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Infernal Devices. K.W. Jeter

by K.W. Jeter (Goodreads Author)

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 951 ratings · 168 reviews

HE INHERITED A WATCHMAKER'S STORE - AND A WHOLE HEAP OF TROUBLE. But idle sometime-musician George has little talent for clockwork. And when a shadowy figure tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue. A genuine lost classic, a steampunk original whose time has come.

Paperback, 349 pages

Published April 7th 2011 by Angry Robot Books (first published December 1st 1986)

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Apr 23, 2013 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: foggy-nights, z-kw-jeter

Steampunk, ahoy!

And hey, did you know that Jeter coined that term?

Remember when those fantastic adventure tales whose main goal was to tell a fast-paced story with some interesting ideas used to clock in under 250 pages and could be enjoyed in one long afternoon? And didn't have sequels? Probably not and I'm probably dating myself. It is nice to be reminded that such things were once fairly common. Maybe authors these days are afraid of being seen as somehow disposable or too lightweight. And w...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Colleen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk, science-fantasy

1.5

I keep bouncing back and forth on whether to give this one or two stars - though I'm pretty much sticking with the 1.5 either way. My dilemma is that while I didn't really like it, per se, I didn't actively dislike it, which is what I usually use 1-stars for, but I didn't like it, either.

I guess, for the most part, it was "ok", and I was going to give it a 2-stars for most of the book, but the ending left me feeling kinda "wtf?", which is why I was thinking of dropping it down. But it did hav...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Amy Sturgis rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, science-fiction-contemporary, steampunk

This is one of the pioneering works of steampunk, and I'm glad I read it. It has many of the staples of the subgenre, from the Victorian setting to clockwork men, from time travel to not-so-mythical creatures (in this case, selkies). There are several well-crafted moments of ironic social commentary. It's easy to see how this wry and imaginative tale helped to set precedents for what followed.

That said, I didn't really enjoy this as a reading experience, despite Jeter's always-elegant prose. The...more

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Feb 07, 2012 Kat Hooper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

George Dower's father was a watchmaker, but he didn't just make watches. Some of his special customers knew he was a genius with all sorts of gear work. When his father died, George inherited the watch shop. Unfortunately, he didn't inherit his father's genius. He can sometimes manage to fix a customer's watch if he sees that a part has worn out, or something else obvious is wrong, but that's about it. He's completely flummoxed when a strange brown man bri...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

George Dower's father was a watchmaker, but he didn't just make watches. Some of his special customers knew he was a genius with all sorts of gear work. When his father died, George inherited the watch shop. Unfortunately, he didn't inherit his father's genius. He can sometimes manage to fix a customer's watch if he sees that a part has worn out, or something else obvious is wrong, but that's about it. He's completely flummoxed when a strange brown man brings in something he's never seen before -- something George's father made. George has no idea what this infernal device does, but when he agrees to help, he's soon embroiled in a wild adventure that involves a secret London district with fishy-looking citizens, the Royal Anti-Society, the formidable woman who heads up the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice, a robot doppelganger, and a man and woman who speak 20th century American slang. George is starting to realize that his father may have been involved in some rather shady business.

K.W. Jeter's Infernal Devices: A Mad Victorian Fantasy, first published in 1987, has been reprinted by Angry Robot because of the recent resurgence of Victorian literature. In fact, K.W. Jeter was the man who actually coined the term "Steampunk." As he explains in the forward, he meant it as a joke (referring to the term "cyberpunk") but it stuck.
As promised, Infernal Devices is indeed a mad steampunk fantasy; it's filled with flying machines and other mechanical devices, Victorian moral and scientific societies, 19th century fashion and music, anachronistic technologies, and even some Lovecraftian monsters. The prose, dialogue and humor also feel appropriately Victorian, and Jeter's London atmosphere, with its clean shop fronts and grimy back alleys, feels authentic.

Though there's a lot going on in Infernal Devices, it's light. There are no deep themes, moving relationships, profound insights, or brilliant images, but there are plenty of surprises and laughs. The protagonist, mild-mannered and bumbling George Dower, is not particularly interesting or dynamic, but I felt sympathetic towards him anyway. The other characters are amusing, but they're rather two-dimensional. This novel is a good example of "Mad Victorian" -- it's just fast chaotic fun. And it's a classic of the steampunk genre, so I consider it a must-read for serious SFF fans just for that reason.

