My Final Steampunk Post Today (I Promise)

A few weeks ago you may recall I mentioned buying 'The Peshawar Lancers' and 'The Difference Engine' and then promising reviews of both once I'd read them.

Well, a few days ago I finished 'The Peshawar Lancers' so here's the review.

The tale takes place in 2025, though not in a world we'd recognise. In 1878, so the story goes, Europe and North America were devastated by a meteorite impact that plunged the northern hemisphere into a four-year nuclear winter. Those who could, escaped. In Britain, Disraeli organised an exodus to South Africa, India and Australia, and approximately 3.5 million people were ferried to those colonies over four years. That still left over 16 million people in Britain, starving and riotting. Those people turned to cannibalism, Disraeli himself being killed by a mob in 1882.

The British Government and Monarchy set up in Delhi, continuing the British Empire as the 'Angrezi-raj'. In India there is a new social class, the 'sahib-log', of upper-and-middle class families of British descent. This class in effect is the government of the Empire.

The Empire itself covers 40% of the landmass of the globe- claiming a recolonised Britain and ALL of North America, from Panama to the Pole.

Abroad, the Russians have become cannibalistic satan-worshippers, ruled still by the Tsar. The French have fled to their North African colonies, but by 2025 have recolonised Metroplitan France and seized Sicily from a powerful Middle-Eastern caliphate. China and Japan have merfged to form the Dai-Nipponese empire.

Technology has stagnated somewhat- in this world steam rules supreme. There are steam trains, there are ironclads, there are maxim machone guns. There are airships and motorcars, but the internal combustion engine does not exist. Where steam is unsuitable motive power, Stirling heat engines are employed.

This, then, is the world the book portrays.

The plot- well, basically, is a little hard to understand. The basic gist of it is that the Russians have infiltrated the Empire's political service and are plotting uprisings so as to weaken it, then propose to wage war to destroy it completely, leaving them the dominant world power.

The book really follows the efforts of a few soldiers and politicians, and the Royal Family, to stop them. There are some scenes of action- for instance, the storming of a disloyal politician's home, a fight in the desert, a fight on the Royal airship. Interwoven are a few love intrigues- the Princess Royal being married off to the Heir of France-Outre-Mer, between Captain King and a defecting Russian seeress, and between his sister Professor King and the Heir to the Lion Throne. (The Lion Throne being King-Emperor of the Angrezi-raj.)

This book is absolutely brilliant, a literary hammer-blow. There are not enough superlatives in the English language that can adequately describe just how good it is.

If you like adventure and intrigue, then you really need to read this book.

And therein I am afraid lies the nub of the problem. The book is not for general sale in the UK unfortunately. It is written for an American audience, and it shows in the choice of baddies- the Russians and Muslims- and in the language used- 'railroad' instead of 'railway' for instance. However, if like me you are lucky enough to be near a branch of Waterstones that stocks American imports it can be yours for the princely sum of £6.50. An absolute bargain.