Airship Neverland Review

Okay, so in keeping with my promise to keep this banana from getting any browner...

My First Steampunk Book Review!

REVIEW- Tales OF the Airship Neverland by John R White

     So, I've known about this book for a while now, if you go on Steampunk Revolution how can you not- John posts about it all the friggin time!  At one point John posted an honest request for people to support his efforts and try his book...and appreciating his honesty I bought a copy...not really expecting to actually READ it any time soon.

    Now understand...I HATED Boneshaker, and I've disliked a couple of the other self-labeled steampunk novels I've read recently.  The idea of a steampunked Peter Pan left me flat and uninterested.  The LAST thing i wanted to read about is somebody's gear-glued Captain hook and a clockwork tinkerbell flying around worrying about saying anything insensitive to the Indians! (this is what I pretty much was expecting) It was therefor with mild trepidation that I peeled back the cover of Tales of Airship Neverland and started to read...


SURPRISE!  HE LIKES IT!  HEY MIKEY!

  I am 75% done, and this book rocks!  I've got to be careful that I don't spoil the read for anyone but I must say-nice job.  There is a wonderful blend of action and drama in this ...homage?...to the Peter Pan story.  The characters John has created feel real and believable and their actions and choices are not dictated by PC utopianism, but rather real human behavior and soul.  He breaks gender roles with a diamond cutter creating empowered females who don't sacrifice their femininity to achieve traditionally male dominated power levels.
I especially like the...almost sympathetic...Captain Hook, and his very colonial era attitude about the world, his own worth and his disdain for...pretty much everybody else.  I did say "almost sympathetic".

     The clever techno-bends and twists John created when building his world add the right amount of gadget-magic without ever getting silly or ridiculously unbelievable.  It's perhaps the re-sculpting of the traditional tale's world and the thoroughness and creativity that John used to do it that allows his very engaging characters to live and breath in a story you know...and don't know that grabs from the very first page.
There is nothing silly, redundant, or stretched in John R White's Tales Of The Airship Neverland.  It is an original and inventive tale that has nothing to do with Sandy Duncan or Cathy Rigby in tights and everything to do with a riveting steampunk-influenced adventure story about characters you will care about.

...at least I did!  Nice work John, thanks for the adventure.

Go to
http://airshipneverland.com/