The Bloody Streets of Clockwork City

Morgan L. Busse, Tainted: the Soul Chronicles, Book One

Katherine “Kat” Bloodmayne is among the first women admitted to the World City Academy of Science. Like her father, Kat trusts science to explain her steampunk world precisely. But she harbors a secret: when passions run high, she can call fire from her fingertips and kill with her mind. When a spoiled son of wealth attempts to compromise her, Kat virtually destroys him. She has to flee everything, including her father, whose motivations are less than fatherly.

Morgan Busse’s fourth book, first in a new series, is a smorgasbord of genre clichés and boilerplate changes. The literary purist in me wants to lambaste the novel’s derivative content and well-worn tone. Yet Busse so eagerly acknowledges her borrowings, and so gleefully invites us into her clockwork world, that I can't hold it against her. It’s almost like we’re in on the joke with her.

Stephen Grey, formerly World City’s youngest police inspector, quits the force when events undermine his faith in law and humanity. Now he hunts criminals as a “Fugitive Recovery Agent,” because it sounds classier than “bounty hunter.” One ordinary day, Kat Bloodmayne arrives in Stephen’s office, scared and desperate. Tragedy follows close behind her, hitting Stephen right in the heart.

Together, Kat and Stephen escape World City just ahead of bloodthirsty lawmen. Standing at the brink of their empire’s frontier, they seek the only doctor who might cure Kat’s condition, a researcher disgraced for bringing the soul into scientific discussion. Their desperation for answers makes them vulnerable, and in the genre tradition, that makes feelings run high. But before they profess to one another, Stephen discovers what Kat’s been hiding. He may never trust her again.

Reading along, it feels like Busse has smooshed two shorter novellas together to create one standard sized novel. In the first, Kat’s passion for science, and Hermione-like dedication to learning, drive her into conflict with the patriarchy. She stoically bears the cost, however, in hopes of winning her scholar father’s love… a hope doomed from the outset. Meanwhile, Stephen’s love for law is matched only by his love for a society heiress. In one brutal day, both loves are shattered, stunting his ability to trust anyone.

Morgan L. Busse

The second novella, which Busse clearly enjoys more, judging from the attention to detail she invests, begins with a moment of violence. A handsome but amoral fellow graduate forces himself on Kat; she defends herself with her only tool, her superpower. Pursued by scientists who consider her a specimen, she turns to Stephen, the only person she can trust. Together they escape the comfort of civilization for the rigors of the frontier, where they may find themselves, if they live long enough.

As noted, my literary purist inclinations initially made me tetchy when Busse signposted the comfy tropes she pinches from genre classics. But I pushed through my grad-school habits long enough to realize: Busse knows exactly what she's doing. She makes no pretense of art and literature, she's kicking her heels up and having as much fun as she can stand. And she invites us to join her in her barn dance of genre abandon.

Like most steampunk fiction, this novel foregrounds a premature collision between modernity and tradition. World City has built an empire of science and gleaming, multi-story architecture. (When they say “science,” they mainly mean “technology.” There's little pursuit of pure knowledge.) But this capital built on modernism willfully ignores that most of the empire is still poor, hanging on for dear life. Our heroes must venture into the wild to find the answers technology can’t offer.

This novel comes from a dedicated Christian publisher, and there's a definite subplot of faith. Kat, raised without religion, must understand her soul to contain her superpower’s destructive edge. Stephen rejected childhood religion when the law and his fiancé both betrayed him. Faced with threats that put them outside their society, both Kat and Stephen start to pray. But this theme never becomes overbearing or preachy. Readers can simply enjoy a good boilerplate genre thriller if they want.

If one theme runs through this book, it’s this: science is reliable, but people aren't. When humans turn science to selfish ends, we have to find our center outside ourselves. Eventually, we’ll our own frontier, asking ourselves the same questions that plague these characters. Busse mercifully refrains from preaching at us, even at her most overtly religious moments. But she does present one possible answer to questions that are more universal than we might like to admit.