Perhaps a novel about a chess-playing automaton is not your ideal storyline. There was no sudden, modern epiphany of 'And so, the dwarf realized Jews really were okay after all!' - it just sort of quietly happens behind scenes, which I felt was much more realistic for the time period. Gradually they're thrown together enough that he comes to tolerate him and eventually they became close friends. At first the dwarf was really freaked out by the fact the guy was Jewish, and found all sorts flaws and annoyances in his character, and tried to avoid him. The one thing I did think was handled well was the dwarf's friendship with a Jewish craftsman who had helped to build the automaton. I had to put it down halfway through because the plot was plodding along far too predictably. The main character is a dwarf who is a chess genius, and the real brains behind the automaton, but he is just as dull a character as the rest, vacillating between mindless religiosity and mindless sexual appetite. It takes a wonderful story from history - the making of a chess-playing automaton, which was in reality an elaborate hoax - and turns it into a textbook thriller, with characters who aren't particularly interesting or memorable, and without any of the whimsy or steampunk one would hope to get out of such a topic. Too bad the book itself is such a disappointment. It's an excellent cover, to be fair - all revolving cogs and wheels and jubilant aristocrats striking curious poses.

I tried very hard to get into this, because, frankly, I had judged this book by its cover. But when a beautiful and seductive countess dies under mysterious circumstances in the presence of the automaton, the Mechanical Turk falls under a cloud of suspicion, and the machine and his inventor become the target of espionage, persecution, and aristocratic intrigue. The crowds all across Europe adore the Turk, and the success of Baron von Kempelen seems assured. Von Kempelen and his helpers tour his remarkable invention all around Europe to amaze and entertain the public, but despite many valiant attempts and close calls, no one is able to beat the extraordinary chess machine. The chess machine is secretly operated from inside by the Italian dwarf Tibor, a God-fearing social outcast whose chess-playing abilities and diminutive size make him the perfect accomplice in this grand hoax. But what the Habsburg court hails as the greatest innovation of the century is really nothing more than a brilliant illusion.

Vienna 1770-Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen unveils a strange and amazing invention, the Mechanical Turk, a sensational and unbeatable chess-playing automaton.

The Chess Machine by Robert Löhr