I listened to Brilliance Audio's version of Infernal Devices, which was read by Michael Page, who's got the perfect English accent for this novel -- he sounds slightly fanatical and frenzied. I loved his narration. The audiobook also includes a foreword by K.W. Jeter and an afterward by Jeff VanderMeer who explains the importance of the novel in the history of the steampunk genre. (less)

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May 16, 2013 awbrey rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Things happen very quickly in Infernal Devices, and there's some new threat or weirdo lurking on every page, but the narrator (Dower, who's taken over his father's watch-repair and mechanical curios shop without much success) isn't particularly compelling, and his narration often drags. It was satisfying to see all of the different odd elements explained, but a lot of the explanations were not, themselves, satisfying.

There are some comical moments, and the crazy plot twists are definitely creat...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Steampunk completists

Recommended to Richard by: SciFi & Fantasy Group 2013-04 Science Fiction Selection

Shelves: bookclub, scifi-steampunk

A lot of imagination went into this book, but not enough discipline or storytelling craft. For the majority of the book, the author shoves the first-person narrator through inexplicable and astonishing events, and then crams their eventual denouement into a few pages via telling instead of showing, when other characters explain to our befuddled protagonist what was happening.

For most folks, that would probably be enough to shove this down to a one- or two-star rating, but I'm more generous. What...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in April 2001.

There are quite a few science fiction novels which use the same basic premise as Infernal Devices - that the Victorian period could have produced technology rivalling today's computers in complexity - enough to have earned the subgenre label "steampunk" in imitation of cyberpunk. The attractions of such novels for writers are clear; as well as allowing them to comment on contemporary life in a veiled way, as all alternative history does, it is p...more

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Sep 27, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The man who (somewhat unintentionally) coined the term "steampunk" takes us on a fun ride brimming with grounded absurdity in "Infernal Devices." This 1987 novel clatters along nicely in its Victorian England setting, with souped-up machines, peeks into the future and crazed inventors leading the book's narrator on a romp through gaslit streets, swampy country darkness and Scottish isles.

Jeter sets up his tale in rather ordinary fashion, and its gears have to shake off rust before it picks up st...more The man who (somewhat unintentionally) coined the term "steampunk" takes us on a fun ride brimming with grounded absurdity in "Infernal Devices." This 1987 novel clatters along nicely in its Victorian England setting, with souped-up machines, peeks into the future and crazed inventors leading the book's narrator on a romp through gaslit streets, swampy country darkness and Scottish isles.

Jeter sets up his tale in rather ordinary fashion, and its gears have to shake off rust before it picks up steam. The early going is deceptively ordinary (for the genre) and one wonders whether the author will lead us along sufficiently interesting paths. He does, though the tale isn't perfect and doesn't necessarily reach the standards of others who have dabbled in the genre, such as Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock.

The tale opens in the shop of George Dower, who has inherited a clock/watch shop from his mysterious father but doesn't have much of a clue about the business. A strange "Ethiope" leaves with Dower an equally strange device that needs fixing, somebody tries to steal it, and, when the story's gears finally catch, we're off on a tale involving strange folk with fish-like aspects, clockwork automatons that mimic humans, a man and woman using strangely modern speech who may be friend or foe (or both), a wealthy recluse who thinks he has a machine that can vibrate the world into destruction, plus the appearance of a few more gizmos besides. Jeter, through Dower telling the tale after his adventure's end, drops foggy hints from time to time of what has happened to Dower and his aide, Creff; they're fun bits of foreshadowing.

In his freewheeling tale, Jeter's performance sometimes is more delightful in its plot perambulations, twists and flights of considerable imagination than in its in-the-moment execution; sometimes we feel less as if we're absorbed hip-deep in the tale than standing at a window watching the odd happenings. "Infernal Devices" was, for me, a very strong three-star tale until a series of double-whammies near the climax made it pretty much irresistable. Points, too, for the novel's importance in steampunk's development. Jeter, using the narrative voice of a 19th century protagonist, provides a fun example of the steampunk genre, one he apparently never really did much with afterward (this is my first Jeter novel). Those looking for realism (why would you?) will be disappointed, but the tale is not ludicrous; it's just a lot of fun, even if I sometimes wished it were more fearsome.

