The Engineer's Apprentice

by J.R. Martin

This alternate-history steampunk western contains action, adventure, magic, and a mystery that will change the Western Native Lands forever. In 1893 Dallas, Texas, Annie Sakdavong has just graduated top of her class from college as a steam engineer but must still do an apprenticeship with a master steam engineer. No man is willing to take her, and she fears she may have to become a Sword Maiden for a merchant of her father’s choosing when she runs into an African man who wants an apprentice as much as she needs a master, Issa Obasi. One of the premier steam engineers of the age, Issa wants to leave a legacy in the form of apprentices and the publication of groundbreaking research combining rune magic with steam power. These two sources of power are at odds with each other, but Issa sees there could be a better way to unite them. Their world changes when a Native American from the Western Native Lands who can walk through walls comes to steal that research and destroy Issa's laboratory during a fight. After seeking help from the police, Issa and Annie are left to fend for themselves when the police don’t want to help the black man and the Asian woman with the investigation. Now, their adventure takes them to the Western Native Lands while death tolls rise and villains close in on Issa and Annie's life and work. As they get closer to the truth, will they overcome dangerous enemies and their own self-doubts to win the day?

Genres: Fiction

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 20, 2023

About the author

J. R. Martin was born in Texas to military parents. Due to constant travel, they ensured he had plenty of books to read. Soon reading wasn't enough, and he began writing stories of his own. Now you can find him in such collections as Gunfight on Europa Station, released by Baen, and From Planet Texas, With Love and Aliens. He also received an honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest.

His first novel will release in 2023.

Reviews

[Christina Frøkjær · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast and action-packed. A bit too fast for my taste.

The Engineer’s Apprentice blends magic and steampunk for a different take on the detective novel. The primary characters are Issa, a prolific engineer, and Annie, a budding apprentice amid an identity crisis, to take readers down a path to catch a thief and a madman.

The story uses a diverse cast of characters and touches on issues like prejudice, racism, and cultural expectations, while still offering a decent dose of action, adventure, and mystery.

The quick pace of the book, however, seemed to limit how much the individual characters could be developed, leaving them seeming a little two-dimensional. I thought the idea was unique and interesting, but the lack of details surrounding how the characters bring steam, runes, and magic together left me with several distracting questions.

Given that this book is being presented as the first in a series, I hope that further installments will answer those questions, and also allow the author to grow the characters and give them more depth.

Overall, I found it to be a good story with the potential to be a brilliant series.

[Wolfkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so tired. I said to myself I was going to get through it when I started and I keeps my promises.

But it became such a struggle for reasons I don't even understand. I mean in the first place and I don't even know how this happens in book form but two characters get together who have zero chemistry. Which is a weird thing to say because they're not actors. I mean literally on the page I watched suddenly they were getting handsy and I felt confused because I didn't understand why? It reminds me of this show on AmazonPrime I started watching where this emo girl kisses this nerd boy to pretend they weren't hiding in the bushes they were making out because teenagers make out. And there's this scene where it's supposed to be awkward (it was his first kiss) and I wonder so are they a pairing? But then immediately after that every female character is revealed to be a lesbian and I'm just confused about everything. And yet that scene even now is less baffling than every scene of romance in this book.

For all it's description I didn't understand this was an alt-history book. To be fair maybe I was looking at it as steampunk and forgot. But this book, makes. some. choices. Characters meet and develop relationships and THEN they get characterized. Like if you're going to have a world with Master-Apprentice relationships it'd be nice to know how these relationships look BEFORE it happens not after. If you want to have an overly formal style of relationships where someone using a name is considered so informal as to imply something more salacious. Fine. But tell me BEFORE it happens not after.

