Clockwork Sister by M E Rodman is the sixth release in the Luna Novella series by Luna Press Publishing.
This is an ambitious novella which crams a fantasy novel’s worth of worldbuilding into a small space. The story follows Aeon a simulacra, a creation of flesh and clockwork magically combined to protect their rich human’s from the attacks of curse workers. Aeon is an identical copy of Mara, princess of the Tamyin Empire. When Mara dies Aeon is marked for unmaking. After a botched attempt to euthanise her, she is taken in by a family of rogue simulacra living in the city slums. When one of the rogues dies it uncovers a vast conspiracy at the heart of the empire in which Aeon is inextricably ensnared.
I really enjoyed this and it’s a nice, quick read. The world and characters are fairly developed but I couldn’t help but feel that they deserved more space. For example the variety of the different types of simulacra could have been expanded upon in subsequent trips to the same world. The very depth of the world was almost too rich for the page count. But maybe that just shows that I was left wanting more once the final page was turned?
Rodman is obviously going to be a writer to watch.
petewsutton 