Ugh I'm so upset! You know, sometimes when I don't like a book, it's just because it's really not my preferred genre. It's simply not up my alley. But this book? This is a book ostensibly about fun steam-punk adventures, found family, cool bad-ass ladies and proper British gentlemen, a book about alternate histories and cool weird inventions, and it's epistolary, has multiple burgeoning romance subplots... everything in this book seems like it would be perfect for me. Which is honestly what makes me review it even harsher.

I'm trying not to be mean - obviously this was self-published, and I want to be nice... but the prose are awful! The sentence structure is convoluted and poorly thought out. This is supposed to be a mix of letters and journal entries from one central character, with a few supplementary notes from the other characters, but every single character's voice is the same, and Gregory writes the same way in his journal that he does when writing letters to his boss or to his sweetheart. What a waste of an opportunity to use the medium to your advantage, and mix up the styles! Ugh.

I wanted to like this book so much, and I hate the fact that it didn't work for me. I didn't mind the slow pace, the careful description of all the characters and their relationships, the concept of the trip, the fact that clearly there are hidden secrets brewing that the narrator doesn't know about... all of this stuff would have been so fascinating to read about if this guy was able to write! I found myself editing along in my head. I could have made this book better, and I'm not even a professional editor.