Shock overtook me when she extended her hand, waiting for Issa to take it

This is what I'm talking about. Here are my notes on that section: The first time I read this sentence I thought it would make more sense once I got some further context down the line. Now that I've had reread the whole passage because it's repeating for some reason, I'm even more confused. Why is she shocked? Is her mother supposed to be an extremely violent creature with no social graces because that seems to jive with the exact paragraph before which she described her mother as a beautiful elegant creature who would destroy in social graces. Every characterization sentence in this book is so confusing and makes bafflingly little sense.

And this comes after it:

My mother had never been one for formalities or pleasantries and the gesture caught me off guard

I honestly can't remember if this explanation sentence followed the first time I read this paragraph, but I kind of feel like this should have gone first. I'm thinking about the sentence structure and how it would read and this definitely should have gone first. first the explanation then the shock as she defies it. maybe some tension as any tenses herself for whatever typical greeting her mom does. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. she doesn't do social graces so what does she do? does she just fight people? does she just do no nonsense talking? I'm very confused. I don't know what to think

I got location sickness in this book which is where I just forget and give up trying to understand where people are. Two people go on a carriage ride to a mansion. They go into the mansion. The third person is presumably left home. So when we go to the third person's POV I'm expecting we're at home but then they're talking with the two who left so I'm confused where this is taking place. Then they're getting dressed and I wonder if this is a flashback. At least three times in this book I thought I was rereading the same chapter or reading a chapter I skipped.

There's a sword maiden which sounds about as cool as it is except she's constantly damseling in weird ways. There's just so many missed opportunities to let her "drilled into her" instincts for combat shine and in my opinion they don't come out often enough.

I could do three more paragraphs of just the random notes I have of things that don't make sense or worse that do make sense in the cringiest way possible. It's not so poorly written that I couldn't finish it like that Time Travel Clock Stopper book but it is so poorly constructed that I didn't want to pick it up again over and over again.

I've finished like 4 anime recently. 61 episodes of something I haven't been able to watch in any sustained manner for like 5 years. It's kinda great actually but my point is I used almost none of that time to read this book because as much as I like reading as much as this has dragged down my goals for the year. It's been a pain. I kind of want to read it again to see if I'm missing something that my current context would help me understand but I can't be bothered.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Lynn Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

So Close to Being Really Really Good…

This book reads like a "Babel"-inspired SFF set in an alternate Old West America. Great concept, ripe for exploring racism against both Black and Native people, sexism (the main characters are a young woman who wants to be an engineer, and her Black mentor), and Manifest Destiny colonialism. And I'm always down for mixing science and technology with magic.

So far so good, and I very much enjoyed the first parts of this novel. Good characters, great concept.

But…

First of all, a concept like this needs to be more fully fleshed out: the reader needs to be filled in on what this world is, and what the rules are. I expect to be confused for the first 30 pages or so of almost any SFF book, but not for the entire book. Laying in the needed exposition gracefully is a difficult job, and in this case I felt like the author was in too much of a hurry to get to the action.

Second: The action. In the second half of the book the rollicking action scenes start feeling a bit too RPG for me. I know a lot of folks like RPG lit, but I find it leads to contrived gameplay-style scenes. There's even a "swing on a rope across a chasm" scene that's straight out of "Star Wars."

Third: Too much clichéd or trite prose. A good solid rewrite would get rid of things like the semi-infinite number of times the heroine blushes, and her heart would not skip beats nearly so often. There's a lot of descriptions of body sensations- heartbeats, exhales, shivers, etc. But the descriptions get very repetitive and lack particularity. There were also a lot of typos in the copy I received, suggesting a good editing would be in order.

And finally, the thing that bothered me most…

Fourth: (SPOILER ALERT) The romance between the young woman apprentice and her mentor made me very uncomfortable. Even if they aren't too far apart in age (we are told very early that the mentor is "young"), there's a power discrepancy in the relationship that simply can't be ignored. "Male teacher and female student fall in love" is a trope way past its sell-by date. Maybe this won't be a problem for most readers, I don't know… but by the end of the book it was a big issue for me.

There's so much promise in this book, and I very much hope the author keeps going with the series.

