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K. W. Jeter
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Infernal Devices Kindle Edition

by K.W. Jeter (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 213 ratings
See all formats and editions
WHEN GEORGE’S FATHER DIED, HE LEFT GEORGE HIS WATCHMAKER SHOP – AND MORE.
But George has little talent for watches and other infernal devices. When someone tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue. The classic steampunk tale from the master of the genre.

With a nw introduction by the author, and an afterword by Jeff VanderMeer.

FILE UNDER: Steampunk [ Intriguing Tech | It's About Time | Musical Interlude | Classic Steampunk ]
Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 3
    George Dower Trilogy
  2. Print length
    280 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Angry Robot
  6. Publication date
    April 7, 2011
  7. File size
    1316 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is the real thing – a mad inventor, curious coins, murky London alleys and windblown Scottish isles… a wild and extravagant plot that turns up new mysteries with each succeeding page.” 
– James P Blaylock, author of Homunculus
 
“What we see in Infernal Devices is not just the presager of what steampunk is, but what it could have been, a marvellously self-aware and inventive attack on the obsessions and degradations of the present.”
– Strange Horizons

“Goddamn, what a book. This is like H G Wells with H P Lovecraft’s descriptions of darkness run through the mind of Sherlock Holmes writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s about as screwy as it gets, complete steampunkery, with a duo who are scamming their way across the land through an entirely different set of devices. Must read… Pure joy. I couldn’t set it down.”
– SFBook.com

“Suddenly I can see exactly what the whole fascination with Steampunk is all about. Jeter sets the Victorian scene here so skilfully, it’s absolutely perfect. I could easily have been reading a novel written in 1840. He’s impressively deft and accurate in his language of the time, making the novel completely believable, and yet he still writes in a style that is effortlessly readable. His Victorian London is dark, menacing, and compelling.”
– Fantasy Nibbles

“A delicious and quite insane romp through the gas-lit streets of London. Absolute must-read!”
– SFRevu

“I’ll save you the trouble of reading this entire review by simply saying that K W Jeter’s Infernal Devices is one of the best executed novels I’ve read in a long time, and I easily expect it to be one of my top reads for the year. I guarantee you will enjoy it.”
– The Little Red Reviewer

“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

“Infernal Devices is a ripsnorting, grandly comical Victorian-era potboiler that is far more entertaining than the most recent Indiana Jones movie; indeed it is more exciting than any big budget Hollywood blockbuster that I have seen in the past five years. It is that rare book that is both literary and cinematic. You can’t help but pine for a movie version even as you realize that it could never be as good as the book. It’s full of crazy, clockwork automatons, cliffhanger chapter endings, sinister conspiracies, and gloriously impossible super-science. It is a book which will transport you to another reality.”
– Tetsuo Broker

About the Author

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.

Website: https://steamwords.wordpress.com/
Social media: https://twitter.com/kwjeter

Author hometown: Las Vegas, USA

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004J4WKYM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Angry Robot; Reprint edition (April 7, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 7, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1316 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 213 ratings

About the author

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K. W. Jeter

K. W. Jeter

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K. W. Jeter is an American science fiction and thriller author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and complex, paranoid characters. His latest novels are THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS, set in the sinister & glamorous world of the film industry of the Third Reich, and the Kim Oh Thriller series -- KIM OH 1: REAL DANGEROUS GIRL, KIM OH 2: REAL DANGEROUS JOB and KIM OH 3: REAL DANGEROUS PEOPLE, with more to come.

Jeter is an exhilarating writer who always seems to have another rabbit to pull out of his hat.

-- The New York Times Book Review

Brain-burning intensity . . .

-- Village Voice

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
213 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Danno
5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Fun Read
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2021
Verified Purchase
"Infernal Devices" is such a fun book to read. Jeter details the adventures of George Dower, a young man in the Victorian era who has inherited his father's mechanical repair shop, but little to none of his father's technical ability, real-world shrewdness, and overall moxie. Of course, he gets sucked into a journey quite against his will and is forced to learn to think on his feet through contact with a wide variety of truly eccentric individuals with competing agendas.

It's tempting to pick apart Jeter's influences (there's a lot of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Douglas Adams, Jules Verne, and HP Lovecraft) but it's also somewhat academic as the book's vision stands on its own. While it's marketed as steampunk, this is really steampunk before its time and really has nothing to do with steampunk as we know it today. It's best to enjoy this book for what it is - an often very funny adventure - and not try to box Jeter in. On the surface, the book seems old-fashioned but the content is indeed very modern and anticipates a lot of millennial concerns.

The preface and afterword are both well-worth reading, as they place the book and Jeter in an appropriate context and will have you rethinking steampunk beyond a cosplay phenomenon.
2 people found this helpful
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RaksGato
4.0 out of 5 stars Wanted to love this book, but ended up just liking it!
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2013
Verified Purchase
Okay -- I had a lot of trouble getting into this book by Jeter, the originator of the term "Steampunk."