It's great to have this long-out-of-print book available again under the Angry Robot imprint, but I do have a few bones to pick with the publisher. This incarnation of "Infernal Devices" contains an astonishing number of typographical errors, possibly the most I've ever seen. It's alarming, really, and would be quite unforgivable if the tale weren't such a hoot.(less)

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Sep 15, 2012 Benjamin added it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

If you need to fake your way through a Steampunk cocktail party, here's what you need to know about Infernal Devices and K. W. Jeter:

a) Jeter jokingly coined the term "steampunk" in a 1987 letter to Locus to describe "Victorian fantasies," which he predicted were going to be the next big thing (unclear whether that prediction was a joke);
b) this book involves the mechanically inept son of a clockwork inventor, who has inherited dear old dead dad's London shop, full of mysterious clockwork pieces...more If you need to fake your way through a Steampunk cocktail party, here's what you need to know about Infernal Devices and K. W. Jeter:

a) Jeter jokingly coined the term "steampunk" in a 1987 letter to Locus to describe "Victorian fantasies," which he predicted were going to be the next big thing (unclear whether that prediction was a joke);
b) this book involves the mechanically inept son of a clockwork inventor, who has inherited dear old dead dad's London shop, full of mysterious clockwork pieces; and those clockwork pieces lead him into a clandestine war between secret societies and mad inventors;
c) there is a clockwork automaton, which fits what we think of as steampunk;
d) and there are human-fishmen hybrids and hints of other Lovecraftian beasties (or possibly hoaxes), which does not fit what we usually think of as steampunk (with some notable exceptions, like The Steampunk Trilogy).

When I think "steampunk," I think of something very much like the formula Vandermeer gives in the afterword to this book:

mad inventor + invention (steam x airship or metal person/robot) x [pseudo]Victorian setting + progressive/reactionary/neutral politics x adventure plot

What's curious about this older steampunk novel how closely it fits that formula... And also how it includes many other elements that don't fit into that formula but do fit in very well with the idea of it being (pace the subtitle) "A Mad Victorian Fantasy." For instance, and most obviously, the fishmen sure seem Lovecraftian, but we could also see them in the lineage of animal-people (Wells/Moreau) or lost-race stories (Haggard). Also, while secret societies aren't rare in today's steampunk (I think), Jeter comes close to the feverish Victorian interest in social organizations, from public anti-vice society to secret scientific society. (And as Vandermeer notes, it's easy to put the fishmen-hybrid slavery/prostitution ring into conversation with certain "decadent" writers, like Wilde--easy to imagine Dorian Gray patronizing one of these establishments.)

It's interesting to see what this book gave to other writers (and the makers who enjoy steampunk material culture) and what those later workers in the genre didn't take. That's all blah blah historical growth of the genre stuff that I love to think about and you--I don't know how much you care about it. But if nothing else, take this away: there may be interesting steampunk work being done now that expands beyond the white male main character/Anglo-imperial setting--but this isn't it.

Jeter's most interesting thematic doesn't have to do with race or gender, but with the inevitable march of time--the death of a species due to technological progress, the loss of sexual and economic innocence in two characters who have absorbed future moral-stances, the replacement of hand-made artifice by the loss of work. Jeter kind of indicates this in his new foreword, talking about how today's technological design is meant to look smooth, whereas Victorian technology is an irruption, impossible to mistake for the mass-made and the human.

But I have to be honest, as fun as the story is, and as much as a point Jeter may have (eh, maybe, so-so), Jeter makes a couple of strange choices that hold this novel back from being great. The main character narrates the story, and his voice is great; but he's also an unimaginative and uneducated, so doesn't really understand most of what's going on around him. Which means that he spends a great deal of this book being lectured to about what's really going on. On top of that, the book is very episodic, with characters changing sides in ways that make sense, but don't necessarily help the pacing.(less)

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Aug 22, 2012 Ringman Roth rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked parts of this book, but overall there wasn't enough steampunk in it. The main character's personality was rather boring, and the pacing was all over the place. Furthermore, there were some really silly, "out - of place" elements in this book.