Full disclosure: I received an advance review copy of this book for free. All opinions expressed here are my own, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Reading Our Shelves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review at: https://readingourshelves.wordpress.c...

This falls into the realm of steampunk, which I haven’t read too much of. One of our main characters, Issa Obasi, is an engineer who uses (and fixes) steam contraptions. Our other character, Annie, is interested in a new trend of trying to create working automatons. She thinks they can combine their ideas to create one that works using steam.

But, that’s just introductory stuff. Not too far in, a Native American man tries to steal some of their plans. This leads them into a different adventure, where they ride into Native lands to find information about this man and what he wants from them.

Within the Native territory is also a Freed Man’s village, where Issa knows people who will help them. Issa’s family is from the African continent, and some of the freed men (and women) have shared roots. Issa’s father – who still lives in Africa – has even visited this village to help them get on their feet.

There are a host of charming supporting characters in here, and a few good scenes spread around. There were two main things that bothered me about the story, though:

First, Issa and Annie inevitably fall in love. Meh.

Second, and probably more important, is that Annie is supposed to be an engineering student working on plans to create automatons. Yet, when they find themselves in a workshop where some are being made, she doesn’t recognize any of the equipment or processes going on around her. In fact, they’re using the plans they stole FROM ANNIE, and she doesn’t see this? Issa has to spell it all out for her.

There was a lot of poor writing in my (advanced reader) copy of this book. I don’t want to make that the focus of the review, because hopefully some of it was cleaned up by its publication date. But I have to note it, just in case it wasn’t. Some of it was really basic stuff that didn’t affect my understanding of the story – mixing up “their” and “there,” for example. One chapter was in there 1.5 times, though. Whoops!

The story within wasn’t perfect, but it has potential. I believe the author intends to write more about these characters. Let’s hope this first foray into this fictitious world “cleans up” well!

[Amy Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and interesting read. Set in an alternate version of late Westward Expansion-era U.S., The Engineer’s Apprentice blends magic and steampunk for a different take on the standard detective novel. J.R.Martin uses Issa, a prolific engineer, and Annie, a budding apprentice in the midst of an identity crisis, to take readers down a path to catch a thief and a madman. The story uses a diverse cast of characters and touches on issues like prejudice, racism, and cultural expectations, while still offering up a decent dose of action, adventure, and mystery. The quick pace of the book, however, seemed to limit how much the individual characters could be developed, leaving them seeming a little two-dimensional. Though I did find the idea unique and interesting, the lack of details surrounding how the characters bring steam, runes, and magic together left me with several distracting questions. Given that this book is being presented as the first in a series, I am hopeful that further installments will answer those questions, and also allow the author to really grow the characters and give them more depth. Overall, I found it to be a good story with the potential to be a great series.

Disclaimer: I received an advance review copy for free, and am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Anna Steenbergen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being both an ardent steampunk enthusiast and author, I find myself easily swept away by the creative musings of my peers. I'm afraid of the inspiration level steampunk novels provide me, so I steer clear of them most of the time. As you see, I succumbed to the temptation of this one. Zero regrets from me!

First, the cover. It sparked my interest. The art is stunning, it just pulls you in. Next up, the characters. I had a great affinity for Issa and Annie and I would love to dig deeper into them. I get it’s a ‘male eye’ approach, but as a writer, I’d do a few things differently. That being said, I grew attached to the characters and am excited to see where their adventures take them next.

And then comes the action. There was so much happening there! I swear, nothing beats a book that leaves me breathless. Last, the idea behind the plot and the creation of the world. How about a story that combines indigenous magic and technology with some extraordinary inventions thrown in? The mere thought makes me feel like a kid in a candy store! My only issue? I wished for more pages. Here's hoping the next volume is thicker.

All in all, Mr. J.R. Martin's book was super enjoyable. Bring on the next chapter!

