The Brazen Android

by William Douglas O'Connor

In this alternate history, Roger Bacon builds a steampowered android capable of speech. Bacon wants to use it to visit the venal king Henry III, and convince to make an agreement with Simon de Monfort, an early proponent of democracy. Too bad Bacon falls afoul of the superstitious Paduan master, Malestri, who sees the brass android as demonic, and fears that it will give rise to a new race of brass men who will rise up and replace flesh-and-blood humans.

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1891

Reviews

[Corbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walt Whitman's best friend decides to write a libertarian steampunk story about alchemy and royal intrigues. Unfortunately, Walt's influence manifests as an overabundance of nouns.

Dear sir, if you will accept a humble word of advice: if a short story takes forty pages to get its plot launched, you're doing it wrong.

[VexenReplica · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Does one call it steampunk if it was written in the steam era?)

Skip the first two parts unless you want a refresher on English history. The ending was kind of janky and the story mostly just ended rather than having a conclusion. The rest was really solid, especially for being written in 1891!

Audiobook was okay. Narrator did some great stuff in part 6 but I was half-paying attention in the first two parts because the topic and the voice was not conducive to me focusing.

Some of the stuff is really zany and out there. It's definitely a science fantasy book with a bit of alt his thrown in. Has some aging issues that don't exactly hold up to a modern audience.

It certainly isn't the best piece of proto-sf (or the worst, for that matter), but it's solid for what it is.