Warning Spoilers ahead!

I'm talking about the fish people. At first I thought this was some kind of lovecraftian(Shadow over Innsmouth) element, but the fish people serve no real purpose to the story. Most of them are part of a prostitution ring. You...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Melissa Proffitt rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, steampunk, alternate-history

I went into this knowing that it was a very early example of steampunk fiction, so if the science/steampunkiness was lacking, I wasn't going to mark it down for that. And it turned out that the science/steampunkiness was very good! Lots of clockwork things and people, and you can tell that Jeter came out of the same primordial puddle as Tim Powers. The plot was also pretty good. It was the characters that killed it for me.

Basically, the hero, George, is a gormless panty-waisted wuss of the first...more

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Apr 14, 2012 V rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

In this steampunk mystery by K. W. Jetter, the inventor of the term "steampunk" himself, the reader finds a believable main character, Dower, who is plunged into societies and mysteries beyond his ken. Automatons, secret societies, crossbreeds of humans and selkies, clockwork inventions, and Victorian London are combined to create a simultaneously impossible and believable world. Dower tells his story in the form of a memoir, reflecting back on the curious incidents he experienced and effectivel...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Eric Dunn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first foray into the steampunk genre and I have to say that when I first started this book I was very confused as to what was going on. However, as I progressed through the book I started to get more and more into the plot and the characters.

Jeter does a phenomenal job of painting a scene and developing his characters. I could actually picture myself walking through the dank streets of London at night along with the main character. The main character in this book is Mr. Dower and he...more

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Apr 12, 2011 J.C. Hart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I took my time reading this novel - it's one of those books you want to dwell in a little. There is plenty of action, lots of great stuff going on, but I really think that in order to get the most from it, you should take your time.

George, the narrator, is a man who doesn't get worked up over much. Despite everything thrown at him, he tends to keep his wits about him, even though for the most part he has absolutely no-idea whats going on. When we come into his life he is fumbling along as best...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Marcus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Infernal Devices is quite a different reading experience to Morlock Night. Where Morlock Night has a plot that is transparent right from the start, nothing is clear in Infernal Devices almost until the very end and there are quite a few surprising and some rather nasty turns. In Morlock Night, good and evil are clearly definded, in Infernal Devices, you cannot be sure at all who is the protagonist’s ally and who is not.

The novel features a somewhat happles protagonist, George Dower, the inherito...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Ole Imsen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history, steampunk

This book is a bit of a peculiar acquaintance. It is written in a style that is distinctly Victorian, and I would not have been surprised if it was originally published in 1897 based only on how it is written.
It is written in a style that is reminiscent of both Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and to some extent H.P. Lovecraft's tales. We get a protagonist that tells the story himself after everything is over. Not as a diary, but as if he himself was writing this story of what hap...more This book is a bit of a peculiar acquaintance. It is written in a style that is distinctly Victorian, and I would not have been surprised if it was originally published in 1897 based only on how it is written.
It is written in a style that is reminiscent of both Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and to some extent H.P. Lovecraft's tales. We get a protagonist that tells the story himself after everything is over. Not as a diary, but as if he himself was writing this story of what happened.
And I found this helped a great deal to set the mood, and transport me to the time when the story is set.

There is absolutely no doubt that this is a steampunk story, the whole story revolves around clockwork creations. But Jeter has not limited himself to just this aspect, there is also a distinctly Lovecraftian(-ish) element here. Both elements are handled very well, and they compliment each other rather than taking attention away from each other.

Jeter is great at getting the reader going. The narrator's hints at things that for him has happened, but is still to come for the reader, makes you want to read on to find out what has happened. And there are several mysteries introduced early on, and there are more to come.
The story takes several twists and turns I did not see coming, and you will never quite know which characters will turn out to be friend or foe.
When there is action, and there is quite a bit of it, it is handled very well. The first person narration puts you in the middle of what is happening and at times this takes you on quite a ride.

