by
Alyssa's father wants her to settle down and become a happy wife and mother, as befitting a woman from one of the noble Houses, but Alyssa has other ideas: she wants to be an inventor. Her first invention, the crystal-powered teacup warmer, has earned her an invitation to study at the Institute and she accepts, hoping to meet her personal heroine Lady Isabelle and to be herself outside the confines of her rigid upbringing.
Left disappointed when Lady Isabelle proves to be dismissive, Alyssa is soon captivated anew by Prince Artan, who hides a secret himself and teaches Alyssa far more than the technology she's come to study. But relationships between teachers and students are forbidden by the Institute, and they aren't the only ones who will suffer should they get caught.
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genres:
Pairings: Includes NB
Heat Level: 2
Romantic Content: 4
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Bisexual, Genderqueer, Transgender
Protagonist 1 Age: 18-25
Protagonist 2 Age: 26-35
Tropes: Coming Out / Closeted, Find Love and Come Out
Word Count: 10000
Setting: The Insititute
Languages Available: English
The Institute loomed before me like a veritable palace, its gardens lush and green, hydrangeas and violets in vibrant bloom adorning neatly dug flowerbeds. I passed through great cast iron gates with haste, the driver directing the carriage at my command. Gravel crunched beneath the horses’ hooves and the carriage bumped slightly as it drew to a halt.
I inhaled deeply, suddenly self-conscious about my mode of dress. My overalls were clean but hardly the kind of attire I should attend the Institute in. Father had been right when he said I should wear a dress, but the frilly pink monstrosity the servants of our house pulled from the garderobe almost made me weep in horror. In my defense, I had tried to don the gown, only to feel like a stranger in my own body. The mirror reflected an unfamiliar face back at me and I recoiled, finding the lie I’d borne in silence for years too much to endure any longer.
READ MOREI tore the dress off and grabbed my overalls as my maid protested, her offense a shrill discord in my ear. My undershirt fit like a glove, my pants following soon after, followed by the loose overalls. The faint scent of grease lingered in the air, and it smelled like home, a far cry from the eye-watering perfumes Father had chosen for the occasion. I grabbed my goggles and fled from the house before he could inspect me, pressing an extra twopenny piece into the coachman’s hand to make haste from the grounds. I tied my hair into a neat bun with my own hands, long used to doing things for myself without the brood of maids who wanted to make me a ‘proper’ lady.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the high society lady Father wanted me to be. That’s why I was at the Institute in the first place—trying to maintain some sense of honor for our house. It was clear to see that I wasn’t going to be a good wife, and so the only hope I could have of avoiding shame on our family name was to enter the realm of academia. I had applied to the Institute, sending them a small invention I had been working on: a heated cup that used crystal power to keep tea at its proper temperature. The crystal mines had seen an unprecedented yield over the past few years, and now a resource that was once rare and expensive was falling into the hands of common folk. It opened a whole new world of invention for me, and that was when I knew I couldn’t deceive others any longer if I wanted to be happy.
I was not a lady, a mother, or a wife. I was an inventor, my only children the ideas that took form and shape in mechanisms that improved the lives of ordinary people. The heated cup was just the beginning. I had vast swathes of ideas, the gate opening wider with every crystal that fell into my possession. Father would buy me jewelry and trinkets, hoping to make me attractive to men, and I would strip them for the blue glowing stones, causing him to sigh heavily and shake his head. He had told me—many times—that I was eschewing a life of comfort with these lofty ideas, and yet I saw in his eyes a slight glimmer of pride when he laid eyes on my creations. He had protested when I had told him my plans to apply to the Institute, but in the end, he relented—although not before every hair on his head was silver.
“You should have been my son,” Father had said, his eyes tired. “Fate makes cruel choices, sometimes. You will never be happy, trapped between two worlds as you are. The world does not understand such things.”
“I am happy, Father,” I said. “Just as long as I can be myself. That is all that matters to me.” I clenched my hand into a fist. “I don’t need the world to understand. I just need the freedom to do as I will.”
COLLAPSEVictoria Zagar’s newest book, The Crystal Cage, is a wonderfully enjoyable work of pulp fiction. Queer pulp fiction. Want me to say that again? You won’t hear it often. Here goes…
Queer pulp fiction.
And it’s respectfully queer pulp fiction. This is no Annie-Proulx-style “gay-because-it’s-hot” paperback written by-straights-for-straights. This is stuff that you can have a glass of wine to (or several) and read right through from front to back in a sitting. Then you can close the book, smile to yourself, and start it over again.
That’s what I did, anyway.
The Crystal Cage is the story of Alyssa Stoke, a young noblewoman whose queerness consistently bucks the trends of her society and makes her life difficult (as, after all, queerness is wont to do). Where her father expects her to marry some rich nobleman, settle down to her “wifely duties,” and pop out a nice litter of grandbabies, Alyssa just wants to be an inventor and allowed to pursue her scholarly interests in peace. With this goal in mind, she flees her childhood home for The Institute (it has no other name), which serves as a university for young inventors foraying into new crystal-powered technologies (this is steampunk, after all—what beats crystal-powered machines?). There awaits danger, secrets, political intrigue, and romance.
Seriously, this book has it all.
It took me awhile to get into it. Zagar writes in a roughly Victorian voice that comes off a little stilted, a little self-serious, and I had to hang on for a chapter or two to really get into the swing of it. The plot’s about as watertight as a sieve and hits every character and genre trope in the book (no pun intended). But if you can let yourself get caught up in it, Crystal Cage will sweep you up in a cheesy, romantic, rollicking adventure of the sort that just isn’t available to a queer audience most of the time. I know there are devotees of trashy fantasy and trashy romance out there. This book is for them. It may be especially fun read aloud in a group.
In and amongst the steampunk cliches and good-natured corniness are scattered moments of real emotional truth. While they never quite succeed at bringing the protagonists to life, I found myself relating to the characters as they grapple with the complexities of gender and the artificial boundaries of societal expectations. The only real downside (I enjoyed the book too much to hold the above flaws against it) is a little iffiness regarding the treatment of the male lead, a transman. If I were a transman, I might find myself side-eyeing this character’s backstory. I might question whether or not being trans is an appropriate dark and tragic past. Still, from my admittedly outside perspective (not being a transman myself), I felt that the characters handled this reveal when it came around with appropriate empathy and respect. Of course, I would love to hear the opinions of trans readers on this topic, and I hope Zagar would, too.
This is not a work of high literature. Your understanding of life will not be deepened. Your humanity will undergo no notable enrichment, and if you are an aspiring writer, I encourage you to study elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a good fun time with no triggers, something a little YA-leaning and a little ridiculous, look no farther. Read this book. Then have another glass of wine and read it again, this time with voices.
