It’s 1901 in fog-shrouded London. Who is killing people in the Whitechapel area of town? Not Jack the Ripper–he’s so 1888; no, instead of the Ripper, the Crown’s investigative duo Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes have on their list of potential suspects zombie-like revenants, glowing blue spectral policemen, and mechanical brass men implanted with human brains. In a novel very reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, the noirish steampunk novel The Affinity Bridge by George Mann is one of the best attempts I’ve ever read to capture the atmosphere of Victorian England and create a mystery novel in the vein of Doyle’s famous deductive duo.
Mann’s worldbuilding in this book, the first novel of his Newbury and Hobbes Investigations series, involves not the depiction of far-off planets or alternate dimensions, but of England under the reign of the august Queen Victoria. He does a superb job of bringing the era to life with his descriptions of fog-enshrouded cobbled streets, dirigibles floating overhead, and steam-powered vehicles beginning to compete with the traditional horse-drawn carriages as a mode of transportation.
Newbury’s ever-inquisitive intellect is fascinated by what seem to be the daily advances technology is making, including the dirigibles and the harnessing of electricity, which offers mankind promising hope for the future. He and Veronica Hobbes are Royal agents of Queen Victoria, but he is also Hobbes’s boss at a museum where they work as cover for their true work.
A strange and deadly plague is sweeping over London, brought over from India, that transforms its victims into ravenous shells of their former selves, interested only in feasting on human flesh. In other words, they become revenants. There is also another murderer prowling Whitechapel, a glowing blue bobby. Newbury is interested and has delved into the Dark Arts of magic, and has a library of arcane books on the subject, so he considers the possibility that the killer is a genuine phantom out for retribution.
As another point of character-building, during a tour of a factory that creates automatons and dirigibles, Newbury can’t help but to think about the wonderful applications the brass men can be potentially put to, such as, in other industries, doing jobs that would be perhaps too menial or dangerous for humans to want to do. They could also be used as soldiers, saving countless lives. He envisages that men then would be freed to pursue higher educations, and to elevate their positions in life. Veronica, though, wonders about the men who would lose their livelihoods, who would become unemployed if the robots took their jobs.
How are Newbury and Hobbes the same as and different from Holmes & Watson? For one, since Newbury and Hobbes are of the opposite sexes, the sexual tension that already is developing between them can’t be attributed to them being homosexuals. Also, Holmes favors a deerstalker hat, while Newbury prefers a bowler one. The drug of Holmes’ choice is cocaine, while Newbury partakes occasionally of laudanum. Veronica may not have a doctoral degree, but she is very capable in a fight, pinning down an assailant in the novel with a hot chimney poker at one point. She is not as bumbling, and is equally able to gain access to secrets divulged in powder rooms, or by using her feminine wiles to good effect. Newbury may not deduce what clues mean in as rapid-fire a manner as does Holmes, but he still possesses a keen intellect.
What does the “affinity bridge” in the title refer to? It is titled that because–no, you almost tricked me, but I won’t reveal that! Suffice it to say, if you enjoy reading Sherlock Holmes tales, and dig steampunk, it’s (here it comes–get ready for it–) elementary that you’ll love reading The Affinity Bridge by George Mann.
