In 1986, K. W. Jeter coined the word steampunk, putting it on to his 1st Victorian-era science fiction alternate-history experience. At last he has returned with a fresh tale of George Dower, boy from the inventor of Infernal Devices, who has been around self-imposed exile…accumulating debt.

The world Dower remaining when he went into hiding was significantly simpler compared to the new, steam-powered Victorian London; a mad whirl of civilization filled with devices and gears in the least expected locations. After about Fiendish Schemes accepting congratulations for his past due father’s grandest invention-a walking, steam-powered lighthouse-Dower can be enticed by the chance of profit into a web of intrigue with ominously incomprehensible players who have nefarious programs about which he can only guess.If he could make his father’s Vox Universalis work as it had been intended, his future is assured. But his attempts are confounded by the strange Vicar Stonebrake, who promises him help, but seems interested in changing sentient whales to Christianity than in assisting George. Drugged, caught, and interrogated by guys, females, and a steam-powered Perfect Minister, Dower can be trapped within a maelstrom of secrets, corruption, and plans that threaten to drown him in the chaos of the mad ” new world “.“This is the real thing-a mad inventor, curious coins, murky London alleys, and windblown Scottish Isles…. A outrageous and extravagant storyline that arises new mysteries with each succeeding page.” -James P. Blaylock on Infernal Gadgets“Jeter is a modern Arthur Conan Doyle…. [Fiendish Strategies] reads [like] a Sherlock Holmes experience.” -Tee Morris, writer of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series