The
Rise of the Automated Aristocrats
Mark Hodder
Pyr, Aug 11 2015, $18.00
ISBN: 9781633880528
After a journey to 2202 on the Orpheus, Sir Richard Burton, Algernon Swinburne and
other survivors return to Victorian London knowing they must conceal what they
learned. However, crisscrossing through
time leaves Sir Richard and his poet friend mentally confused; which they make
worse when inadvertently they place consciousness into mechanized servants and
compounded by one of their Orpheus allies selling out to the enemy.
As the gentlemen automatons attack humans, London has become a
hellish nightmare. Extremely depressed
Burton gives up without a fight because he recognizes that their travel into
the future and back was to prevent the unintended consequences they instead
caused. On the other hand ever
optimistic Swinburne insists they need to try again and again if necessary to
rectify what happened.
The sixth Burton and Swinburne steampunk Victorian (see The Return of the
Discontinued Man and The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi) is a blistering
finish to an awesome alternate historical series. Fast-paced with non-stop action, the climatic Rise of the
Automated Aristocrats uses the yin and yang friendship recurring theme to great
use in this fabulous fable.
Harriet Klausner
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