Randolph "Dilda" Carter

I'll try to review this thing but it is really difficult because it crosses so many genres: steampunk, sf, gothic horror, feminist, alternate history, religious, and that is just the start.

Rupetta is not an android (or more properly, a gyndroid) but a clockwork woman built by another human woman in the 17th century in presumably what we would call France. She is fully sentient and even eats and drinks. She has to be "wound" by a Wynder periodically or she runs down. Being a Wynder is way complicated. She has a flawed, as in mostly broken, sister who will become important later. Their plans are burned by her maker Eloise after she realizes what she has done, Viktor Frankenstein-like. Nobody knows how to make another Rupetta, ever.

A religion of sorts is built around Rupetta, not of her making. She becomes a Christ-like figure through no intention of her own. The religion is basically that knowledge leads to immortality. Like all religions, it becomes perverted with a false Rupetta, Penitents and Fallen Penitents, Obanites, and the Oikos community that eschews the concept of immortality completely. Rupetta has a child, yes a conceived not built child, that is partly organic and partly clockwork, who is also immortal.

Obanites aspire to the "Transformation" which will make them semi-immortal by replacing their organic heart with a Rupettan clockwork heart. Transformation doesn't always work and the patient dies. These are considered heretics, but there are Obanite non-believers that are considered heretics too. They are cruelly persecuted and often "disappear" a la 1984.

Enough plot summary, you get the idea, very complicated and dense at times.

Alternate chapters are narrated by Rupetta in a chronological order (The Rupettan Annals). The alternate chapters are narrated by Henrietta Bellmer, an aspiring Obanite Historian in present time, or what passes for the equivalent of present time, in the story. Henrietta is mainly interested in studying the Salt Lane women, Oikos heretics, for her thesis leading to Transformation (you gotta earn it). Her Dad hates the idea because Henri's mother did not survive Transformation.

This is all comin' together in "present time" but you have no idea how. Mysterious and often confusing along the way, it makes sense in the end. I found myself having to go back and reread passages when a little phrase would tweak my brain into partially remembering what I thought was an unimportant small detail earlier in the narrative, particularly across the two narratives.  This is a book that enriches with more than one reading.

Sulway's prose is evocative and full of metaphor. The Rupetta and Henri sections have distinct voices and could almost be different novels until they come together.

This is a woman's book, meaning a book with a primarily feminine cast. The alternate history is largely matriarchal and the good and the bad are mainly driven by women. It is a distinctly different literary construct from the largely male driven sf novel. All the males here are significantly weaker than the females. Rupetta is even constructed using mainly traditional female "crafts."

Rupetta is out of print as a hardcover. It was limited to 300 copies. Mine came signed by the author even though Tartarus Press did not advertise it as such. Maybe they were all signed. Tartarus will reprint as a paperback in March and the e-book is always available as well. I actually read the Kindle book because I don't like handling the limited editions, especially signed ones.

If this review is more confusing than worthwhile, just remember the important thing: I gave it five-stars.

This book won the 2013 James Tiptree Jr. Award.