The Baby Killers Jay Lake ISBN: 978-1-848630-93-2 (UK, PS Publishing, Hardback)

At its heart this book is an alternate history novel, set in a Philadelphia that is the capitol of the British North American colony in the Victorian period. But that's only setting, in flavour terms this is very much a Steampunk story and a damn fine one.

We have a corrupt, degenerate Governor-General with a predilection to assaulting and killing innocents; two rather supernatural beings, a vampire and Gollinoster, or sin eater, whose attention is drawn by the innocent chosen to be the Governor-General's next plaything; and a Moreau style, mad scientist in Doctor Scholes, who creates the “Baby Killers” of the title by placing infant brains into killing machines he intends to program as vigilante justice machines.

And for good measure Lake has thrown in a number of interesting supporting characters, a clever and occasional surreally humorous, if dark, plot that blends the threads together expertly and prose so splendidly grandiose and self-important in finest Victorian style – even down to asides periodically taking stock of what has transpired so far and imploring the reader to continue with claims of great riches to come. And they do.

On finishing this I had to just it was a novella. I couldn't believe how much Jay Lake has managed to cram into just Sixty-eight pages. I checked twice. It was true. No extra unnumbered pages. Sixty-eight, that's it. It's rare you can be rewarded with so much from such a little commitment as a reader.

Page updated 25 March, 2011