Writing is clear, and the world feels interesting.  The voice could use . . . something.  It’s a bit bland.  I kept wanting something eccentric to go with the subject matter, but that could be just me.  Also, there’s a music player that auto-loads on every page.  Very annoying.  Still, if you like Steampunk, it’s worth a look.

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"Steampunk Alchemist" has an interesting premise.  It’s the fictional blog of Ms. Angelica Boron, who claims to be an alchemist and lives in a St. Louis that still has cobblestone streets and horse-drawn carriages amidst steam powered automobiles. 

However, it has a very slow start:  the first chapter is mainly a list of the plants she is putting in her garden, and the second a list of scientific equipment (such as flasks and bunsen burners) that she requires for her experiments and that she is in the midst of unpacking.  Note to fiction writers everywhere:  the beginning of a story is where you hook your readers, for good or ill.  Starting with lists is not a good hook.

Second:  I’m a stickler for format.  If you’re going to write a novel, know the conventions of a novel.  If you’re going to write a blog, study blogs.  Most blogs start with an introduction—"Hi, I’m so and so, from say and say.  I’m interested in such and such.  Welcome to my blog! "  Ms. Boron doesn’t bother to introduce herself in her first archived post, and given her old-fashioned environment and sensibilities, that’s actually bad manners for her time period, let alone blog formats.

Then, there’s the style.  Ms. Boron meets and enigmatic tinker named Mikaeus, who has blue hair and a bowler hat containing a crab with attitude.  Such a figure would ordinarily provoke some interest, but the blog post that features his visit to her house for dinner tells us about his skills at evading questions in their conversation, yet shows not one line of said dialogue.  Pages and pages of internal narration with no actual scenes of actual character interaction makes it very hard to get interested in the story world, because as a reader I felt like I was intentionally distanced from events by the writing style.

The site itself is difficult to navigate.  You either have to directly click links in the archive, or scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click "newer post."  Links to a table of contents and "previous/next" chapter links would make it a lot easier to move around.  Frequent grammatical mistakes make the site less appealing as well.

The study of alchemy is better explored in classic works like "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho that emphasize the discoveries in nature and the spiritual realm behind them.  For a blog about an alchemist, her profession doesn’t play a large part in Ms. Boron’s posts, so in the end it sounds like the humdrum life of a late nineteenth century/early twentieth century spinster. 

The most intriguing development, of a hidden alchemist lab in the attic, is also the least credulous—because the day she discovers it and goes to the police, is the day someone goes in and cleans out the lab while she’s away.  The timing is a little convenient for suspense—how did the thief know she found the attic?  It looked to be abandoned for some time.  Less convenient is how this makes the story less believable—because why didn’t the thief clean the attic out before Ms. Boron moved in?

All in all, "The Steampunk Alchemist" is an interesting premise with some promising characters, but they’re trapped in a plodding style that makes it difficult for me to engage with the text and immerse myself in the story world.

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