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An action-adventure novel

What made me pick this book up was intriguing mish-mash of ideas: POC main characters, Asian women who became protectors of their families (female martial artists), people who could walk through walls, a western steampunk setting married with magic!

Ultimately, there was a lot going on in the novel and I ended up with more questions than answers. I didn't really understand why uranium was being mined if they were using steam or runes to power things. I wondered why they would need rat brains to power automatons. I love the POC main characters Issa and Annie, and I wished we could've had more time to examine some of these concepts in depth. This is the first book in a new series, so I hope we spend a little more time on the science and magic in future books and do a more deep dive of the character backstories.

Read the story for the action-adventure and the ideas, but don't expect all questions to be answered at the end of the book.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[William Bentrim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Engineer’s Apprentice by J. R. Martin
A steampunk future USA where racial diversity is barely tolerated. The industrialized eastern seaboard appears to want to extend its borders to the west coast. Industrialization is through uranium-fueled steam technology. The Native Americans have embraced rune magic and used that magic to protect their border. The Freed Men are former slaves who have been accepted into the Native American community. Issa, a master engineer, takes Annie on as an apprentice and they find themselves faced with both political intrigue and personal revenge.
Issa and Annie, discover each has strengths to complement the other. Mrs. Miller, Issa’s housekeeper has a mysterious past and a nurturing nature.
Fascinating inventions and a merging of diverse paths toward the future are accompanied by action and passion.
I found the book interesting and enjoyable. I recommend it.

[TaniaRina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Work *with* nature rather than against it
Our focus should be to seek out improvements on how we live (business, commerce, industry, mining) as well as prevent illnesses to our bodies and the environment.

Family and cultural traditions shape who we are, how we think, choices we make. But do we really need to adhere to them exactly? Could we not revise them a wee bit?
Just because you learned certain skills for specific purposes that you do not follow, does not mean that you should refuse to use them for other reasons.
‘Use all your skills; your enemies will definitely use every resource to stop you.’


The challenge of discoveries in and of themselves is already worth the journey, wouldn’t you say?
May we all use our talents in unforeseen ways in order to improve our lot and our world.

I’ll be cookin’ me up some chorizos, fajitas, roasted corn, and tacos as I wait for a sequel!

[gojenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This alternative Western had good characters who did grow in self-understanding. The story was interesting and drew from real culture and possible activities. I enjoyed the imaginative plot.

That being said, this book cries out for an editor. There are many jarring errors in nomenclature, In grammar, and in continuity. I had to look back several times to see where a name or character originated in the storyline. A good editor could solve these problems and make this story much better.

I appreciate the opportunity to read the ARC.

[Delphia Von Heeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Engineer's Apprentice is book 1 in The Engineer's Saga by J R Martin. I found this book to be very interesting. It is a SiFi fantasy, with interesting characters. Annie is wanting to be an engineer training under Issa. There is unexpected action with a touch of romance. U found tons of surprises and a fast paced story. Can't wait to see what Issa and Annie will get into in book 2. I received an arc for free and am leaving my review voluntarily.

[Jake Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fun steampunk story, but the end twist is obvious, not sure if was even supposed to be a true twist. The romance is fine but not great or particularly compelling, and the plot had a couple issues. What was most compelling was the world constructed by Martin, a great, diverse alternative history set in the post-Civil War era with magic and steampunk. I enjoy intelligent and capable characters too which made this more fun. Certainly a light read, but definitely not a waste of time.

[Brittany Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Engineer’s Apprentice by J. R. Martin is an excellent steampunk magic Sci-Fi fantasy. Carman Seantel did an incredible job with the narration. The story is entertaining, interesting, action packed, exciting, fun, and more. It will leave you in suspense and on the edge of your seat. Amazing character and world development. The Engineer’s Apprentice is the First book in the Engineer’s Saga.

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[X · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was really cool. It started off with an interesting mystery and really took off from there. If you like action and magic with a mix of mystery this is for you.

[Katara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rate this a 3.5. When the others come out I will read them.