, it ended up being two Holmes and no Watson. Unfortunately, what makes Holmes work is his relationship with Watson. I liked both Bannon and Clare separately but I felt that they didn't work together as a team. I do think this series has a lot of promise and I will read the next book. Hopefully, Saintcrow will figure out how to make that magic work between her two main characters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent! Her protagonists were damaged, but nowhere near broken - Saintcrow likes to break her characters a bit too much for me, but this one worked. The descriptions, characters, dialog, and plot were Saintcrow's usual deep, rich, complex work; the setting is fascinating, a steampunk/fantasy (early) Victorian England. I actually enjoyed Clare's deductions - I usually detest Holmes-style "he has red dirt on his boots and therefore was born here and last ate dinner at this inn and...", but Clare made it work for me. And Bannon's style of magic was weird (even before she unleashed her Discipline) and amazing. The secondary characters are just as rich - and I am delighted that there's no romance subplot between the protagonists, it's so rare to find that. We are kind of dropped into the middle of events, but deducing what happened before is a large part of the story - the characters are trying to figure it out, too. Love it, want the next.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fast paced, really well drawn characters, only the barest hint of romance. I've not read much steampunk that isn't romance heavy, so this was a nice change. A great vacation read as well.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There were things I very much liked about this book, for example, Emma Bannon herself, the spirit of the land speaking through its rulers, a magical system that acknowledges death as a natural part of life, the complicated relationship between a sorcerer/ess and their Shields. There were also things I didn't like, such as the not so subtle references to Sherlock Holmes, and the lack of cohesive world-building. Still, it was an entertaining read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Originally reviewed on A Reader of Fictions.

    Dudes, I was SO excited about this. I mean, look at that cover! Steampunk awesomeness surely awaits within, right? Well, sort of, depending on what you're looking for, but not so much for me. I, sadly, spent most of the book bored, though occasionally hopeful after a promising bit. All of that promise didn't ever turn into anything more concrete.

    Let's start with the pleasant aspects, shall we? Saintcrow's steampunk world building is intense. She has created an alternate universe that just brims with detail and is one large step over from the Victorian world we knew. Names have been tweaked slightly: London is Londinium, The Thames is The Themis, etc. Mechanical creatures abound to satisfy steampunk fans. With the increased popularity of steampunk, a couple clockwork creatures are enough to earn the label now, but this one really merits it.

    Bannon & Clare show a lot of promise as a lead duo. Emma Bannon is the kind of powerful woman that thrives in steampunk, one of the reasons I love the genre; women always seem to be more powerful and better in a crisis in steampunk novels. Emma has insane amounts of power, one of the highest order of sorcerers, a Prime. She gets to use her magic a lot, but, honestly, her magic was a bit odd to me.

    Clare, on the other hand, has mind-based power. He is a mentath, which I need to discuss in more detail, as it was my favorite bit of worldbuilding. Mentaths are, essentially, Vulcans: "Mentaths did not feel as others did; logic was the pleasure they moved towards, and irrationality or illogic the pain they retreated from. Emotions were to be subdued, harnessed, accounted for and set on the shelf of deduction." Without problems to solve, deductions to make, mentaths literally go insane. A life of mental stagnation kills them. As such, Clare quite enjoys even the worst bits of this adventure, because it gives him so much to ponder.

    In the few scenes where Bannon and Clare are actually together, they have a nice back and forth. They respect one another's abilities, while also making their own little judgments. Their relationship thus far has also been free of any romance, and I hope it stays that way. There have been some hints on Clare's part that they might end up together, but I think that would weaken things. Plus, Mikal and Bannon have some great chemistry, when they're allowed time together.

    The problem lies in the fact that, despite having these great characters, she doesn't make full use of them. Interaction is kept to a minimum. More dialogue and character development would have worked wonders. Unfortunately, Saintcrow cared much more about building up her steampunk world and so the reader is instead bombarded with description after description.

    While I love me some complex writing and am used to world building set up from epic fantasy, I just could not deal with Saintcrow's style in this book. Her descriptive paragraphs constantly threw me out of the text. I couldn't ever get into the novel. I'm not sure if her descriptions were clunky or what. I kept finding myself skimming them inadvertently and fighting battles with my eyelids. So many descriptions and yet I still have so little mental picture of what happened. Also, I know German and some of the German in here is wrong.


    This was my first experience with Lilith Saintcrow, so it's hard for me to say whether this is her typical style. I suspect this writing may work better for others, but did not resonate with me at all. The most important aspect of a book for me is characterization, so I could not enjoy this one, despite Saintcrow's world building efforts.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first book in the Bannon and Clare series. This series is a historical fiction/steampunk novel set in an alternate London. I really wanted to love this book but I struggled with it. There are some amazingly creative parts in here and I felt like I could have really loved the characters and story moe if the book had flowed better.There is a lot thrown at the reader very quickly and I really struggled to picture settings and understand the world. The characters are also very hard to engage with; they seem very distant throughout.The story jumps around a lot and the chapters are very short. This made for a choppy read that was very had to sink into and stay engaged with. I kept picking this up, reading a chapter, then putting it down and finding something else to do.Emma was a fascinating character, as was Mikal. I loved Emma’s magic, Mikal’s crazy fighting abilities, and Clare’s mental acuity. However, I just struggled so much with picturing what was happening throughout and wish I could have followed the story better.Overall this book was pretty disappointing to me because there is some great stuff in here, it was just hard to get through because of how poorly the story flowed and how poorly things were described. This is an okay read but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend. I won’t be reading anymore of the series.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Emma Bannon is a powerful sorceress in service to the British Empire. When the mutilated corpses of mentaths (super-geniuses) start showing up, she is the only one to link the deaths to a potential threat to Britain itself. She manages to save the last mentath from an assassination attempt, then enlists him to her cause. While Emma investigates the sorcerous conspiracy, Archibald Clare the mentath pounds the pavement looking for clues.

