Cibola's Promise: A Western Steampunk Adventure

by Erin Lausten

Legends inspire feats beyond imagination. Where good and evil are a matter of perception. Are you brave enough to follow The Marvelous MacHurdyGurdy Traveling Show through gritty mining towns and barren desert on a quest to meet their destiny? Discover the Promise with a remarkable cast of characters...

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2012

About the author

Erin Lausten is a woman of many talents and seemingly varied hobbies. From expert researcher to creative dancer there is not much that she hasn't dabbled in. She not only enjoys history, but seeks to find different avenues to reconstruct it.

Her life is as busy and fast paced as her books. Working as an archeologist and research librarian in the recent past, Erin has a unique view of the world. She sees all the possibilities that can be and doesn't accept the limited scope accepted by society. Her favorite question is "Why not?" Join her, if only for a story or two, in her flights of fancy and 'what if' scenarios.

Reviews

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Pinkertons' in airships.

[Tarl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lausten has crafted an interesting weird west/steampunk novel here with a series of unique characters. I actually had to waver between 2-3 stars for this review, and settled on 2 stars after finishing this review.

The landscape and world building within this novel was exceptionally handled, crafting a realistic world. Everything from the towns to the Pinkerton's airship was painted in such a way that the reader is engaged and entertained. As the characters travel a fair bit within this novel, this works in the story's favor, and Lausten's strength really shines through.

However, the characters are another story. Even though Lausten has done a really good job with the characters, making them unique, engaging and fairly in depth, the way she has constructed the story in this novel negates those elements. Throughout this novel, the reader jumps from character to character to character in an interconnected journey. While this has worked with other novels, it does not work for this one as the reader does not have enough time to connect to the characters before completely different ones are thrust upon them.

And then at the very end of the novel, nothing has actually happened. There is no resolution to the entire quest of what has been going on, instead leaving it to occur in later books. This would be good, except that since there is no real resolution of any plot element in this novel, the reader is left frustrated and more annoyed if anything.

Lastly, at the very end of the book, there is a note from the author about how this book came about due to a brainstorm session before a convention. This explained a lot in regards to the feel of this story and how it reads. It very much feels like a brainstorm session that needed to be hashed out a bit more.

Others have obviously enjoyed this novel, as shown by the ratings and reviews on this page. For me, it just felt too chaotic and had no real payoff by the end of the story. You don't really get to spend a lot of time with the characters, and any uniqueness is lost because of this. If you are looking for a steampunk western novel, this may be for you, but I would recommend a number of other novels before I would this one simply based off the lack of any sort of ending to this novel.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a southwest native I really enjoyed the alternative history take set in my own stomping grounds.

Character development is good and the author sprinkles the pages with crumbs of information making you want to read more.

This book was a nice way to dip my tie in the genre if steam punk.

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a different take of the West. I was taken back by the unexpected twists.