The Sightless City
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Kidnapping.
Enslavement.
Murder.
Those are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to actions some will take to protect their interests in æther-oil, the coveted substance that fuels the city of Huile.
As both veteran and private investigator, Marcel Talwar knows this firsthand, and he likes to think he'd never participate in such things. However, that naïve idea comes to a crashing end when he takes on a new case that quickly shatters his world view.
A trail of evidence points to someone in Marcel's inner circle who's using him as a pawn to conduct grisly experiments-experiments that could lead to genocide.
Now, Marcel is more determined than ever to discover who's pulling the strings to this sinister plot. But the further he gets, the larger the target on his back becomes, and it's not long before Marcel has to ask himself how much and how many he's willing to sacrifice to get to the truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clarke's Law—that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic—meets dieselpunk in Lemelson's enjoyable debut, an inventive mash-up of science fiction and hardboiled mystery. Marcel Talwar fought for liberty—and sangleum, the aether-oil powering his postapocalyptic society's weird science—in a war that left him maimed in body and spirit. Now he's a private investigator working regular jobs for war acquaintance Lazarus Roache, who runs Lazacorp, a megacompany dealing in sangleum. After a set of indecipherable mechanical diagrams captioned "show to an engineer" appears in Marcel's office, Marcel uncovers a conspiracy at the heart of Lazacorp that encompasses genocide, religious zealotry, and a brewing revolution. Meanwhile, Sylvaine Pelletier, a brilliant, animalian engineer who gave up everything in her quest to restore some of the world's pre-apocalyptic splendor, discovers that Roache can supply her with the power she needs to manipulate sangleum, but at a high cost. The book ends in a somewhat predictable setup for the sequel, but getting there is good fun, with stellar worldbuilding and quick pacing. This is sure to entertain any fan of gritty speculative fiction.
