Sedition

Children of Erikkson, Book 1

By: E. M. Wright

Narrated by: Micah Cottingham

Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

She was created for more than slavery; she was built for rebellion.

In an alternate Victorian England, clockwork cyborgs provide the primary source of labor for the upper class. Known as biomatons, they are property by law and have been manipulated and mind-controlled into subservience.

Taryn Roft, a 17-year-old girl, attending classes at Grafton's School of Mechanicks in London has a secret. What's even worse - she cannot remember anything before her 12th birthday.

When a mysterious privateer discovers her secret, he offers her an ultimatum: accompany him to his airship, or her secret will be revealed to everyone. For Taryn, it's not much of a choice. Facing prejudice and cruelty may be nothing new to the only girl at an all-boys' school, but the further from home she gets, the darker her situation becomes.

©2021 Machovi Productions Inc (P)2021 Machovi Productions Inc

Everything is better with steampunk

Steampunk makes everything better; it just does. An this is a fun steampunk adventure. The plot was a bit predictable because the tale starts off with several standard tropes, but by the end I felt the story arc was set up well to go in an unexpected direction for book 2 (I hope).

Taryn is one of the few ladies in the story. For the first third of the book, she is the only woman at Grafton’s School for Mechanicks. So right there, we have some predictability. More than one guy is interested in her. Every one thinks she’s beautiful except Taryn herself. She’s got a secret she can’t share, giving her much anxiety and making her snappish with her school mates. Royal Stokker is her best friend and kinda adoptive brother in that Lord Stokker took her in as a orphan when she was a small kid. Yet there’s some obvious romantic interest there, at least on one side.

We eventually get sky pirates! Hell, yes! The plot picked up it’s pace with this turn. Ace and his sister Storm run this particular ship, the Dauntless. They are tracking down a biomaton maker (Lord Erikkson) to punish him and they think Tyran might be the lead they need. These siblings really don’t like biomatons, especially Storm. Again, we have some simmering romantic interests from Ace because Tyran is so captivating… Emmett, a member of the crew, also has his heart captured by Tyran too, tho right now it feels more like a deep friendship forming. Still, could be a harem situation in the future…. maybe.

I need to chat about the biomatons. On the surface, I love this idea. People who have lost a body part get it replaced with a mechanical part but they also have their brain a bit modified in order to firmly connect with their new body part. Once you become a biomaton, you are no longer considered human and can be sold, like furniture. In a Victorian England, this is a great set up for all sorts of stuff. And yet I have so many questions for how this works. It takes a lot of knowledge and expertise just to maintain biomatons, and even more knowledge to create them. So why poor all of this expertise & specialty parts into what is essentially a slave? Just from a cost perspective, I wonder how it works. Then I also wonder what happens when someone of means loses a limb and gets it replaced and well, do they then become a slave as well? For Taryn specifically, it’s one of her arms. It was replaced when she was quite young so it’s smaller than her 17-year-old real arm. Yet no one has noticed… because she wears long sleeves and gloves. Yeah, right. In short, I love the idea but I think it really needs to be fleshed out to make it believable.

The story did keep my attention because of the adventure aspect. There’s a bigger quest here for Taryn to complete, a mystery for her to solve. But she has to go through some hell before she’ll get the answers she seeks. I really liked the developing friendship between her and Emmett at the Black Castle and I like where the story leaves them with a solid clue as to what to do next (in book 2). 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Micah Cottingham was a good fit for this story. She had the perfect voice for Taryn. Her French accent could use a bit polishing but I could understand the little bit of French used in this book. Cottingham had good pacing and sounded engaged in the story the entire time. There was 1 sentence that was repeated, that I caught, but no other technical issues with this recording. Her male character voices were mostly believable, though some could use a bit more masculinity. 3/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by E.M. Wright. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Sedition asks, What makes us human?

Sedition is definitely a book for fans of introspective, deep characters who are enraged by the injustice of the world. Wright uses a steampunk alternative London to examine the intricacies of humanity, what makes us human, and the horrors that some of us inflict on others. Some lines struck me as too honest and raw to be anything but a true feeling of the author, and I think that it speaks to a lot of the moments of rage and helplessness we all feel (hopefully only from time to time ;) ) I was also able to spot a few "loose ends" that will surely show up in later books, which I find very intriguing! You should definitely give this book a shot!

Also, I listened to the audiobook and the quality of the reading is fantastic, so you should check out that option as well!

ya steampunk kinda....

For me this was a tamer version of the steampunk reads. It was one strong determined female lead. Taryn was for me worth getting to know and explore her version of Victorian England. The vividrey of the world was captivating. I want to give away nothing but I had one entertaining ride learning Taryn's secret and watching as she discover everyone is not there to help you. There is a price for everything.

Micah gave me a new narrators voice to explore.