The only problem I had with the book was the ending. It felt a bit rushed, and although it was pretty fulfilling, I felt it lacked a bit compared to the rest of the novel. But that being said, it is by no means so weak as to make the novel anything less than highly enjoyable.
If you are the least bit interested in steampunk this is certainly a must-read novel. And it is Victorian enough that it should be in the collection of everyone who likes science fiction from that period.

This review was originally published on my blog http://weirdmage.blogspot.com (less)

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Apr 01, 2011 April rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1800-s-victorian-era, read-in-2011, don-t-own, steampunk

Infernal Devices is an account told by George Dower of Clerkenwell, London in the hopes of repairing his ruined reputation as a result of the events he lays out in full description and detail. A wild adventure complete with sea creatures, people who've seen the future and now speak the lingo, secret societies for science, and a robot (automata) that takes on a life of it's own. A truely fantastical journey that requires a suspension of disbelief - but makes you all the more happy for it.

At firs...more

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Jul 14, 2012 H.E. Bergeron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I will begin by saying that I am predisposed towards liking books that tell a complete story in a single novel, and Infernal Devices is certainly that. It's a neat little romp through steampunk England with rarely a dull moment. The plot proceeds rapidly without feeling glossed over, and with few irrelevant scenes, a lot is accomplished within relatively few pages.

The world of Infernal Devices is one full of clockwork curiosities and characters suffering varying degrees of madness. I enjoyed tou...more I will begin by saying that I am predisposed towards liking books that tell a complete story in a single novel, and Infernal Devices is certainly that. It's a neat little romp through steampunk England with rarely a dull moment. The plot proceeds rapidly without feeling glossed over, and with few irrelevant scenes, a lot is accomplished within relatively few pages.

The world of Infernal Devices is one full of clockwork curiosities and characters suffering varying degrees of madness. I enjoyed touring it. I admit I was a little jarred by one particular paranormal element the author introduced which did not quite seem to fit with the universe he had constructed up until then. (view spoiler) The premise of this book, the 'miracle exception,' if you will, that moves it out of the mundane world, is that in this version of history dwell craftsmen and scientists who can construct miraculous devices. Any strangeness that proceeds from these devices makes sense in context, but I was far less willing to accept a new strangeness which did not have its origin in mad science. I had already suspended my disbelief in regards to quasimagical clockwork. To be suddenly asked to suspend it again in regards to something completely unrelated almost ruined the whole precarious thing.

Infernal Devices seems to be located in an era roughly parallel to our turn of the century (allowing a wide margin of error, since no specific events are identified to anchor it), and it shares a number of stylistic similarities to the fiction written broadly during that era. Perhaps the most obvious of these is that, although it is narrated in the first person, the narrator is not particularly the protagonist. George Dower exists more as a lens for the reader to see the story through than a person in his own right. He is swept along by the current of things, and does little to influence the story by his actions; but that did not particularly annoy me, accustomed as I am to similar reader-surrogate narrators in the tales of writers such as Lovecraft or Poe. It's a tradition of the age, and if anything, it made the story feel more authentically antiquated.

Prose-wise, Infernal Devices does the thing steampunk stories always do and tries to sound Regency - and Jeter pulls that off better than most. He avoids the archaic spellings that always feel forced and pretentious as well as the obviously modern syntax that sometimes invades this synthetic style of writing and exposes the sham.

I will add, as a nitpicky footnote, that there were a much larger number of typographical errors than I am used to seeing in a published work. At first I thought the author was just getting a little creatively exuberant with his approach to punctuation. After the first fifty pages, I had changed my conclusions and decided the proof reader fell asleep on the job. By the end of the book, I was wondering in a characteristically paranoid fashion whether it was a code, and I may in the future go through and check all the letters preceding and following the unexpected periods or mysteriously absent hyphens just to be sure. If anyone else deciphers it, let me know. On the other hand, if it was simply human error, your edition may not even have this problem.(less)

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Nov 29, 2011 Nicola-Jane Henfrey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was like a roller-coaster but at times not in a good way.

Opening the book and glancing over the first few pages is enough to scare many people away. The clever narration of George Dower is written in faux-Victorian prose, it contains long sentences and a requirement to have either a Kindle or a dictionary handy to decipher some of the vocabulary.

