Ready for book three!

A great continuation with well-developed characters that I've been rooting for since book one. I hope the series continues, following the story of Jin Soling and Chen Chang-wei, because these two are dynamic and make a perfect pairing in the conflicts facing the Qing empire. There seems like so much story left to tell.

A terrific sequel to 'Gunpowder Alchemy' - can hardly wait for more because I do love Soling Jin.

It's hard to be the second book in a trilogy. You have the "gee whiz!" excitement of new worldbuilding in the first novel, a resolution of conflict in the third, but the second book has to do the heavy lifting with little of the glory.

Despite these limitations, Clockwork Samurai carries the load and advances The Gunpowder Chronicles as the action shifts from China to Japan. Both nations are confronting Western interference, paralleling events in our own world in the 19th c. However in this universe, the Asian powers have airships and mechanical automatons and opium zombies and more.

New characters are introduced, old characters re-emerge, and the excitement is heightened as the groundwork is laid for an East vs. West confrontation in the next novel. Readers are well advised to start with Gunpowder Chronicles #1 while the rest of us eagerly await the next volume.

Loved this one even more. Please tell me that there will be #3 sooner or later. I need to get my happy ending!

I didn't like this as much as the first book in the series, although it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. Part of it is I found the first chapter or so, where Soling is under constant threat of assault from the Emperor, very stressful to read. She gets out of that situation, but that's kind of the last time she has agency in the plot. The rest of the story has her dragged along on Chang-wei's mission, and Chang-wei himself doesn't have a lot of control of the situation. Soling comes off as much more passive than in the first book, and I suppose that is what diminished my enjoyment.

While historical romances are not normally my reading preference...when it's by Jeannie Lin, it's a given I'll be reading it.

The beauty of the world building, the steampunk aspect of both Japan and China just really works for me.

A few minor editing problems near the end, or maybe just an awkward sentence structure.

If you have a chance to read the Gunpowder Alchemy books, do so. Also, go find Butterfly Swords...you'll thank me later!

Lin's straightforward and elegant prose paints a stunning picture of an alternate history powered by clockwork and steampunk technology. Highly recommend for those tired of Western-centric steampunk stories.

The second installment in literally the only steampunk series I enjoy. Set in alt-China and Japan during the Opium Wars, with magnificent worldbuilding and imagination, politics and plottery and the ongoing slow burn love affair of Soling and Chang-wei, which is now being complicated by moral and cultural disputes over the right way forward for China as it struggles against Western imperialism and the weight of tradition. Lovely and complex, vivid and engrossing, plus mechanical samurai. I do hope there will be more.