Enter a world where genetic engineering began in the Victorian Era, world-changing devices are introduced almost daily, and an explorer and poet form an unlikely partnership to counter unlikely threats to the public good.
"Sir Richard Francis Burton--explorer, linguist, scholar, and swordsman; his reputation tarnished; his career in tatters; his former partner missing and probably dead.
Algernon Charles Swinburne--unsuccessful poet and follower of de Sade; for whom pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin!
They stand at a crossroads in their lives and are caught in the epicenter of an empire torn by conflicting forces: Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier, and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labor; Libertines oppose repressive laws and demand a society based on beauty and creativity; while the Rakes push the boundaries of human behavior to the limits with magic, drugs, and anarchy.
The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.
Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn t exist at all!" - from the book jacket, Book 1
The Burton & Swinburne series by Mark Hodder offers readers a dark alternate London in a rapidly changing steampunk world. Rich with period detail and with surprises around every corner, this series takes readers on quite a ride. On a steam-powered carriage. And an ornithopter. And a giant spider.
The series also features appearances by such real historical characters as Aleister Crowley, Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, H.G. Wells, and Oscar Wilde.
1. The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (2010)
2. The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man (2011)
3. Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (2012)
Readers may also enjoy these other steampunk works:
- Gail Carriger - Parasol Protectorate series. Cheeky, saucy fun in an alternate Victorian London where werewolves control the Army, vampires are Lords, and ghosts and amazing machinery are commonplace.
- Steven Harper - Clockwork Empire series
- George Mann - Newbury & Hobbes Investigation series
- Kenneth Oppel - Matt Cruse series. Classic 'midshipman' stories, on airships! Highly recommended for readers of all ages who enjoy old-fashioned adventure.
- Cherie Priest - Clockwork Century series
- Mike Resnick - The Doctor and the Kid: A Weird West Tale. Doc Holliday up against Billy the Kid, with Thomas Edison supplying wondrous technology!
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