Review::Tesla's Stepdaughters by Wesley Allison

Tesla's Stepdaughters by Wesley Allison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Tesla's Stepdaughters by Wesley Allison

This book surprised me in a couple of ways. First it surprises me that there are no reviews for it and second it's a darn good read. The premise is nothing spectacularly new; that one side of the human race has almost been wiped out. This time there are mostly women in the world with small enclaves of men because of a man made virus that killed most of the male population.

The story starts when the Ladybugs arrive on tour in their dirigible and someone blows it up which brings the Science Police into the picture and our main character John Andrews who is the sole male officer in the force trying to make his way in an all woman world. The virus is still a potential threat but men have been slowly sifting back into society and out of the safe enclaves. John has become a Science Police officer and has been assigned to help protect the Ladybugs and investigate the case.

He, of course, becomes a distraction as he is the only man most places that he goes; and these women have not been around men and the male pheromones have an effect the first time women meet him, but once that happens they seem to be inoculated against the effect by that exposure. Not sure about any scientific basis for that but is kind of cool to have women swooning over him all the time.

With an all woman band and being the one man around it's not hard to do the math that equates to a strong distraction for John from his work. His partner Agatha has his back though while she tells him that it might work out well for the case if he becomes an extra target for the people trying to hurt the band.

So in this alternate earth where there are steam-powered dirigibles I suppose we could almost call this one a Steam-Punk novel. They also have and interesting thing called airflivvers that have wings like a dragonfly.

While John is having trouble concentrating on his job and becoming worried that he'll be tossed of the force because he's a male, the killer is drawing closer to the final act.

The novel is well paced and though it's written around John as the main character it seems to be mostly written in the third omniscient point of view. It works quite well written that way and I was able to get fully engulfed in the novel right from the very beginning.

This is a great SFF and SteamPunk novel for fans of both genre. And a thoroughly enjoyable read.
I will definitely check more of Wesley Allison's work.

J.L. Dobias



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