Between my recent honeymoon and long weekend over the Fourth of July, I had time to actually read a novel. Woo! Man, I really enjoyed it. I happen to be just about the world’s slowest reader because I don’t read 100% linearly. I’m always flipping back to reread references and make sure I get the gist of what’s going on. So I always struggle to make my way through novels.

But while on the honeymoon in Asheville, we stopped by Malaprops Books to browse around and pass some time. They had a whole bookshelf dedicated to top picks in steampunk, including one of the earliest examples of modern steampunk, Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, the man generally considered to have coined the term, though he pushes back on that claim in the forward.

It has everything you’d expect from a steampunk novel, secret societies, mad inventors, flying machines, complex mysterious machinery, all wrapped up in a Victorian aesthetic. I particularly liked this novel’s point of view character, a man who inherits the clock shop and workshop of his father. As the novel opens we discover that a) his father was a genius at designing clockwork and much sought after and b) the son inherited none of the aptitude of his father. So Our Hero is fumbling through the novel trying to figure out just what exactly his father did and didn’t do, preferably before he gets killed, framed for murder, and/or the world comes to an end. Kinda fun all the way through witha surprise Happy Ending. heh.