By Any Other Name by Michel R. Vaillancourt

Vaillancourt is masterful at capturing a scene, although my tastes are for a story with more sparse description so that you never lose sight of the plot. I liked the format and even the extensive description – Mr. As time goes on his relationships deepen, he becomes immersed in the life on the ship and he eventually becomes torn between the life he has built there versus his duty to his family and his need to return to them. Sauder has a very noble and gentlemanly outlook on life, which affects his interaction with others, particularly the ladies. Then, he faces his first exposure to battle. He also starts learning the ship politics and what is needed to fit in. He starts making friends and allies on the ship, such as his supervisor, Arietta, whom he also finds attractive, and the doctor who helped restore him to health. The story follows our hero who finds himself on an airship, somewhat involuntarily recruited to its crew after he has recovered from injuries. The story is well thought out, his writing style is both comfortable and nevertheless gripping, and his characters are multi-dimensional, realistically flawed, and delightful. Vaillancourt that he should seriously consider having his book published.

I read this first novel in The Sauder Diaries series chapter by chapter, before it had been published in ebook form, and despite not being a usual reader of steampunk, I truly enjoyed the adventures of Mr. As well, Hans is perpetually dogged by a deep conflict between his sense of morals and duty to his family, and the challenges and adventure of this new life he has discovered. Confronted with a choice to either join the crew or be tossed overboard into the most volatile wilds of Europe, Hans reluctantly steps into the role of a pirate.Īs he is given the kind of education no university could have prepared him for, Hans finds himself at the center of a paradoxical world, where the Captain conducts piracy with a gentleman's keen business sense, the most lethal crew members are the women, and the dark underbelly of a 'peaceful' Europe is exposed at every turn.Īs the story unfolds, Hans' new life is further complicated by the romantic advances of the leader of the ship's gunner-marines, a ruthless and no-nonsense woman with a chip on her shoulder. While en route to University to study engineering, his airship is waylaid by the nefarious pirate ship The Bloody Rose.

Living amidst this vivid, turbulent clockwork world is Hans Sauder, a gentleman's son and German expat. Airships and clockwork mechanisms are the technology of the future, mad scientists and engine-driven dragons run rampant, and Russia stands tall as the supermenace overshadowing the world. A pirate-infused steampunk world, rooted in the historical fabric of Victorian Europe, in which the Crimean War ended with a stalemate and not a victory.

By Any Other Name by Michel R. Vaillancourt