Arabella The Traitor of Mars, by David D. Levine (Tor)
First I must offer an explanation of why it took me so long to review this book, which entails a bit of background. I was introduced to the work of David D. Levine through his science fiction short stories, which by the way are awesome and utterly award-worthy. I loved the concept of the first “Arabella” book, Arabella of Mars. Intrepid heroine/coming of age! Steampunk airships travel between planets! Adventures on Mars! What more could I want? Oh yes, a bit of stowawaying and a touch of romance. I loved that first book.
Alas, when I picked up Arabella the Traitor of Mars, I did not realize there was a middle book (Arabella and the Battle of Venus). I started reading Traitor but quickly (as on the first page) realized that much, too much had happened. Who are these other people and why does Arabella have a prosthetic foot? I set it aside, thinking to pick up the middle book at some vaguely future time and then return. In the way of things, that future time kept stretching further and further away.
Then, as fate would have it, I heard Levine read the opening chapter at a convention, FogCon to be exact. First of all, Levine is an amazing reader, expressive and elegant, perfectly conveying the mildly Victorian steampunk flavor of the narrative. Two sentences in, I was captivated. Ignorance of the middle book evaporated into insignificance. So I returned to Traitor, now perfectly willing to let the story carry me along in trust that all would be made clear from context. And it was.

The Victorian sensibilities of steampunk play out in a parallel to English imperialism, with striking echoes of the occupation of India and the Opium Wars in China. Arabella remains true to her Martian roots, loyal to her principles and her alien friends, and courageous enough to leave her dearly loved husband to warn Mars of the impending assault. The chase sequence is one of the best, most dramatically perfect, I’ve ever read, worthy of the best of Patrick O’Brien or C.S. Forester. And the rest of the book is just as good. The series is highly recommended.

The usual disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything in particular about it. Although chocolates and fine imported tea are always welcome.

Arabella the Traitor of Mars is the third book in The Adventures of Arabella Ashby, a cross-genre mashup of steampunk, alternate history, and nostalgia SF. In this series, the early 19th century British Empire has been expanded to the worlds of our solar system as both Mars and Venus are able to support human life as well as their own native populations. Wooden airships with sails and hydrogen for lift travel the spaceways and make use of solar currents. There is not even a token effort to make this scientifically believable; the book blends age of sail concepts with a solar system right out of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The book opens in 1816 with Arabella and her husband Captain Singh in England, celebrated for their role in defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Venus in the previous book. There they meet Prince George, Regent of the United Kingdom, who wants Singh to lead the conquest of the Martians in return for becoming a Duke. Arabella, who grew up on Mars with a Martian nanny, opposes this plot to dominate and enslave Mars, especially when she learns that the plan requires addicting Martians to a dangerous Venusian drug. So when her husband feels his sense of duty and loyalty to Great Britain require him to agree to the Prince's plans, Arabella steals a prototype bicycle, journeys to a spaceship captained by her friend Captain Fox, and talks him into taking her to Mars in order to warn the Martians and organize a military resistance. This makes her a traitor to England and the crown.

Unfortunately, Mars is near conjunction, its furthest point from Earth. Using a device Arabella had invented in the previous book, based on what she learned from studying Singh's automaton navigator, she constructs a route involving traveling to Mercury first and then using the planet's orbital velocity to catch the Swenson Current to speed them to Mars well before the Prince's fleet can arrive. But on their voyage, they discover that a single ship is following them on this unprecedented maneuver, which Arabella recognizes as her husband's vessel. Will he capture Arabella's ship and destroy her hopes of warning Mars? Meanwhile, as they grow closer to Mercury, the heat from the sun increases dangerously and they face a giant space squid. Even if they do make it to Mars what can Arabella do to challenge the mightiest empire in the solar system?

I consider Arabella the Traitor of Mars to be the strongest novel in the series. As always, there is a lot of exciting action, but this book also has some internal struggles as Arabella has to deal with opposition from her husband and her brother, as well as struggling between her dual loyalties to Great Britain and to Mars. While the first book had a bit of a YA feel, with Arabella disguising herself as a boy to go out to sea (err, I mean space) to save the family fortune. By this third book, the series has matured along with its heroine, and Arabella has to learn how to play politics to some extent and not just act by doing what she thinks is right.

