Now this article’s aim is not to criticize but to give fair warning to potential steampunk book consumers. All Men of Genius is a terrible book. It’s written like a Shakespeare comedic play, which might not be terrible but it doesn’t belong on the science fiction/ fantasy shelf. It does itself and potential readers a great disservice by being put in the mix with other steampunk books.
The story is about a girl named Violet who doesn’t like her place in Victorian society, because she is the best scientist ever. So she dresses like a man and takes the identity of her brother Ashton. She enrolls in the best science college in all of London and does inventions and stuff. It would be hard to summarize the rest of the story as it is just a blur of boredom and nothing. Violet goes in the basement sometimes and sees some clockwork automatons, who are dangerous, and is in some kind of romance with the Duke in Charge of the School. He kisses her when he thinks she’s a boy or something.
The author, Lev A.C. Rosen, is dressed in steampunk attire on the book’s sleeve jacket, which should be a big red flag (he is a weirdo). Rosen is a New York author writing about a Victorian-era girl living in London. Rosen is not the only American author in the steampunk genre to write about the subject, but this story is by far the most character-driven, which makes it an unnatural read. The story starts out with the author telling the reader that all of the characters are completely mad, which is obnoxious.
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