K W JETER attended college at California State University, Fullerton where he became friends with James P Blaylock and Tim Powers, and through them, Philip K Dick. Jeter coined the term "steampunk", in a letter to Locus in April 1987, to describe the retro-technology, alternate-history works that he published along with his friends, Blaylock and Powers. As well as his own wildly original novels, K W Jeter has written a number of authorized Blade Runner sequels.

K W JETER attended college at California State University, Fullerton where he became friends with James P Blaylock and Tim Powers, and through them, Philip K Dick. Jeter coined the term "steampunk", in a letter to Locus in April 1987, to describe the retro-technology, alternate-history works that he published along with his friends, Blaylock and Powers. As well as his own wildly original novels, K W Jeter has written a number of authorized Blade Runner sequels.

Infernal Devices 3: Grim Expectations by K. W. Jeter

The mind-boggling new sequel to Infernal Devices to celebrate thirty years of Steampunk.

Some time after the events of Fiendish Schemes, George Dower finds himself a widower, of sorts. On her deathbed, Miss McThane entrusts Dower with a small, ticking clockwork box. The box is mysteriously linked to her.

When she breathes her last, the box stops ticking and Dower is able to open it, to find hundreds of letters ­ written in an unknown hand, signed only with the initial S. They're not love letters, but refer instead to the letter-writer's ongoing search for some other person. The last is a simple note, reading "Found him"...

CURATOR'S NOTE

The Godfather of Steampunk, KW Jeter not only helped create the genre – he named it! This is a genuine classic of the genre – so what are you waiting for? – Lavie Tidhar

 

REVIEWS

  • "At times morbidly hilarious and at others thought provoking as to the role of scientific advancement in our society, Grim Expectations is a worthy successor to Mr Dower's earlier adventures and promises a wild ride for the audience. 5/5 stars"

    – San Franciso Book Review

  • "A truly fantastical journey that requires a suspension of disbelief – but makes you all the happier for it."

    – My Shelf Confessions

  • "A skillfully handled, wonderfully inventive, and agreeably witty adventure."

    – Kirkus Reviews

  • "Its warped humor, digs at steampunk literature, and sheer tonnage of weirdness conveyed through Dower's polite Victorian speech combine to create an unnerving tale that is also, at turns, incisive and deliciously twisted. It's a horror novel in which the monster is, in fact, the whole world, and the inevitable march of steam-powered progress, issuing both a brutal epitaph to the genre Jeter helped bring to prominence, and a challenge for others to push it into stranger waters. From one of the masters of the form, we should expect nothing less."

    – Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Often have I thought that undertakers are the happiest of men.

The opportunity to endure one's life over again is a dire prospect; but were it to happen, I might well choose the mortuarial trade, in preference to that which I inherited. My father animated that which had been inert, cogged brass and ribboned spirals of baser metal; that I might lay the once-alive into their coffins and then to mouldy earth, would complete the Ouroboric circle he and I shared.

"Mr Dower…" A voice, dark in timbre, spoke close to my ear. "Everything is to your satisfaction, I trust?"

The man seemed born to follow behind crêpe-decked hearses, skeletal fingers reverently spidered tip-to-tip; the very caricature of his calling – such was the one who, bending forward in the church aisle, peered at me.

My words knotted in my throat. She is dead, you heartless mummering bastard – unspoken, but cried out in silence. How satisfied was I expected to be?

"All is quite…" My own hands clenched to fists in my lap, where they had been folded atop my frayed gloves. "Pleasing." Life-long cowardice overwhelmed the newly minted rage and grief in my heart. "Your concern, and your services, are appreciated."

He smiled – thus again my conviction as to the cheer of undertakers. Who else smiles at funerals? That which marches toward us, however we avert our eyes and thoughts, its measured tread inevitable and invincible – to that corvine breed it is equally certain, but heart-lifting as the clatter of coins dropped in a merchant's cashbox.

Of course, I hated the man.

And I might even have demonstrated as much – at last – despite the reserve characteristic of our English breed. The scent of him summoned my gorge into my throat; as this person's kind was wont to do, an attempt had been made to mask the acrid scent of those embalming fluids which had over time seeped into his greying flesh, with that musty lavender reminiscent of old ladies' parlours. Better had he not; the combination of chemical and ancient flower was nearly as appalling, or perhaps even more so, than his obsequious manner. If I had brought my whitened knuckles hard upon his invasive nose, the blow might have been launched by not just anger, but the need to draw an unencumbered breath into my lungs.

The appearance of an angel, bobbing just beyond the other's hunched shoulders, forestalled such an attack.

Cherub, technically; I knew that much. The lack of Christian instruction in my long-fled youth was filled instead by acquaintance with the paintings of those old masters viewed in museum galleries. Often have I gazed upon scenes of saints and their Saviour, and noted the depiction about them of fluttering, chubbish creatures much like that which now hovered closer by.