Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72
Want to read "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters". I have it in paperback but it's been lingering on my shelves for over a year now.
Good to see someone has enjoyed it.  |
I couldn't resist the title.
A brief description:
It's a steampunk novel set in Victorian England, the first of a trilogy (the other two books are "The Dark Volume" and "The Chemickal Marriage").
The main characters are Miss Celestial Temple, a strong-minded heiress from one of the "islands" somewhere warm whose father owns a plantation worked by slaves, "Cardinal" Chang a mysterious assassin-for-hire who is neither a cardinal nor Chinese, and Doctor Abelard Svenson, a somber naval officer from a German principality charged with escorting his rather-dense Prince to England to meet with his arranged-marriage fiancee who is the daughter of a powerful British businessman.
The story is triggered off by a letter to Miss Temple from her betrothed, Roger Bascombe (a minor government official), breaking off their engagement without any explanation and requesting that she never contact him again. Miss Temple, being curious and enraged, decides to find out why Bascombe changed his mind; under an assumed identity she pursues him. In the meantime, Chang has been hired to kill a military officer at a country house party, only to find that the officer has already been murdered. We meet Dr. Svenson for the first time when he attempts to rescue the Prince from what he thinks is a kidnapping attempt. The lives of the three of them intersect and they realize that they have common cause against a cabal of powerful interests who are creating a special glass out of indigo clay that seems to store the memories of people - very important people.
The story contains a shady Comte, fearful scientific experiments, mind control, strange blue glass books, airships, multiple murders, alchemists, a dead painter, horrific murders, a sensual Italian countess, whores-without-hearts-of-gold, unscrupulous politicians, mysterious indigo clay, dead Lords, secret passages, corrupt military and a whole host of unsavory characters who are Up To No Good. 