Steamborn by Eric R. Asher : Review

Jacob, a tinker’s apprentice and sometime thief, has lived his entire life in the mountain city of Ancora, protected by the massive city walls. The towering barriers keep the Deadlands creatures at bay, but the monsters rise higher into the peaks every year. More and more they breach the defenses of the Lowlands while the Highlands rest easy.

A swarm overruns the walls and wreaks utter devastation on the Lowlands. Charles, the old tinker, suspects the attack may not be natural. With help from Jacob’s closest friend, Alice, and Samuel, one of the city’s elite spider knights, Jacob and Charles will uncover a terrible darkness at the heart of their city.

The first book in a new steampunk trilogy by Eric R. Asher, Steamborn was an exciting and fast-paced read, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I had that much fun reading a book. With the release of Jack Campbell and Jim Butcher’s new steampunk books this year I didn’t think anything else would really meet the bar they set, but Steamborn is as good as, if not better than either of them. I can’t count the number of times I found myself on my feet pacing around my room — which is something I do when I am really amped up by the book I am reading.

Most books I’ve read with war-torn or post-apocalyptic worlds are much too dark and depressing for my liking, but I found Steamborn to be a much more hopeful story. I was also really happy to discover that the technical aspects of the book weren’t too difficult to follow as well.  I’m not a very mechanically minded person so I can struggle at times when a story gets too much into the details of the machines, but this book kept things simple without dumbing it down at all.

My favorite part of the book, however, were the characters, the relationships Jacob had with his mentor Charles, and his friend Alice really made the story for me. I had to restrain myself from rushing through the story and missing things to find out just how everything turned out between them all.

I already can’t wait for the next book in the series, and I can’t describe the excitement I felt when I found out the next two books both come out in 2016. I’ll be counting down the days until I can find out what is going to happen to Jacob and his friends next.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.