Etiquette by the Full Moon

A review of Soulless by Gail Carriger


There is only one thing worse than having a soul, and that is not having a soul. Or perhaps having too much? I think I’m getting ahead of myself.

To backtrack, I just finished reading Gail Carriger’s debut novel Soulless, now available for preorder from Amazon and scheduled for release this October. An unusual genre mash-up that the author aptly describes as “Urbane Fantasy,” it combines fantasy, paranormal, romance, horror, mystery, steampunk, and Victorian comedy of manners in the same way one might expect of a veteran chef blending Chinese, Italian, and California flavor palates for a lark at a summer barbecue that is to say, the result is unexpected, surprising, delightful, and brings one up a bit short. Or, it would, if it weren’t for one of the best opening paragraphs I’ve read in a long time. The first chapter flies by fast enough that it’s not until the narrator pauses for breath in chapter two that the reader is left to puzzle over the curiosities of, say, a perfectly ordinary-seeming spinster with a weighted brass parasol encountering an unexpected vampire while having tea at a soirée. The fact that she easily dispatches said vampire, which lisps terribly and can’t seem to keep his fangs up when he touches her, resulting in a scene that positively screams “Buffy, you’re a poseur.” Alexia Tarabotti isn’t a vampire hunter or an angsty teenage girl, and her story is a cut or five above Whedonesque kitschy cuteness.
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