Imagine a dystopian world sometime in our future, when aliens have appeared and dropped obelisks throughout the world...obelisks that dispense deadly gasses. The world has become a dark and dangerous place. Humans, ever adaptable, have survived this dark apocalypse and carry on in true survivor fashion. And OH, what fashion it is!
Normal forms of combustion like black powder and fossil fuel are unreliable, and the world has turned to hydrogen gas and steam to power their technology. Captain Romulus Buckle appears on the scene, the dashing captain of the Pnuematic Zepplin, a hydrogen powered airship. There are various large groupings of people throughout what used to be the United States. These "clans" are sometimes at war and rarely civil. Buckle is the adopted son of the Crankshaft clan and he is on his way to rescue his father from a treacherous Founder Clan meeting gone awry. We meet Buckle's intrepid crew and learn that he stole the Zepplin in a daring act of bravado after a raid on the Imperial Clan. Armed with some black powder cannons and steam-driven weapons Buckle and crew are headed to the mysterious city of the Founders to rescue their leader.
If you're not half in love with Romulus Buckle after the first three pages, then you're bound to find yourself smitten somewhere along the way. Buckle is young, impetuous and always a gentleman. Preston's descriptions of the airship and the people aboard her, as well as his deftly crafted world, make steampunk come alive in this hair-raising adventure novel.
Though the story ends on a high note, it leaves the reader smack dab in the middle of a conspiracy and a war. If you're like me, then it doesn't matter, because you'd be racing to the bookstore to grab up the rest of the series just to read more about the fabulous captain Buckle and crew.
Take a journey to a world parallel but strangely off course from our own, and become a lover of steampunk!
5 stars!
- Amy Riddle-DeClerck
Publisher - 47North
Date of Publication - July 2, 2013