Title: Arbeitskraft
Author: Nick Mamatas
In: The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (Sean Wallace)
Rating Out of 5: 3 (On the fence about this one)
My Bookshelves: Steampunk
Dates read: 19th February 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2008
5th sentence, 74th page: A great buzzing rose up from the device and a flickering illumination filled the room.

Is it the time for a revolution? Or is this mad man just another over-privileged man from the upper class, trying to enforce his own ideals?

I enjoyed the fact that this short story was split into a series of almost interconnected chapters and stories. They create one long journey, but they also have a series of smaller moments that can be read independently of one another. I don’t often enjoy chapters (and so many chapters) in a short story. But Mamatas worked this perfectly and I almost found it more difficult to put the story down because of the stop-start flow of the tale.

The part of this story that struck me most heavily is that although the protagonist is trying to bring about change for the better, he’s not really doing it in all that great-a-way. First of all, he’s trying to bring about change and equality when he’s part of the upper class. He’s also forcing people to conform to his view of thinking and not listening to theirs. It’s forcing his ideas of equality on others and not actually listening to their views – which isn’t any kind of form of equality really.

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Image source: Amazon