S.M. Stirling’s standalone book The Peshawar Lancers (there is a short story set in the same universe, mind) is an alternate history novel that asks What would happen if you dropped a comet or an asteroid into the Atlantic Ocean during the height of the Victorian era? One answer apparently would be Eventually, Rudyard Kipling’s dream world. It’s all very steampunk, in the brass-and-gears sense: but it’s also very deliberately evocative of Haggard and Kipling and Fraser (to give an idea, the Flashman novels are not so much evoked in this book as they were slipped a Mickey Finn and shanghaied to it). I enjoyed it greatly, not least because Stirling is always good at showing the world-building. Lots of fun and it’s a shame there hasn’t been a true sequel.
Adieu, The Lost Majority: Why the Future of Government Is Up for Grabs – and Who Will Take It
Moe Lane
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and sequels
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