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inulro19. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G.W. Dahlquist
This book was thrust upon me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
techbint last time I was at her place. It's the story of Miss Temple, an heiress from the Caribbean, who is jilted by her fiancé and wants to know why, so she follows him and ends up in the middle of a major conspiracy, where she falls in with a mercenary nicknamed Cardinal Chang (my favourite character in the book) and Doctor Svenson, the minder of a German prince.
The unnamed city where the book is set is fictional - it could be London, but it might not even be in England. Some of the names (of places and people) seem English, some Dutch or German. Other real European cities and countries are referred to. The period is Victorian.
An alchemist has discovered a "Process" by which thoughts and memories can be distilled from a person into blue glass and a cabal is using this to manipulate captains of industry and people in power. And for porn. Miss Temple stumbles upon this after she follows her ex to what she thinks is a masked ball at a big country house. People who go through the Process go over to the side of the cabal, but they also use the technology to steal the dreams and memories of people who are associated with those they wish to blackmail to gain inside information.
This book is quite wonderful. I stayed up far too late reading it more than once. The technology surrounding the Process is very steampunk, there are some interesting characters in the Cabal, and there is a zeppelin. The scale is enormous, as is the book, and it is very fast-paced, so I did occasionally find myself wondering "how did they get there again?"
Very highly recommended.
This book was thrust upon me by
techbint last time I was at her place. It's the story of Miss Temple, an heiress from the Caribbean, who is jilted by her fiancé and wants to know why, so she follows him and ends up in the middle of a major conspiracy, where she falls in with a mercenary nicknamed Cardinal Chang (my favourite character in the book) and Doctor Svenson, the minder of a German prince.The unnamed city where the book is set is fictional - it could be London, but it might not even be in England. Some of the names (of places and people) seem English, some Dutch or German. Other real European cities and countries are referred to. The period is Victorian.
An alchemist has discovered a "Process" by which thoughts and memories can be distilled from a person into blue glass and a cabal is using this to manipulate captains of industry and people in power. And for porn. Miss Temple stumbles upon this after she follows her ex to what she thinks is a masked ball at a big country house. People who go through the Process go over to the side of the cabal, but they also use the technology to steal the dreams and memories of people who are associated with those they wish to blackmail to gain inside information.
This book is quite wonderful. I stayed up far too late reading it more than once. The technology surrounding the Process is very steampunk, there are some interesting characters in the Cabal, and there is a zeppelin. The scale is enormous, as is the book, and it is very fast-paced, so I did occasionally find myself wondering "how did they get there again?"
Very highly recommended.