Writing from my own personal experience; it took five pages until I began to get used to this narrative but once I was in I was indeed in and...more

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Apr 03, 2007 Ron rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

More properly referred to as "steampunk" than sci-fi, and written in Jeter's kinetic style, it follows the hapless son of a famous victorian mechanical inventor. He's constantly mistaken for his rather more talented father, which ultimately puts him in the middle of a plot to destroy the planet (to clean things up of course) while riding it all out in a pneumatic carriage or some such.

More than almost any other book I've read I'd love to see this made into a feature film.

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Sep 27, 2011 Artur Coelho rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jeter é um dos mais importantes escritores do género steampunk e creditado como o criador do termo. Confesso que influenciado pela espectacularidade estética do génereo, tinha grandes expectativas quando peguei neste livro. Infelizmente a leitura foi para mim algo decepcionante. Se Jeter brilha na inventividade e descrições de mecanismos neo-vitorianos de relojoaria, deixando muito terreno em aberto à imaginação para pensar autómatos e engenhocas, o argumento perde-se num ritmo muito rápido onde...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Infernal Devices is the first novel I've read in the now well-defined steampunk genre. Steampunk, as I understand it, is set exclusively in a Victorian setting, but contains many of the tropes of standard science fiction, including advanced technologies (though most rely on steam for energy, as opposed to electricity), time travel, alien beings, mysterious plot twists, and juvenile sexuality. While it has its roots in classic proto-sci-fi writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, it was refine...more Infernal Devices is the first novel I've read in the now well-defined steampunk genre. Steampunk, as I understand it, is set exclusively in a Victorian setting, but contains many of the tropes of standard science fiction, including advanced technologies (though most rely on steam for energy, as opposed to electricity), time travel, alien beings, mysterious plot twists, and juvenile sexuality. While it has its roots in classic proto-sci-fi writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, it was refined in the 1980s by William Gibson, Tim Powers, James Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter. Jeter coined the term steampunk as a lighthearted response to the growing popularity of certain works outside of the more prevalent cyberpunk movement.

Infernal Devices deals with the bumbling adventures of George Dower, the son of a brilliant watchmaker and developer of advanced automatons. Dower has no specific will in the story, and the outrageous characters he meets and the outlandish events unfolding around him throughout the novel seem more of a brief and frightening interlude to an otherwise purposeless existence. Dower is visited in his father's shop by the mysterious Brown Leather Man who drops off a mechanical device and a strange coin that send Dower down a path leading him to strange piscine boroughs of London and the alien landscape of the Scottish Hebrides. He meets a coin forger, a pair of hustlers with strange futuristic accents, fishmen, elderly mad villains, temperance leaguers, whores, the Godly Army, and real-life selkies. There are several sudden reveals throughout the novel which change our perspective of all the prior events. None of these reveals seems earned by Dower, but only forced on him by a manipulative secondary character. Dower might be the key to destroying the earth, or he might be the key to saving it. The reader is not sure until the last ten pages.

Jeter's greatest strength is his deftness with the Victorian setting. He uses a breezy writing style which is eminently readable, but manages to imbue each scene with the grit and smoke of Dickens or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When Dower walks through Wetwick, we see the shadowy alleys and the lurching denizens. We smell the rot swept into the gutters. Also, concerning the mechanical automatons, Jeter writes with verve. The Paganinicon, which resembles Dower in all ways except for his skill with a violin and another important tool (where lies Jeter's juvenile treatment of sexuality), enforces the fantastic and comedic tone of the novel.

While Infernal Devices is a greatly entertaining read, I feel it's maybe not the best introduction to the steampunk genres. Jeter hits all of the superficial cues. There's magical mechanical technology, flying machines, weird underclasses, secret societies, myths come to life. But one of the most important aspects of the genre, as I understand it, is the punk spirit underneath its most important works. We see no liberating of non-western individuals from the obscurity the Victorians doomed them to. Jeter only briefly addresses the perils of the technologies of the future. I'm not suggesting every novel should involve these themes, but Jeter's novel seems to be on the lighter end of the spectrum of this genre. It's still a pleasant read. I'd just call it more steamgentry than steampunk. (less)

