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Reviewed by Saifunnissa Hassam for Readers' Favorite
B. J. Sikes' The Archimedean Heart (Book 1 of the Roboticist of Versailles) is a fascinating, suspense-filled story that interweaves historical and steampunk science fiction. The story is set in 1880 in Paris. France is a prosperous country with weather control machines and abundant harvests. It is also a land of automatons and clockwork nobility, augmented with artificial hearts, enameled faces, and wheels in place of feet. Adelaide Coumain is the Royal Physician scientist and roboticist working on an automaton Dauphin to replace the aging augmented King and Queen of France. John and Henri are brothers who are both gifted artists. John paints portraits of nobility. His older brother Henri is an acclaimed artist whose paintings show ordinary people in Paris's hustle and bustle of city life. The story twists and turns when Henri joins the Naturalist movement to restore the real Dauphin to the throne.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Archimedean Heart. I particularly enjoyed the character development and the highly imaginative world-building of automation in late 19th-century Paris. I liked how the multiple facets of the story develop through the characters of the brothers and artists John and Henri, as well as Adelaide, the roboticist at Versailles. Through the well-crafted dialogues and evocative settings, I could imagine the artificial nature of Versailles and its augmented nobility. The drama of John's interactions with the nobles at court reveals his inner struggles as an artist, painting enameled faces, and his status as a commoner. I liked how the brothers' different styles and perspectives of art emerged and, at the same time, their camaraderie and closeness. Their character development reveals the profound differences between Versailles' luxurious world and the ordinary Parisians' impoverished lives. The suspense and tension rise dramatically when John and Henri are thrown into turmoil by a movement that seeks to free France from an augmented monarchy. The story gained great depth through the complex character of Adelaide. B. J. Sikes' The Archimedean Heart is an excellent novel with remarkable characters and thought-provoking themes of freedom and automation.