One problem with this series is that Arabella is essentially a modern American in her behavior and attitudes, even as everyone else is a normal 19th-century person of his/her station. Whenever possible, she wears men's clothes (or a Martian uniform that scandalously displays her legs); she has her own career as a navigator and inventor in a society where upper-class women are treated as ornaments, and she looks down upon the pursuits of the nobility. Moreover, her attitudes towards race and colonialism are those of a modern liberal American. She not only marries a dark-skinned Indian, a "Mussulman" who some in English society call an "uppish darkie", but also denies that Martians are inferior to Englishmen so strongly that this belief causes her to take up arms to support Mars against her own people.

While I faulted the first Arabella novel for being a sea story that just had some names changed to be science fiction, this is not the case here. Much of the plot revolves around the navigation devices Arabella has created and the author treats the issue of colonialism with a modern viewpoint that would have been anachronistic in the actual 19th century.

This is the third book in a series and the epilogue provides a fitting conclusion. While I do not recommend people read this book without reading the previous ones, the author does provide enough of the previous history so new readers (and those who have read many other books since finishing the previous volume) can follow along.

Arabella the Traitor of Mars can be read as an exciting adventure and as steampunk that is set in places that just happen to be called Mars and outer space that bear no resemblance to real-world places with the same names. Fans of early science fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson, and of sea stories set in the 19th century will find the book an intriguing update of these classic genres. However, readers who prefer hard science fiction and a sense of realism would be wise to look elsewhere as this book is not for them.

Arabella just cannot keep from putting herself in danger. This time to save Mars. It looks like she and her beloved Captain Singh are on opposite sides. But wait! Will they really fight against each other. It is fun to watch real history and the alternate history that Arabella lives in collide. I think this was the best story of Arabella Ashby's adventures. Read book one and two first so you have the entire world building and back story.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

"Arabella The Traitor of Mars" eBook was published in 2018 and was written by David D. Levine (https://www.daviddlevine.com). Mr. Levine has published three novels as well as numerous novellas and short stories. This is the third in his 
"The Adventures of Arabella Ashby" series. 

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in an alternate history to our own. While the story is set in Earth's 19th century, this one has lighter-than-air craft traveling around the Solar System since the 1600s. The main character in this fantastical tale is Mrs. Arabella (Ashby) Singh, a young woman who has grown up in the British Colony on Mars. 

While she is a more or less proper English young lady, she has shown far more interest in adventure and mechanical automata than English refinement. She has already proven to be a force to be reckoned with as she helped her fiancé defeat Napoleon's space navy at Venus. While in London celebrating the defeat of Napoleon and paying last respects to Lord Nelson who died in the battle, she learns of a plan by both The Mars Company and the British Crown to force the entire planet of Mars into the British Commonwealth. 

Flush with the defeat of Napoleon, there seems to be no obstacle to Britain's domination of Mars or the Solar System. When her husband is chosen to lead the British forces, she feels betrayed and flees Earth in a desperate attempt to reach Mars ahead of the British forces and lead a resistance as she feels Mars is her home rather than England. It becomes a race to see if adequate Martian forces can be brought together to oppose the powerful British fleet. 

I enjoyed the 8.5+ hours I spent reading this 336 page steampunk alternate history and fantasy. While I liked the story and there are several very well created battles between opposing vessels, I really had a hard time with the notion of there being a breathable atmosphere between planets and 'sailing ships' able to travel through space. Perhaps if I had started with the first book in the series things would have been explained, but I doubt it. I was able to pick up this third novel in the series and read it without really needing to have read the prior novels in the series. I do like the cover art. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

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If you liked the first two books, this one is going to also be right in your wheelhouse. A worthy continuation to a fun series which is great for those who like steampunk, John Carter of Mars, and other retro-futuristic adventure tales.

As Captain and Mrs Singh are welcomed to England as heroes, the Prince Regent is already plotting another war and he wants Captain Singh as his commander. The Captain is in a tricky spot, he has sworn his allegiance to the Company and the Crown, but the plans are to conquer Mars through military and drug might for the Prince Regents greedy ends. Arabella is appalled that her husband would even consider being part of this heinous plan. She may be a British citizen but her heart belongs to the planet she grew up on. Convinced she must warn the Martians before British forces arrive, Arabella sneaks away and enlists the Touchstone crew on a plan that will get them all labeled traitors. Can Mars hold its own against the greatest navy in the solar system? And what of all the people whose allegiances are torn in two by this conflict?

