Soulless: Victorian Society with a Supernatural Expansion Pack

Oh, do I love a good paranormal story set in Victorian England. I was actually extremely excited for this week's reading, as steampunk is a huge inspiration for a lot of the work I do. And in turn, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audiobook for Soulless by Gail Carriger. Carriger's witty writing and colorful cast of characters very quickly drew me in, and I found myself laughing along as the reader delivered the story.

I think that one of the most interesting points of this novel is not quite the addition of supernatural creatures themselves, but the way Carriger incorporated these creatures into the high society of a typical victorian-era steampunk setting. Although this requires the reader to have some sort of prior knowledge of the social hierarchy during this time period, Carriger quickly catches those who don't up to speed with Alexia's rebellion against it all. Her introduction to the way vampires and werewolves are incorporated as beings that live almost adjacent to humans was well-timed and not too info-dumpy. Instead of being feared for the monsters that they were, both vampires and werewolves alike became accepted into the society and even had their own social constructs. Their hives and packs acted as social circles and gangs rather than something "other" outside normal societal standards.

Even the fact that these paranormal creatures had a history to their introduction to Soulless' society gives them an interesting twist to the "wild" and "untamed" depictions seen in many other pieces of media. The refinement of their "wilder" groupings in turn gave them the societal structure in order to be accepted as a civilized people. With a hive queen or an alpha at the helm, it made it much easier for humans to document and keep an eye on the paranormal populations. As someone who enjoys these kinds of stories, it was a very fun variation that I have yet to see in this genre of fiction.

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