Description: 1862: Albertian Britain is in the grip of conflicting forces. Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labour; Libertines oppose restrictive and unjust laws and flood the country with propaganda demanding a society based on beauty and creativity; while The Rakes push the boundaries of human behaviour to the limits with magic, sexuality, drugs and anarchy. "Sir Richard Francis Burton and poet Algernon Swinburne's investigation into a theft of black diamonds, ultimately embroiling them in the affairs of a dubious claimant, supposedly the heir of a cursed estate...is deliciously entertaining." -- Steampunk Scholar
Review Quotes:
"The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man" (A+, highly recommended) is an excellent book... the author also expands considerably the universe of the series in terms of the "big picture" which is another huge plus and the mixture of SF and steampunk continues to work well in terms of coherence and suspension of disbelief." Fantasy Book Critic