Since Captain William Kidd piloted the first sailing vessel to Mars in the late 1600's, the solar system has opened up to trade and colonization. Ships
ply the spaceways on solar winds, as wealthy Europeans establish plantations and colonies on distant planets. Thus it is that Arabella Ashby, though human
of English parentage, was born and raised on the family's Martian lumber plantation, learning of her race's homeworld through dry books while experiencing
Mars under the tutelage of her native nanny and tutor, Khema... until her homesick mother, fed up with Arabella's "unladylike" ways, drags her and her
sisters back to England.
She would never see her father alive again.
Miserable on Earth and made moreso with her beloved father's death, Arabella finds herself shunted off to her cousin Simon's home - a relative who always
resented how her family, not his, benefited from the entailed Ashby estate. When Simon finally snaps, determined to finish off Arabella's brother (the only
remaining male heir standing between him and the family fortune), the seventeen-year-old girl rushes off to stop him... and ends up plunging headlong into an
interplanetary adventure.
Review
I purchased this on impulse, drawn by a cover that promised a Jules Verne-flavored, old-school adventure yarn in a fanciful interplanetary Regency era.
That's almost exactly what the book turned out to be. Levine creates a spacefaring world that wouldn't be out of place in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs,
with Venusian jungles and a canal-riddled Mars, only with (thankfully) updated attitudes on gender, race, and colonialism, though the characters themselves
are still, by and large, firmly residents of their (alternate-history) era. Arabella makes for a plucky, clever heroine, somewhat impulsive but always
striving her best. Her skill with Martian culture and automatons - lifelike clockwork "robots" based on actual creations of the 1800's, whose abilities and
intricacies astound even today - carry her far, and while she does (as one might predict) have to hide her gender for a good portion of the tale as she works
her way back home aboard a Martian trading ship, she ultimately must learn to stand on her own two feet without deception. Other characters aren't necessarily
deep, particularly the bad guys, but this is really more of an adventure story reveling in its wondrous retro concept. Some elements of the ending felt rushed
and a little weaker than they might have been, but I rather enjoyed it, and look forward to Arabella's future adventures.
After a tumultuous introduction and much hardship, the lady Arabella Ashby had hoped to marry her beloved Captain Singh as soon as possible - but, while the
rebellion on Mars may have ended (with their help, naturally), the rest of the solar system is still at war, especially after the tyrant Napoleon escaped from
his lunar prison and holed up in the jungles of Venus. When Captain Singh is ordered to the green planet by the company, he has no choice but to acquiesce...
and when his ship is captured by the French, Arabella has no choice but to set out to rescue him, accompanied by the privateer Captain Fox and a burdensome
escort, the Lady Corey, whom her brother insists she bring for propriety's sake.
Review
Like the first book, this retro-flavored adventure reads like Edgar Rice Burroughs (or maybe more like Jules Verne) crossed with the Age of Sail, set in a
fantastic alternate history where sailing ships ply the solar system and European colonialism has spread to the planets. Also like the first, sometimes the
suspension of belief can feel like a slight strain, even given the inherently fantastic physics at work, but it makes for a ripping yarn. Arabella remains a
headstrong young woman, but not without her flaws and blind spots. She chafes at being saddled with the widowed Lady Corey, but finds she has much to learn from
the older and far more proper Englishwoman, even if Arabella still refuses to let society dictate her vocation and happiness. Indeed, she finds herself sidelined
more than once, as her skill set fails to meet the demands of a current challenge; learning to trust others and be patient takes some serious effort when she's
so used to taking everything in her own two hands (though I admit once in a while I tired of her helplessness.) Meanwhile, she finds her loyalty to Singh tested
by the dashing rogue Fox, a reminder that, for all she's been through and all she's learned, in some ways she's still been sheltered, particularly in matters of
the heart. Singh further tests her by proving oddly aloof when she finally locates him, albeit under inauspicious circumstances. The journey and rescue are full
of challenges and wonders and dangers, from an encounter with vast "wind whales" in the spaceways to the smothering jungles of Venus (not to mention the froglike
Venusians, who in some ways felt underutilized, for all that hints were dropped of a far more complex culture than met the eye), building once more to a breakneck
battle at the climax. If a few parts felt a bit predictable, and if some other elements struck me as slightly flat or overstretched for effect, well, it still
made for an enjoyable enough read for a four star rating. Still, I hope things pick up slightly for the final third installment; I could do with a little less of
the in-transit dithering next time out, if I'm being entirely honest here.
After helping defeat Napoleon in the Battle of Venus, inventor Arabella Ashby and her husband Captain Singh are hailed as heroes of England, ridding the solar
system of a tyrant bent on interplanetary domination... and opening the way for others to follow in his example. Shortly after their return to Earth, the Prince Regent
offers Singh the opportunity to head a fleet bound for Mars, to bring the planet and its natives to heel under the British flag (and, not incidentally, generate
enormous profits for the Regent and the Honorable Mars Company.) Torn between the planet of her birth and her patriotic duty, between her home and her husband,
Arabella chooses Mars. But beating the invaders to her homeworld will just be the first daunting challenge ahead, and this time luck may no longer be on Lady Ashby's
side.
Review
The (probable) final installment of the Arabella Ashby adventures brings the action back to Mars and squarely addresses Earth's colonial attitude toward the solar
system. Araballa, herself a human but more at home on Mars than Earth, is particularly torn, feeling a close kinship to the Red Planet and its people but forced to
acknowledge that, as a human, she is - if in some small way - part of the problem. Threading that needle, personally and politically, proves challenging, but Arabella's
always been one to rise to a challenge, if not without some failures on the way. Unlike the second novel, this installment (thankfully) trims much of the transit,
focusing more on the action. Arabella also isn't quite as helpless for so much of the book; in the thick of battle, and dealing with machinery and clockwork automata,
she's back in her element. The action picks up quickly and keeps going through much of the book, and if now and again dangers are telegraphed and luck tends to favor
the heroes (if at the last minute), well, it is written in the spirit of retro adventure tales. Something about the ending feels a little neat and quick after the high
cost of reaching it, while the epilogue gives the series (or at least this portion of it) a nice send-off. Overall, I enjoyed this story, and the whole Arabella Ashby
trilogy, as a fun, fantastical take on retro-flavored adventure science fiction.