    Archibald Clare is the weakest part of this book. He's supposedly this fantasy/steampunk world's version of Sherlock Holmes, but he talks in a bad knock-off of a dithering public school accent: lots of "I say!" and "Good day sir" and "how improper". (I'm not exagerating in the least--these are actual samples of actual dialog.) He's a genius, but I saw no examples within the text. For instance, Emma mentions that she was a poor orphan, and three pages later he "deduces" that she grew up poor based on her table manners. She just told you, dimwit! Alas, it seems that he is a permanent main character.

    Emma's sections of the book are just as silly as Archibald's but at least she does things. Her magic is dramatic and dark. The dragons she encounters are easily the most interesting aspects of the book, being both intriguing twists on the usual bodies dragons get and sounding quite frightening. And I loved that she was a balls-to-the-wall kind of badass, who throws her all into a battle and then, having barely survived, immediately fight another. She has a series of furious rides that are downright inspiring. Fans of Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series will like her; I certainly did. She's like a normal dark sorceress cranked up to 11.

    The plot is basically just a bunch of random ideas Saintcrow throws at the heroes, without much development or explanation. So don't read this if you're expecting a mystery, because there aren't clues or hidden threads or anything like. But do read this if you're in the mood for flashy clockwork creatures and campy pseudo-Victorian dialog.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Steampunk Sherlock with a female wizard and a human computer Watson. Very entertaining.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Overall, I enjoyed the world itself, with its magical classes and an ancient spirit called "Britannia" ruling Britain through a series of hosts. But I found the characters and plot less interesting. Sorceress Bannon, our hero is rather too perfect and too powerful. Clare, a mentath (sort of like Sherlock Holmes jacked-up) is slightly more interesting, but still reads like a Holmes rip-off. The supporting cast is more intriguing. However, it is truly the "world" itself that kept me reading past the first 50 pages and will probably insure that I pick-up the second book in the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fun, fast steam punk novel. Interesting world building. Huge, over-the-top cinematic climax (loved it! - I could almost hear the soundtrack).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I picked this up because I have liked her other works and lately the Steampunk I've been reading has been a lot of fun. This reminded me of a gritty steampunk Lord Darcy type of book. I liked how the mentath had problems looking upon sorcery since it seems to lock up their minds. The world is fully formed and of course not everything is hunky dory but does sorta follow the history of Victorian England. A fun read and I can't wait for the next book to come out. Just disappointed I have to wait until May 2013 for the next one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not bad. Quite fast-paced and a bit chaotic. Despite of that, I enjoyed it, probably because I like the protagonist, Emma. She is competent, and for real (not just claimed and then followed by an incessant need to be rescued). Well, she is rescued a few times, since she does the magic bit, and needs protection from physicsl fighting while she does that, but this doesn't diminish her at all. It doesn't make her Shield condescending or overbearing and she doesn't feel bad about it. It's just the way things are, it's the Shield's job to do this, so he'd better. Besides, she is clearly the more formidable. The other protagonist is a mentath (reminiscent of the ones in Dune and of Sherlock Holmes). He works well with Emma, but I didn't like the bits from his viewpoint (i.e., half of them!). At his bits I got distracted by the chaos, because I wasn't rooting for him. The most he was doing was figuring other people out, but he wasn't so interesting himself. A pity, because that made me tune out a bit for half of the book...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    So. I'm not a huge fan of steampunk. It's just not my particular fetish--reading about how normal things might have been made with OMG GEARS ALL OVER THEM bores the hell out of me. I like this book, though. My issues with it are the opposite of those I had with The Night Circus, which, while beautifully written with lively, eccentric characters, fell flat because of the lame love story.

    The love story here is pretty good. It's shoved to the side, but that works because Emma's love interest isn't the male lead of the story, and Emma is a compelling enough character that you believe she has the effect she is portrayed to have on the men of the story (unlike in novels like Twilight, where the lead girl is dull and lifeless).

    The plot worked fine for me, too. My only real issue with this novel is the characterization of Archibald Clare and those of several of the incidental characters. Archibald is a Sherlock Holmes-type character, but it...I don't know. It just doesn't quite ring true to me. The reader is told that things Archibald is doing are annoying, but they don't really seem to be. Does that make sense? And the side characters, with the notable exception of Mikal, are similarly poorly conceived.

    That said, it's a fun, well-written book. The author does a good job with word choice, and she isn't overly descriptive of the steampunk elements of the environment--the reader is told no more than she needs to know to follow the story, and sometimes not even that. What a relief.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I wasn't sure what to expect with The Iron Wyrm Affair, but having read and enjoyed Saintcrow's Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet series I wanted to give it a try. The Iron Wyrm Affair proved to be an amazing adventure introducing fascinating characters, an amazing steam punk world, and compelling storyline that kept the reader eagerly turning the pages. Saintcrow did an amazing job at developing the Emma character slowly hinting at her past, her uneasy relationship with her protector, and her unfaltering loyalty to her queen. I enjoyed this character the most and found myself loving the uneasy relationship between Emma and Mikal as well as her building friendship with Archibald. Archibald is also a fascinating character that reminded me of Holmes with his reasoning and intelligence. While this character still remains a mystery, I look forward to learning more about him in future books. Mikal was also a great addition to this team with his loyalty and concern for Emma as well as his ability to help their cause. Saintcrow has delivered another compelling series, and I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. Overall this was a fabulous read that I would most definitely recommend.