The Oni's Lair

eBook Reviews

All books available from Amazon.com

Revolutionary Magic

(The Dashkova Memoirs Book 1)

Thomas K. Carpenter

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     Revolutionary Magic is the first of eight planned books in the Dashkova Memoirs by Thomas K. Carpenter and focuses on the life and adventures of Ekaterina "Kat" Dashkova. Set in an alternate steampunk America during 1800, Kat, an exiled Russian princess, acts as the protégé to Benjamin Franklin. However Old Ben is now a young man living his grandson’s life as part of a secret organization investigating mysterious otherworldly events.

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     Thomas K. Carpenter does an excellent job of blending steampunk with the American 1800’s while meshing pulp fiction-ish fantasy elements and the basic premises of the detective story. It sounds like a confusing mess but works extremely well and the rather familiar nature of Ben Franklin, at least for Americans, allows the reader to be dropped quickly into the story’s action without the need for much back story or setting explanations.

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     Carpenter’s writing style is easy to read; transitions well and manage to bring a life and personality to the characters without feeling forced. Wrote through the eyes of Kat, the story sometimes suffers from this first person perspective bogging down the pacing. A common complaint from other reviews is the mixing of steampunk with magic; I however have no issues with said combination. Revolutionary Magic is mainly set in a world where technology is king but there is still plenty of room for elements of magic, my complaint is more towards the need to “rejuvenate” people like Ben Franklin and John Adams. However with the timeline being 1800 you can’t have characters like Ben Franklin since he died in 1790 without some kind of de-ageing effect.

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     Revolutionary Magic is a fun read but rather short with an average read time of about two and a half hours. That said I highly recommend giving the book a try, especially since it’s free on Amazon so well worth the risk free nature to try the book. The second book is only $0.99, a great price, but after that the books run around $2.99, a bit steep for novelettes in my opinion.