David D. Levine – Cannonball Read 17

Still has exciting steampunk aerial combat but doesn’t recapture the joy of the first book

Arabella the Traitor of Mars: The Adventures of Arabella Ashby by David D. Levine

March 1, 2019 by Dome'Loki Leave a Comment

“The Adventures of Arabella Ashby” series starts off with a bang in Arabella of Mars. The second book, Arabella and the Battle of Venus, was not as ‘romantic and dashing’ as the first. The third, Arabella the Traitor of Mars, is a good conclusion to Arabella’s story but it doesn’t have the spark of the first book. I mentally groaned when the book started with Arabella and Captain Singh on Earth but then Arabella, once again, needs to race to the other side of the solar system, in as […]

Arabella’s second foray is not as successful as the first.

November 4, 2017 by bonnie 1 Comment

Last year (JUST KIDDING, CBR informed me it was actually February; OMG we have lived ten years since the election, you guys), I enjoyed David D. Levine’s Arabella of Mars, which was billed to me as Jane Austen meets Jules Verne. It’s an accurate comparison. I was excited to see a new adventure come out a mere year later. I immediately grabbed it from the library and read it on top of my unread-stack. Because this is a direct continuation of the first novel, I’ll […]

Not quite as romantic and dashing

November 2, 2017 by Dome'Loki Leave a Comment

Arabella and the Battle of Venus is the second book in “The Adventures of Arabella Ashby” series. Last year I reviewed the first book, Arabella of Mars, and was delighted by it’s fun combination of the Regency era and sailing ships that travel interstellar winds between planets. In fact, its escapism was sorely needed when I read it in November of 2016. This time the adventure has its high points but also a lot more drudgery, making it less romantic and dashing than its predecessor, but […]

Jane Austen steampunk space adventure

February 10, 2017 by bonnie 2 Comments

I’m a picky science fiction reader, but that doesn’t mean I’m against it. And if you throw a sci-fi or fantasy novel at me and say anything “Jane Austen,” chances are I’m going to read it. See: Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories and Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars books. I was scanning my library’s new science fiction and fantasy books, when David D. Levine’s Arabella of Mars appeared and had the tagline of “would have amused Jane Austen” attached to it. Obviously, I […]

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