The entire first part of this book I felt like Gilbert & Sullivan’s <i>Pirates of Penzance</i> were playing in the background as Captain Singh wrestles between duty and his heart. As an expat, I totally get Arabella’s feelings for Mars and how those who have grown up only on Earth just can’t get her. I really appreciate how well Levine conveys her third culture kid emotions and her unique understanding of both sides of the conflict that’s quite unlike anyone else’s. As reimagined history, this somewhat mimics the Opium Wars but only in the impetus for the war. From there on out, this story is all Levine’s, though of course, there can be parallels found in many points of history if you really, really want to find some. I do like that this plot line allows us to spend more time on Mars than many previous books and introduces more Martian culture. Through the conflict, the book does bring up some very important thinking points. Those who enjoy realistically depicted naval battles will eat this book up. Levine makes you feel like he totally witnessed naval battles in space and makes them come to life in sharp and often horrifying detail. I was grateful for the way Levine handled the conflict between Captain and Mrs Singh <spoiler>it does not go on through the whole book as I at first feared it would, Captain Singh quickly comes to his senses and realizes he should also work to help the Martians</spoiler>. Recommended for reimagined history fans, space-based scifi fans, technologically savvy heroine fans, third culture kid fans, and naval battle fans.

Notes on content [based on the ARC]: As per the practice of the time period it is mimicking, swear words are dashed out except for the first and last letters and just a handful of these. No sexual content beyond some kissing. Some intense battle scenes with fatalities, wounds, and gore realistically depicted.

<i>I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Didn't quite enjoy this book as much as the previous two but the writing was just as good and the characters are just as interesting and fun. The battle for Mars is thrilling as are the preparations for it and this a good wind-up to the series.

This was very capably written, and on paper I should have loved it; determined young female protagonists who are intelligent and competent and independent are a feature I look for in books, and here we have one. Somehow, though, I never connected with Arabella emotionally, and while I didn't dislike the book, I also didn't love it.

There could be several reasons for that. One reason may be the stiff, cool language of the (alternate-universe) Regency setting. I've enjoyed and emotionally connected with books with that kind of setting before, though, such as Melissa McShane's Extraordinaries series. It wasn't my dislike of the gory battle scenes, though I'm not a fan of those; they came late in the book, when I was already feeling disengaged.

The other main problem I had, and perhaps the main reason for my coolness towards the book, was that I was working so hard to maintain suspension of disbelief. The basic setting (a solar system in which there is air everywhere and sailing ships can voyage through it between the planets) requires quite a robust effort to swallow by itself; I'm OK with the planetary-romance conceit of an inhabited Mars full of canals and an inhabited Venus full of jungles, but the physics of the air-filled solar system made no sense to me, and nor did the idea that people pedaling to propel the ships would make a significant difference to their interplanetary speed. I have a similar struggle with the dragons in the Temeraire series (who cause suspiciously few supply problems, and can fly amazingly well, for such enormous creatures). I appreciate that part of SFF is suspending disbelief, but some premises make it harder than others.

On top of this unlikeliness, too, there are a few others layered. For example, the inciting incident of the whole book is that the heroine refuses to accept the Prince Regent's plans to conquer Mars and exploit it for Britain. I appreciate that, as he mentions in his afterword, the author was trying to write an anti-colonialist novel, but I'm afraid I never believed Arabella's rebellion against the comprehensively held mindset of her time. Even when I reminded myself that the American colonies had rebelled and thrown off British colonial government, I still couldn't help thinking that that was emphatically not because anyone there respected the native inhabitants and considered resisting colonialism as such to be a matter of self-evident natural justice. On top of which, Arabella is an example of the White Saviour trope; real resistance to colonialism was almost universally driven by indigenous peoples themselves, and although the Martians play an important and respected role in the resistance, they don't initiate it and they're not at all the centre of the plot.

And then there's a fortunate and somewhat unlikely coincidence at the all-is-lost moment that saves the day, putting a further heavy burden on my already overstrained suspension of disbelief.

Ultimately, I think I didn't love it because I didn't believe it.

I haven't read the previous two books in the series; there's enough catch-up at the beginning that I wasn't confused about the events of the backstory, but it may be that I would have been more emotionally engaged, and perhaps even believed more easily, if I'd been through the process of following Arabella's earlier adventures, rather than having them briefly summarized. Who knows?

Your experience of the book may be different, and I will say that the writing craft is at an admirable standard. I couldn't quite bring myself to drop it down to three stars, but it's at the lower end of four, for me.

I received a copy via Netgalley for purposes of review.