Murder on the Titania & Other Steam-Powered Adventures

by Alex Acks

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 286
Rating:

Synopsis:

Captain Marta Ramos, the most notorious pirate in the Duchy of Denver, has her hands full between fascinating murder mysteries, the delectable and devious Deliah Nimowitz, Colonel Geoffrey Douglas (the Duke of Denver’s new head of security), a spot of airship engineering and her usual activities: piracy, banditry and burglary. Not to mention the horror of high society tea parties. In contrast, Simms, her second in command, longs only for a quiet life, filled with tasty sausages and fewer explosions. Or does he? Join Captain Ramos, Simms and their crew as they negotiate the perils of air, land and drawing room in a series of fast-paced adventures in a North America that never was.

Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures includes 4 novellas and a short story about piracy, banditry, burglary, jail-breaking, several brilliant bits of detective work and all manner of otherwise lawless hijinks performed by the valiant Captain Ramos and her crew.

Alex Acks’ Murder on the Titania is a collection of shorts featuring the same two main characters: Captain Marta Ramos and her second-in-command, Simms. They’re pirates and thieves, but Captain Ramos has an interest in murder — solving it, not committing it. The first story is rather oddly from a different third-person limited point of view, and sits a bit oddly with the others where the hero is more clearly Marta, though it doesn’t make for a bad introduction to the world.

It’s a fun enough collection of stories, with a bit of the Sherlock Holmes archetype about Marta Ramos, though Simms doesn’t quite fit into the Watson mould.

The world around the story is kind of sketched in, which was a bit disappointing. There’s clearly some stuff going on there and thoughts that have gone into it, but… we don’t see a lot of it.

Very distracting to have a Duke of Denver, by the way. That’s Lord Wimsey, y’know — and Gerald is an ass, but he’s not that much of an ass. Peter simply wouldn’t allow it.

Rating: 3/5