{"id":13347,"date":"2020-08-07T20:28:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-08T00:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=13347"},"modified":"2022-08-14T09:07:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T13:07:03","slug":"the-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13347","title":{"rendered":"The Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Engineer<\/a><\/em> (2020) C.S. Poe<\/a> (Magic & Steam)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Set in the American West in 1881.<\/p>\n

Gillian Hamilton is a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam–and a powerful magic user. He is sent out west to catch a renegade magic user, but runs into a completely different wanted man while on the hunt.<\/p>\n

I’m not quite sure I understood this magic system.<\/p>\n

The raw magic passed through us without harm to our internal workings, while concurrently, our life energy replaced what was taken from the stream.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does that mean he ages more rapidly the more magic he uses? It’s not clear, although there is another book in the works, so it might become more clear later. Regardless, this use of magic is not without cost–which is good. <\/p>\n

Gillian may be a lawman, but it’s clear to the reader (if not to him) that he didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter if he wanted to be able to legally use his magic–and do so for the good of society. <\/p>\n

I generally avoid historicals set in the US, since I have a hard time reading about slavery and Reconstruction and Jim Crow but books that don’t have those evils are inaccurate enough that I don’t want anything to do with them. So I just don’t read those.<\/p>\n

But as this is steampunk and clearly alternate history, it doesn’t bother me if characters don’t deal with those issues, because it’s possible the world has a history without those evils.<\/p>\n

For a novella, this covered a lot of ground. I’m not sure that everything was consistent, but with stories that short, there’s a lot left out, so the things that felt off might be worked out in a longer story. <\/p>\n

We’ll see.<\/p>\n

Publisher: Emporium Press
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Engineer (2020) C.S. Poe (Magic & Steam) Set in the American West in 1881. Gillian Hamilton is a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam–and a powerful magic user. He is sent out west to catch a renegade magic user, but runs into a completely different wanted man while on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[193,2,148,56,28],"tags":[50,180,474,544],"class_list":["post-13347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-10","category-fantasy","category-queer","category-sexual-content","category-steam-punk","tag-boinking","tag-c-s-poe","tag-magic-steam","tag-mm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3th","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13862,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13862","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":0},"title":"The Gangster","author":"Michelle","date":"January 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gangster (2021) C.S. Poe (Magic & Steam) Set in Steampunk New York in 1882. Special Agent Gillian Hamilton of the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam is back in New York, and hoping to spend New Years Eve with Gunnar the Deadly--who he met in the first book, when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eBook"","block_context":{"text":"eBook","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/ebook"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Gangster","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/The-Gangster.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21256,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21256","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":1},"title":"The Doctor","author":"Michelle","date":"November 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Doctor (2022) C.S. Poe (Magic & Steam) Set in alternate US in 1882. Gillian Hamilton has been caught. He has been exposed as Simon Fitzgerald, the Butcher of Antietam. And he is now on Blackwell's Island at the Asylum for the Magically Insane. \u201cWhy are you helping a criminal?\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eBook"","block_context":{"text":"eBook","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/ebook"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Doctor","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/The-Doctor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4689,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4689","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":2},"title":"Hounds of Autumn","author":"Michelle","date":"July 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Hounds of Autumn (2013) Heather Blackwood I really wanted to love this. The cover is gorgeous, and the premise is fabulous--a young female inventor in an alternate London, living her life within society's constraints. The problem in this case is the steampunk. I think there should be a corollary to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hounds-of-Autumn","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Hounds-of-Autumn.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":386,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/386","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":3},"title":"Magic Bites","author":"Michelle","date":"May 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Magic Bites (2007) Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels works as a mercenary in a world that used to be ours, where technology is losing out to magic. Vampires are not romantic creatures (think the older vampires on Buffy) the vampire faction is held at bay by the shape shifters--neither group can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/magic-bites.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4399,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4399","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":4},"title":"Magic Bites","author":"Michelle","date":"February 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Magic Bites (2008) Ilona Andrews After finishing off the Inspector Salvo Montalbano series, I've been picking up books, trying to figure out what I was in the mood to read. There were several new releases that I quite liked, but they didn't help me fall into what I wanted to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"magic-bites","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/magic-bites.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3241,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3241","url_meta":{"origin":13347,"position":5},"title":"The Far West","author":"Michelle","date":"November 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Far West (2012) Patricia C. Wrede This is the conclusion to the Frontier Magic Series, that started with Thirteenth Child. Eff is a thirteenth child, a fact which plagued her when she was younger, because her aunts and uncles and cousins believed that she was unluckly. The fact that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/The-Far-West.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}