This novel fits it's boring title perfectly. It contains both steam powered machines, magic, and it is incredibly generic and bland.The steam technology feels like a tacked on gimmick to take advantage of the popularity of the steampunk genre. The technology doesn't really play any sort of role in the story besides providing a backdrop for a tired romance.The plot revolves loosely around vampires, I'm sorry, Vampyres, attempting to assemble an old machine that makes a potion that would allow them to blend into society. However, the vampyres are curiously absent from most of the tale, appearing only three times during the course of the novel and each time they seem to get weaker. At first Sir Merrick struggles to take on two by himself. During the second attack he alone takes out 5 or 6 of them. And by the end he seems to be mowing them down by the dozen.The plot crawls along at a snail's pace, going into mind-numbingly detailed accounts of perfectly ordinary dinners, parties, evenings at the park, and so on.The central love story isn't really that interesting either. Merrick and Caroline are attracted to each other, but society keeps them apart. Only, wait, no it doesn't, let's get married, the end.Honestly, don't waste your money on this generic, tasteless fluff. The best thing I can say about it is that the writing is excellent and the book is very well edited.Two stars, and that only because I am impressed by the quality of the writing. This book went on for about 100 pages longer than it should have. It really should have been 2 books. It was rather inconsistent - sometimes riveting, sometimes making me wish I had a 30 second fast forward on my Audible. As others have noted, the sex got tedious. I liked the characters, but there were too many manufactured situations that caused trouble that really didn't need to be there. All this being said, I generally liked the story and am tempted to go on to the next installment.
What do You think about Steam & Magic - Feuerspiel (2012)?
