First, this book is getting a bit of buzz. No, I haven’t seen it on the internet; I suspect it’s out there, too. But as I’ve been carrying it around reading it for the last few days I’ve had three separate people tell me they’d heard the book is good.
And it is.
Jay often has a little touch of magic – and soul – in his writing, and it shows up here. Mainspring is not easily described since it isn’t one thing. It is a coming of age story of a possible boy on an impossible world with an impossible task. A clockpunk allegory. A fantastic journey. A spiritual book. A playful way to write a fun book and include a favorite thing of Jay’s (airships – he edited a whole anthology of fiction about airships).
Note: see my just-previous post about Chip Delaney. This is a brave book like Chip’s book are brave.