The Explosionist -- Jenny Davidson

Earlier this month, I re-read The Explosionist in preparation for reading the sequel, Invisible Things. And I'm SO glad I did. Partly because Invisible Things works well as a sequel and not so well as a standalone*, but mostly because by page three of The Explosionist, I'd fallen in love with it all over again.

It's set in an alternate 1938 in which Scotland has only been able to avoid being swallowed by fascist Europe because they're the major source of armaments in the world. It's got bombings and spiritualism and murder, multiple mysteries and boarding school, hydrogen-powered cars and glamorous secretaries, political machinations and terrifying brain science and happily, even a bit of romance.

It's a fully realized world: the world-building and explanation of such is integrated so well that it's easy to get lulled into feeling that Sophie's world is familiar and comfortable. But that's always when a detail -- like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being an occult theorist or Delaware being the reason that the American Civil War ended in the division of the Union or the Dodgson Compact being an oath for spirit photographers -- will jolt you right back out of your comfort zone.

But despite the richness of the world-building, it's the subtlety with which Davidson creates it that's so special. Sophie herself is front-and-center, so the focus -- especially at first -- is on the somewhat regular existence of a 15-year-old girl. It made me think of Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now: At first, other than an occasional glimpse into the adult realm, our heroine is mainly concerned with everyday life, rather than with Big Issues like War or Politics, and it's only when those Big Issues begin to affect her directly that she starts to really pay attention.

Along those lines, the book opens with a deceptively normal scene, with Sophie struggling through chemistry class -- struggling not to call out every answer, as all of her classmates find her crush on the teacher hilarious -- and the first half of the book is full of beautifully-described quiet moments like this one, where Sophie and a friend stop to buy butter:

The girl behind the marble counter placed a square of greaseproof paper on the brass scales and cut a wedge off the slab. Dipping her two wooden paddles into a pretty blue-and-white porcelain bowl of cold water, she worked the putter into a perfectly round pat, pressing into it the stamp with its picture of the dairymaid with the cow holding a buttercup to the girl's chin.

So, although it's got bombings and murder and ghosts, it's not, by any means, a fast-paced zoomfest of a read. It's a book that will be highly appreciated by fans of Ellen Klages' The Green Glass Sea: On the surface, it seems like a strange pairing -- Sophie and Dewey don't share the same age, country or even the same world -- but the books are similar in tone, attention to detail, realistic dialogue, thoughtfulness and affection.

(I just noticed, by the way, that you can read the first chapter for free at Amazon. There's a link in the right-hand sidebar. Man. If I ever get an ereader, it's going to be seriously dangerous to my (meager) bank account.)

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See a roundup of Alt History/Steampunk Appreciation Week links over at Chasing Ray!

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*Has anyone out there read them in reverse order and found otherwise? I'd be completely happy to be proved wrong there.

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Book source: Purchased.