Escapement

by Jay Lake

Book Overview

In his novel "Mainspring," Lake created an enormous canvas for storytelling with his hundred mile high Equatorial Wall that holds up the great Gears of the Earth. Now in "Escapement," he explores more... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765356376
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.7" x 1.3" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

The Magic Continues after Mainspring

This book features characters we briefly meet in Mainspring. I highly recommend this book for those who loved Mainspring--this story is AWESOME! I was sad that Mainspring is so compartmentalized since Escapement really stands on its own. There is very little carryover from the first book. The spirit of the writing--the real magic--however, blossoms again through the new female protagonist and the old librarian lady from the first book. I was VERY happy to see her bloom in this book. I definitely see that Escapement could be really the first half of one book, so Paolina's journey can continue. It would truly be great if Hethor from the first book could reappear and have him intertwined with Paolina's story in a third book. This is a must read for Mainspring fans. Again Jay's work touched me deeply, and I truly cherish both his books. If other people are affected this way, he is going to have a cult following.

Very satisfying followup to 'Mainspring'

'Mainspring' was a self-contained adventure, and I wasn't sure what kind of sequel this could be. But all the elements of the first novel, and some truly interesting and surprising new characters make this a great novel all on its own. I can't wait for the next one: Pinion, I think, in 2010.

The sequel is much more satisfying

Similar to Mainspring, Escapement has characters that are very easy to follow. It also contains a quest that is engaging in an absolutely fascinating world. Mainspring resolution ended in a manner that was painful for the reader escapement's improvement on the original is a much more satisfying conclusion. The only complaint I have would be the time devoted to Childress' story, she was pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things and not all that interesting. I found myself skimming over her sections towards the end. I'm very much looking forward to the next installment.

A Great Book! Vastly Superior To Mainspring

Escapement is a great book. All of the good parts of its predecessor Mainspring are present with none of the bad parts. Because of Mainspring, I picked up and started Escapement with caution and low expectations. Now that I'm done, I can't wait for the next book in the series. This is some tasty fantasy! My only complaint would be that we only got a glimpse of the many exciting and interesting locations and people our protagonists encounter. Hopefully Jay is planning to make this a long series with many installments, because he's created a world that deserves and supports many more adventures.

Escapement, sequel to Mainspring, needs a sequel itself

Escapement is a better book than its predecessor Mainspring because it explores its mechanically driven universe, evidenced by planets and moons driven by gears and clockworks, through the fascinating viewpoints of the three main characters with a richness of vision that is quite compelling. Lake manages to create a world with mystery and mechanism, while exploring theology and human behavior, that promises the thrill of discovery that great sci-fi/fantasy delivers. However, like Mainspring, which follows one character across a fascinating landscape only to descend into mysticism by its conclusion, Escapement offers loads of moral dilemmas and action by its ending without any more understanding of the fundamental workings of the universe that kept us reading all along. Knowing that there must be another book to follow would have helped me to understand Escapement's place as a middle book in a trilogy. Now that you know, you may be able to enjoy even more than I did.