Gearteeth (Gearteeth, 1); Timothy Black

Rarely do I think reading a book synopsis is all that necessary before I start a book, but for “Gearteeth” I highly recommend you do so. The western feeling steampunk world starts off already deep in the lore, the “after” of the event that forced people into the skies, following lightning storms in order to keep their floating cities sky bound and away from the deadly beasts below. We follow Elijah, a brakeman on one of these massive trains used to collect lightning. He’s very much a southern gentleman, which is partially why this book had such a south western vibe to it. The world was fascinating with a heavy dose of conspiracy theories that fit really well with the Edison vs Tesla alternate history, so I enjoyed the twist this story took with that. Tesla is the the lesser of two evils here with his ability to harness lightning which both gave rise to these cities, and birthed a cult as well. But for as much as I liked Elijah and the uniqueness of the werewolves in this setting, the pacing did not always match the story.

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It does take this book a bit to feel like it’s getting going. Elijah makes a lot of asides to explain how the Double T trains work and how the cities harness their lightning, and it’s interspersed in a way that sometimes can slow down the action. But things really do pick up around 30% in. Unfortunately, those exposition breaks still occur throughout the book when I was more interested in the overall plot of how the werewolves came to be and what the ultimate goal of the Tellurians and the other powers that be were moving toward. But Elijah has a really distinct character voice which was what made him so easy to root for throughout the novel, and made his explanations overall really easy to follow, I just thought there could have been less for the sake of the pacing.

The author makes a wonderfully complex and brutal world that fits very well with the steampunk genre. But be forewarned, when I say brutal, I mean that in the most literal way. At a certain point in the book, the reader is taken off the Double T, and life on the ground is nothing but torture, at least what we see of it. The things the monsters do are all shown in gruesome detail, the racism that sparked most of these “science” experiments does not mince words, and not even children are safe from brutality at the hands of some of the werewolves. The gore fits the world that the author has created, and while it can be very shocking at times with just what these creatures do and why, it very much fits with the tone of the story. I just want the reader to be aware of the abuse, racism, and brutality that does happen on page in “Gearteeth”.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story and its world! And while I was much better at guessing the twists than Elijah was, I think it fit well with his character so I didn’t mind that the few big surprises that he’s faced with weren’t that surprising to me. I do wish that the real mystery with the Tellurians (which started well past the half way mark) had started a bit sooner to help with some of those pacing issues I had, hence the 4 stars, but that was really my only complaint. If you like steampunk stories with western vibes, and a heavy dose of horror thanks to our werewolf friends, you’ll love “Gearteeth!” And thanks to the author for the ebook to review!