It was an ok book. There wasn't enough steampunk to really back up the title. There are a lot of parallels to colonization and empire building by western powers in our world in this story. There were some clunky parts - like trying to push the idea that the people already living on the planet were Japanese and kind of forcing different things in to make it clear. I think with some adjustments it could be really great.

Silkpunk and Steam
A Steampunk Novel (The Memory Thief Series)
by Sarina Dorie
Amazon
This book is part of a series that perhaps tells the tales of various people. The author did well but I think she tried too hard to describe the thought processes of someone from a different culture than perhaps herself or other readers. The characters were supposed to be based on Japanese culture and due perhaps to some of the things she read that were probably presented as factual, weren't. This character was enjoyable but definitely Japanese of a period in culture of the now [specifically I would place 13th century Japan] not the Indigenous peoples before. Also, there has never been concrete proof especially with DNA that they would have been linked to Pacific Islanders or Native Americans of the Americas. There are similarities but that can be true of any particular type of DNA in species not making the of the same or the same base. Other than that it was an enjoyable read and I probably would pick up other books of the series if I come across them.

4/3/18-4/3/18
3 stars

No spoilers

Sent to me through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

So this book had great world building and character development. It did a really good job of explaining everything that it needed to. I'd for sure recommend this book to a few of my friends, even though it wasn't personally my thing. I definitely enjoyed reading it though and it really made me think at some parts. I say if you're into cool sci-fi(ish) books, this could be for you.

This had a lot of potential but I just felt like there wasn't enough happening for it to really keep my interest. It's set in a world where space travel was discovered thousands of years, some nations like Japan sent people out to colonize other worlds, the technology was lost somehow and has just been rediscovered again, and now Europeans/Americans are setting out to take over these planets that other people have already settled because they want to mine diamonds and other things. There's a lot of really good parallels to real world events here and it's a really cool premise for a book, at least at the beginning.

There's also this stuff called memory moss that they use to let them swap memories with each other, but because it's often combined with sex there is a taboo against sharing between two people of the same gender, which our protagonist finds out when she is very young and kind of accidentally swaps memories with a friend. It's an interesting metaphor for sex and sexuality, but again it's not really the main focus of the book.

Most of the book is spent endlessly talking about the customs of the people on this planet and trying to convince another tribe to accept the main character's tribe even though they have a white woman with them. I get what the author was going for and also that it is based on a lot of traditional real life Japanese customs, but it's really just incredibly frustrating to read because they could so much more done if everyone wasn't so worried about being super polite all the time.

Also there were a lot of random Japanese words thrown into the text and while, again, I understand why that was, every time someone said 'ne' or 'nani' I had these flashbacks to when I was thirteen and writing horrible anime fanfiction so it was distracting to say the least. Also there isn't really any F/F romance in this despite the main character being a lesbian, the woman she likes is actually way older than her and her brother's kind-of-wife so ...I don't know. Mostly I just felt like this book moved really slow and wasn't what I was expecting/wanting but I'm sure a lot of people will find it enjoyable.