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Feb 15, 2012 Corinne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was a painful journey through that book. The first part was slow and very disturbing (I was beginning to think the author was the real mad man in all that stuff...) Past the middle of the book, it was a bit easier, either things became less weird than before, either I got used to weirdness, I just don't know (perhaps I just dropped the idea to piece the parts together). Paradoxically, the world upon wich seats this book is not really anchored in the clockwork or steam way of life, though ther...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Andrea rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 20, 2012 Diarmid rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, science-fiction, sf, steampunk

K W Jeter is generally credited with inventing the term 'steampunk' back in 1987, in an offhand and slightly facetious attempt to describe the Victorian set fantasies written by himself, Tim Powers and James Blaylock. 'Infernal Devices' has the Victorian setting and elements of steampunk. George Dower has inherited his father's business after his father passes away. His father produced devices of remarkable complexity and range, but George has little of his father's talent and subsists by doing...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Ian Tregillis rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People interested in "early" steampunk fiction

I enjoyed this a little more than Morlock Night, but in the end my reaction was much the same.

Very cool ideas in a very juicy setting. But as with Morlock Night, my enjoyment was severely hampered by the incredibly ineffectual protagonist. George Dower is rescued by the same mysterious benefactor not once, not twice, but at least THREE times. And he spends much of the novel being confused while other people explain the plot to him.

Although the details differ (alas, there are no Morlocks in this...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Jeter coined the term 'steampunk' in 1987, to describe the Victorian-esque retro-technology, alternate-history works that he and his friends were writing at the time (sort of post-cyberpunk). There's actually a short essay about steampunk at the beginning of the edition that I read (Angry Robot, 2011) in which Jeter discusses his thoughts about the name, the genre and what it all means.

I am neither a fan nor a detractor of Steampunk but I found Jeter's essay somewhat grinding when he states tha...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Lily E rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk, arc

I’ve been coming across the subject steampunk every so often while browsing through my favorite genre Urban Fantasy. It seems only appropriate that I venture for the first time in the genre with the classic Infernal Devices.

The book introduces us to Dower Junior, son of renowned clockwork maker who inherits his shop and trade, but not his skill. The visit of a mysterious client starts a most disconcerting chain of events that will lead him far from the safety of his house.

The narrative is told f...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Charles rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, scifi

While I admired the author's ability to emulate the tone of a Victorian author and paint the story's images in my mind, that was unfortunately countered by a lack of characters I cared about and a plot I couldn't buy into. I had the feeling that the only character for whom the author had any compassion was the dog -- in fact I wonder if the author would have preferred to have written an ending where the Brown Leather Man actually succeeded in his final goal.

Other negatives for me: the idea that...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cthulhu

It’s only fitting that the author who coined the phrase “steampunk” should benefit from the genre’s resurgence with this reprint of his 1987 title. Infernal Devices follows the misadventures of George Dower, son of a famed watchmaker who is so ill-inclined towards clockwork devices he apologetically announces he’s the son, not the father when greeting customers at his store. The arrival of an “Ethiope” carrying one of his father’s inventions puts George on a tortuous quest where he must find the...more

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About K.W. Jeter

Kevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universe, and has written three (to date) sequels to Blade Runner.

Series:
* Doctor Adder

Series contributed to:
* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
* Alien Nation
* Blade Runner
* Star W ...more

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Books by K.W. Jeter

The Mandalorian Armor (Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars, #1)

Star Wars: Hard Merchandise (Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars, #3)

Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars 2 - Slave Ship

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Quotes from Infernal Devices

“What is the future going to be like, then?'

'Hey, it's gonna be a gas,' Scape assured me. 'If you're into machines and stuff - like I am - you'd go for it. People are gonna have all kinds of shit. Do whatever they want with it. That's why it didn't faze me when ol' Bendray first told me about wanting to blow up the world. Hey - in the Future, everybody will want to!” — 5 people liked it

“And if I were to open you up - would you see anything less remarkable? Less intricately dazzling, in its squelching, spongy way? Lungs and heart and spleen, and all the rest - ticking away, as it were? Yet you walk down the boulevard, and pass any number of such wonderful devices, all ticking away as they walk, and think it no great marvel.” — 4 people liked it

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