Galvanic Century

Galvanic Century is set in an alternate steampunk world where the reign of Queen Victoria has extended well into the early 20th century. As the world edges inexorably towards a World War that few can even begin to anticipate, brave men and women must contend with airship pirates, clockwork assassins, galvanic monsters, and anarchist madmen.

Inventor James Wainwright’s greatest desire is to be left alone in his workshop, where he can focus on invention and engineering unsullied by the messiness of London society and the meaningless concerns of its upper classes. His financial patron, gentleman Alton Bartleby, has higher aspirations. To continue to receive funding James will have to venture out into the outside world as a detective, turning his inventive genius to the creation of new forensic technologies.

Bartleby and James is a steampunk mystery collection that tells the story of the detectives’ foray into private investigation.

London society holds many expectations for gentlewoman Aldora Fiske. Despite her great proficiency at the great game of the social season, Ms. Fiske chafes at the restrictions her social position holds for her. It’s only far from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of London parlors that she can truly live the life that she craves.

She’ll find adventure with pirates high above the London streets, in the far off jungles of Mexico, and in the heart of the aging Ottoman Empire.

At long last, gentleman detective Alton Bartleby is set to wed his fiance of almost a decade, Aldora Fiske. The wedding is off to a rough start with the bride still recovering from a kidnapping in the middle-east and the groom showing up drunk, and matters only get worse when powerful half-man half-automatons mount an assault on the ceremony.

While Aldora protects the guests barricaded in her ancestral home, it’s up to Bartleby and his detective partner James to discover the source of this menace and discern the cogsmen’s weakness… or forever hold their peace under an unending assault of brass and flesh.

With his partner married, brilliant engineer James Wainwright is at a loose end. When Scotland Yard asks for help with a hostage situation at a mental hospital, he’s only too eager to lend a hand – particularly after he meets the winsome Doctor Loni Teague.

His partner socialite Bartleby, however, has a personal connection – Bedford is the institution into which he had his embarrassment of a father committed a decade ago, and now the old man has asked for him personally. The director, Paddock, has been murdered, and Bartleby the elder won’t relinquish the asylum until the true killer has been found.

The Galvanic Century series showcases a world where Queen Victoria rules an empire of steam from an iron throne well into the 20th century. It’s a world where airships ply the skies and inventors cobble together monsters and wonders in their workshops. A world where were all the scientific fever dreams of the Victorian era – animal magnetism, galvanic resurrection, rare ether – are manifest.

A world marching inexorably towards a great war that will rock the earth to its very foundations.

The Steampunk Omnibus collects the first four Galvanic Century books into one collection.