Steampunk Omnibus by Michael Coorlim

November 2012

The Steampunk Omnibus is a collection of the best-selling titles from the Collected Bartleby and James Adventures and the Gentlewoman’s Chronicles anthologies of steampunk mystery and thriller fiction. These seven stories build a world of Edwardian adventure in a galvanic century.

These seven novelettes are:

AND THEY CALLED HER SPIDER Steampunk London is in the grip of an unstoppable assassin known only as the Spider, and consulting detectives James Wainwright and Alton Bartleby have been commissioned to catch her. Can the surly inventor and savvy gentleman track her down and stop her string of murders, or will Queen Victoria be her next victim?

MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE RIO GRANDE Brilliant but socially-awkward inventor and engineer James Wainwright has been accused of murder most foul, and only his savvy partner Alton Bartleby can clear his name. The clock is ticking, though, as the true murderer’s sabotage threatens to crash the world’s largest airship into the teaming streets of London below.

ON THE TRAIL OF THE SCISSORMAN Consulting detectives Alton Bartleby and James Wainwright have been hired to stop the Scissorman, a nightmarish serial killer. Can they track him down despite obstruction from Scotland Yard, or will the vicious killer turn more of London’s children into orphans?

A MATTER OF SPIRIT Inventive genius James Wainwright has been retained to advocate for Bryce, an old friend, a con-man accused of kidnapping his partner, who maintains that she was spirited away by the shades of the dead. James has little use for the fancies of spiritualism, but can he put his prejudices aside and clear Bryce’s name, or will his old friend go to the gallows?

SKY PIRATES OVER LONDON London has been besieged by strange powerful airships targeting the city’s shipping. The poor starve and the rich must ration their luxuries, while the blockaders have made no demands. Parliament and the Home Office have done nothing to rectify the situation, and though it’s hardly proper, sometimes a gentlewoman must act while the men debate.

THE TOWER OF BABBAGE A motion-picture crew has gone missing in the mysterious jungles of Southern Mexico while filming ancient Mayan ruins. Desperate to learn the fate of an old friend, gentlewoman Aldora Fiske sponsors an expedition into the heart of the rain forest. Little does she realize that the filmmakers were not the only ones interested in the clockwork secrets that Charles Babbage left behind.

FINE YOUNG TURKS Her loveless wedding of convenience approaching, gentlewoman Aldora Fiske is among the influential Europeans to accept a handsome nobleman’s invitation to show off the Ottoman Empire and its secularist reforms. After she alone escapes the devious plot to kidnap the foreign guests, she’s confronted with an Empire where women are given all the rights of men, and a man who treats her like an equal.

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