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    Steam & Stratagem
    Unavailable
    Steam & Stratagem
    Unavailable
    Steam & Stratagem
    Ebook329 pages4 hours

    Steam & Stratagem

    By Christopher Hoare

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Don't miss the sequel, Spies and Subterfuge, now available for pre-order!

    Welcome to the Steampunk World of Regency...

    ...where the power of steam has already passed from the age of unsatisfactory experiments to the first country-spanning railways and ships that no longer sail at the whims of weather. Roberta Stephenson is the daughter of the ‘Father of Railways’...a girl almost raised in the engine works and through her experience, and education in the most advanced halls of Miss Mather’s Academy for Girls, is fit to become manager and designer at her father’s steamship yard on the Clyde.

    And Britain needs Roberta’s expertise, for fate in this world has dealt more kindly with Napoleon, allowing him to extricate most of his army from Moscow in 1812, and granting him at least a draw at Leipzig in 1813. With developments of the steamships begun in France in 1783 he is ready to take one more gamble to rid himself of the interference of Perfidious Albion, and the island’s safety may depend on the steam powered rams Roberta is offering to their lordships of the Admiralty.

    Complicating Roberta’s professional life are her romantic suitors: Lord Julian Bond, man about town and Admiralty spy; the enigmatic Symington Holmes with a mathematical tripos at Cambridge; and Engineer Lieutenant Alfred Worthington RN. It seems that Roberta is destined to choose one of these gentlemen, but will she choose wisely?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyche Books Ltd.
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    ISBN9780991836987
    Unavailable
    Steam & Stratagem
    Author

    Christopher Hoare

    I am retired and live with my wife, Shirley, and the shelter dog Emmie, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, writing fiction and working with others on their fiction, as much as life allows. As a lad I lived, breathed, and dreamed aeroplanes; I won a place at RAE Farnborough learning to engineer them. But the reality didn’t fit my dream, so I took off into a stint in the army and then away to join the oil circus. Flying objects are tools when they now appear in my writing―I guess that’s the effect of maturity, but I hope, not a constricted, resigned, and unimaginative maturity. The mind still soars, even without wings, and the dream of carrying others to a better future is now on the page.Some readers comment that none of my stories take place next door to the lives most people live; the less charitable find similarity in characters who tend to be stubborn, independent, and out of step with the world’s expectations. Perhaps there’s a connection between the worlds I portray in fiction, and my working life in oil exploration in the Libyan Desert, the Canadian Arctic, and the mountains and forests of Western Canada.My stories have been set in Regency England, Anglo-Saxon Britain, in modern industrial projects, in the alternate world of Gaia, and the fantasy world of Rast. Sometimes I satirize jobs I’ve done. Many of my central characters are smart, beautiful, and dangerous women who lead unwilling males to fulfil the duties before them. Lt. Gisel Matah in “Deadly Enterprise” is perhaps the most Bond-like of these. I like writing novels about realities my readers can enjoy in the guise of dashing adventurers; loyal comrades; lovers; or pledged sovereigns. I hope they find there the spark that brings them to realize greater dreams of their own.

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    Reviews for Steam & Stratagem

    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Christopher Hoare presents an intriguing take on steampunk/Regency in Steam & Stratagem, one where alternate history and the relationships of the characters share center stage. I fell in love with the feisty and independent Roberta Stephenson immediately, and eagerly followed her into the world of early steamships, Napoleonic plots, and eligible gentlemen who each have their own charms to recommend them.

      The pace is nicely balanced as plots and intrigue unfold, and Roberta is drawn into the world of intelligence-gathering--a world she'd frankly rather avoid--in the name of supplying her country with ships that will stand up to the newest technology employed by the enemy. It was fun to see her slyly surprising the unsuspecting men of the Navy with her intelligence and breadth of knowledge, but refreshingly, she always kept her dignity, which was part of what made her a very believable character for me.

      The book does leave many questions unanswered, but the Tyche website promises another installment in Roberta's story, Spies and Subterfuge, coming in 2015. If you are a historical/alternate history/Regency fan I highly recommend this book!