Overclocked On Caffeine v.1.1

Al Ewing - Pax Britannia: El Sombra

291 pages

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, I can sell you this book on the strength of two words and two words alone. Two words that will make anything and everything you're currently reading seem like mind-numbingly boring trash. Two words that, in my utterly humble opinion, should be in every book known to man.

Steampunk Zorro

What's that you say? Not enough for you? Really? Okay then, time to break out the big guns - three more words that, quite frankly, can't fail to make anything awesome, and when added to something that's already that goddamn awesome, threaten to collapse the book into a singularity of condensed magnificence:

Fights Nazi Robots

If none of that moves you, then I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure there's no hope left for you. I'm afraid the diagnosis is terminal wasting of the awesome gland, you have no chance to escape, make your time.

El Sombra is set in an alternate reality where Britain came out of the Second World War stronger than ever. This is a world where Britain is a land of dirigibles, steam-powered robots in every house. This is a world where They Saved Hitler's Brain, and put it in the body of a three-story-high brass and copper monstrosity, a steam-powered behemoth with a voice made of broken glass and nightmares. Of course, most of this is only vaguely alluded to (with the exception of the Hitlerbot 9000), as the book takes place in the Mexican town of Pasito. The Reich, weakened, but still very much alive, invades the sleepy town on the eve of a wedding. Most of the wedding party is massacred, the Nazis setting up shop in the town for some unknown, yet nefarious purpose. Only one man manages to escape, running off into the desert, driven insane by the carnage. Nine years later, and the subjugation of the town is almost complete, the townspeople firmly under the thumb of Generaloberst Eisenberg and his son Alexis. A critical mission is nearing completion. Just the perfect time for a masked man with the remarkable ability to ruin everyone's plans to walk out of the desert...

Let's be honest. When it comes to bad guys, it's hard to top the Nazis. They're probably the last major force in the world that you can point to and say 'yeah, those guys are dicks' without any unfortunate implications. And they're so easy to write when it comes to horror and steampunk. When you consider the desperately batshit plans they considered and very nearly initiated on more than one occasion, it doesn't require too much of a suspension of disbelief to consider them rolling out gigantic transforming coal-powered tanks, or signing infernal pacts with the underworld for just a little extra power - science and mysticism were two of the main pillars of their organisation, after all. So we have literal airmen of the Luftwaffe, taking to the skies on wingpacks made of the wonder metal cavorite, gigantic sandcrawlers winding their way across the desert bringing supplies and troops, and the pre-requisite steam-powered automaton, a huge combat robot with a blazing furnace at its heart, which it always has to keep stoked (wood, paper, people, it's not entirely fussy).

The Nazis themselves are an interesting bunch. Cannon fodder are, as to be expected, dropped with the regularity you'd expect. Except the writer has taken it upon himself to give almost each and every one their own little story. And these aren't a couple of lines talking about how their last thoughts were of their mother, or how they never saw it coming, oh no, it's a couple of paragraphs, easy, sometimes a page or two, detailing their life story, their career in the Ultimate Reich. Two soldiers early on, we're told, share a dreadful secret, something so very despicable. Yet the story makes it a point never to tell us what the secret was, despite making a point of mentioning that, in their dying moments, they so desperately wanted to tell someone, anyone, their dark tale, thus utterly negating the whole point. It's interesting, but it doesn't exactly do much to humanise El Sombra's enemies, since the majority of them are painted as being a sadistic bunch of cutthroats and bastards to a man. It does add a nice aspect to the story (even if we're shown almost nothing about the civilians by comparison), but considering how little we're actually told about this world - for the bigger picture, you have to read the other books in the series: bad form considering this was one of the first books released in this line - I couldn't help but think it's prose that would've been better spent world-building. Hell, I didn't even know it was set in more modern times til a throwaway line about 3/4 of the way through about Andy Warhol!

Then we come to the man himself, El Sombra, a hero right out of a pulp novel from the 1950s. Barefoot and bare-chested, dressed in only a pair of ragged trousers and a bloodstained sash for a mask, armed with only a sword, his wits, an uncanny aim and a lunatic laugh as he runs headlong into danger. The man pulls off stunts that in any other book would have me frowning in disbelief. Yet in this one, it's only fitting that he should be so insanely over the top. As mentioned earlier, he's plainly modelled after Zorro, and as such, it's only right that he should be able to kill a dozen men armed with only a handful of stones. Some things just need to be so. The author seems to have something of a fetish for blisters, however, as we're constantly told about him accruing them on his hands and feet. Unsurprising when you consider he walks around virtually (and literally at one point) naked, but it seems to happen every time he goes anywhere anything the wrong side of 'warm'. Yes, Mr. Ewing, we know, hot things burn, can you stop reminding us of this now please?

El Sombra, despite the lack of broad detail, is still a fantastic book, a modern-day slice of pulp with a devil-may-care hero. There's some great moments and references - Nick Fuhrer, Agent of S.T.U.R.M. being a particular favourite - many delivered with a knowing wink in the audience's direction. The book ends with the promise of a follow-up: El Sombra Punches Mecha-Hitler In The Face. I pray it never arrives, because if this book is any indication, the world may not survive the fallout of a punch so almighty, it'd make Captain Falcon look like the tired meme he really is.