More like Jacaranda
anchored on:steampunk19th centurynorth america
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- The Bookman Universe
series6 books2010
similar bypolitical intriguesteampunkmysterious19th century+2 more
- George Dower / Infernal Devices
series3 books1987
similar bysteampunk19th century+3 more
K. W. Jeter's trilogy, whose 1987 original helped coin the term 'steampunk,' follows clockmaker George Dower as he's dragged into escalating Victorian conspiracies involving mechanical devices, secret societies, and inventions that shouldn't work but do. Infernal Devices, Fiendish Schemes, and Grim Expectations mix dark comedy with the gears-and-brass aesthetic the series helped establish before it had a name.
- The Difference Engine
William Gibson & Bruce Sterlingstandalone novel1990
similar bypolitical intriguesteampunk19th century
The computer age arrives a century early with Babbage's perfection of his 'analytical engine'. The industrial revolution is accelerated by the development of steam-driven cybernetic 'Engines'. An advanced Great Britain prepares to better the world's lot. An example of the 'steampunk' sub-genre of the cyberpunk movement.
- The Waterworks
E. L. Doctorowstandalone novel1994
similar bymysterious19th centurynorth americabig city+1 more
The Waterworks (1994) is a book by American writer E. L. Doctorow. It was his eighth published novel.
- Newbury & Hobbes Investigations
series23 books2008
similar bysteampunk19th century+1 more
George Mann's steampunk series follows Sir Maurice Newbury, an occult investigator working for the crown in an alternate, more mechanized Victorian Britain, and his assistant Veronica Hobbes, as they take on cases blending supernatural threats with the era's mechanical marvels. The Affinity Bridge, the opening novel, entangles them with a crashed automaton airship and a spreading plague of the reanimated; later books deepen Newbury's struggle with addiction and Veronica's search for her institutionalized sister. It combines detective procedural with alternate-history steampunk London.
- Queen Sheba's Ring
H. Rider Haggardstandalone novel1910
similar by19th centuryadventurous+2 more
Queen Sheba's Ring is a 1910 adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard set in central Africa. It resembles the author's earlier works King Solomon's Mines and She, featuring plotting priests, beautiful women, and daring British adventurers.
- Clockwork Century Universe
series8 books2008
similar bysteampunk19th centurynorth americaadventurous+1 more
Boneshaker opens Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century, a steampunk alternate history that reimagines Seattle after a mining disaster releases a toxic gas that turns people into the walking dead, forcing survivors behind a massive wall around the poisoned city. The series expands out from that starting point across the American Civil War era, following different characters and cities in each book (Clementine, Dreadnought, Ganymede, The Inexplicables, Fiddlehead, Jacaranda) rather than one continuous plot. Boneshaker was nominated for the Nebula Award and won the 2010 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
- Ministry of Alchemy
series5 books2016
similar bypolitical intriguemysteriousadventurousbig city+1 more
- The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchonstandalone novel1966
similar bymysteriousnorth america+1 more
The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. on April 27, 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies. One of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed; operating from 1806 to 1867, Thurn and Taxis was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's writing, The Crying of Lot 49 is often described as postmodernist literature. Time magazine included the book in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
- Time and Again
series2 books1970
completed
similar bymysteriousnorth americabig city+1 more
Time and Again (1970) follows Si Morley, a commercial artist recruited into a secret government project that sends him back to Manhattan in 1882, where he falls for a woman named Julia while weighing whether he can, or should, alter the past; Jack Finney illustrates the story with period photographs and engravings. The sequel, From Time to Time (1995), continues Si's story with a further trip into the past.
- Hunchback Assignments / Modo: Mission Clockwork
series5 books2009
similar bysteampunk19th centuryadventurous
- Robert Langdon
series6 books2000
similar bymysterious+2 more
The Robert Langdon novel series is named after Robert Langdon, the protagonist of the novels by American author Dan Brown. Langdon is portrayed as a Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology, a fictional field related to the study of historic symbols, which is not methodologically connected to the actual discipline of semiotics. Brown's novels that feature the lead character also include historical themes and Christianity as motifs, and as a result have generated controversy. Brown states on his website that his novels are not anti-Christian, and that he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself.
- Sally Lockhart
series4 books1985
similar by19th century+2 more
Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart quartet follows a resourceful, unconventional heroine navigating Victorian London - a sharpshooting, mathematically gifted young orphan who builds an improbable career as a financial consultant against the era's expectations for women. The Ruby in the Smoke opens with Sally investigating her father's death and a mysterious jewel; the following novels widen out into fraud, opium-trade crime, and international intrigue, tracking Sally's evolving relationships, including with the journalist Daniel Goldberg, across four Victorian-set mysteries.