The book was written in Victorian English and the story told as narrative, with most chapters starting with the main character and narrator, talking about how he is writing down his experiences. So, from the get go, you know he survives it all. Does take a bit of the drama out of it, doesn't it? :-)

However, this book is full of well described characters, fantastical human-like creatures, lots of action and intrigue, and the much needed occasional comic relief. So what was my problem? I'm not sure. I was 80% through the book (how do I know that -- I read it on Kindle, so no page numbers, just percent of completion) before I began to care at all about the main character. I disliked many of the "baddies," but really did like the rest -- even more than the main character. Shoot, I liked the main characters live-in servant better than I liked the main character. In fact, I liked the dog he adopts about mid way through the book better than I liked him! Actually, his befriending the dog was the first time I felt any compassion for him.

I'm not a stranger to steampunk novels and I can't say that I didn't, at least in the end, enjoy this one. Just was too hard to become invested in the trials and tribulations of the main character. You'll notice I gave it 4 stars. It was well written, well researched, the language was spot-on for the time period, lots of action, lots of colorful characters. Everything a good novel should have. I'm certain others would love it; it just wasn't my cup of tea.
3 people found this helpful
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Cora L. Foerstner
3.0 out of 5 stars Monty Python meets the Pink Panther in Victorian England
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2013
Verified Purchase
J. W. Jeter wrote Infernal Devices in 1987. He also coined the term Steampunk to describe the new Victorian books he, Tim Powers, and James P. Blaylock were writing. I wanted to go back to Steampunk's beginnings, and since Jetter is one of the touchstone authors, I decided to read Infernal Devices first.

The Story
The narrator, George Dower, runs a clockwork shop, which he inherited from his father. His primary problems is that he knows little about clocks and makes a living accepting small jobs his assistant can handle. George's life is uneventful until an "Ethiope" comes into the shop and convinces George to try and fix one of his father's complicated clockwork mechanisms. The "leather-skinned" man gives George a strange coin, and the Victorian adventure begins.

George is curious about the coin, and, putting the mechanical device aside, sets out to investigate the coin's origins and meaning.

His adventures twist and turn in every imaginable way. He winds up in the seedy part of town, is in trouble with A Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vices, falls in with a criminal who speaks in 20th century American vernacular, repels numerous sexual advances, and is betrayed by nearly everyone.

The story might be described as Monty Python meets the Pink Panther in Victorian England. Humor runs throughout the tale. There are lots of clockwork devices, which George cannot manage and often destroys. Most of the social problems and issues of the era are addressed in a dark brooding atmosphere.

"The Complete Destruction of the Earth" chapter is funny, and for a while I thought the story might take a better turn, but alas, for me, it didn't.

My Response
On an intellectual level I like the story and see value in what Jeter is doing. However, to be truthful, it took me an agonizingly long time to read it.

Here are the strengths of the book:

*the humor,

*an honest look at the dark side of Victorian life and the social issues,

*the automatons and clockwork gadgets,

*Scape and the sexually aggressive women, who were far more interesting characters than George.

Here are the issues I had with the book:

*the Victorian language--I know I'm supposed to love Dickens, but I don't; the language is tedious and puts me to sleep;

*the first person narration; George is an unsympathetic character, which was my biggest issues--I really didn't care what happened to him;

*the unrealistic and often contorted plot twists, which I either figured out or suspected.

Since I love Monty Python, Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett, it's a little odd that I found this a difficult read. I think, if you like Victorian language and are engaged with a protagonist who is thick and naive, you'll enjoy the book. It's not bad. In many ways, it's excellent, but for me it was flat.
8 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Sirtony
4.0 out of 5 stars Steam Punk
Reviewed in Australia on January 28, 2017
Verified Purchase
Classic steam punk is really all you need to know
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A LAWSON
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2013
Verified Purchase
I have read this book many times since it first appeared in the mid 1980s. It's beautifully written and a real page turner. Dower's slightly stuffy and naive first person voice produces remarkable story telling.
If you're into Steampunk (K. W. Jeter invented the term) and Victoriana, just buy it.
(Also, please see my review of Fiendish Schemes, the sequel to Infernal Devices.)
4 people found this helpful
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tasha
5.0 out of 5 stars steampunk must have
Reviewed in France on September 17, 2012
Verified Purchase
the "must have " of the steam punk culture litterature. founder of the movement without knowing it.
The cover speaks by itself
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J
5.0 out of 5 stars Steampunk Original
Reviewed in Japan on November 13, 2013
Verified Purchase
The book that coined the term. If you want Steampunk look no further.
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xurde72
4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book. The pace is good and the twist ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
Nice book. The pace is good and the twist keep the story alive. Crazy inventors, misterious characters and a weird inbred race to add a little fantasy. the steampunk feel is there but not over descriptive, so a little imagination is needed to visualise the world. Overall it's quite entertaining and a good adition to any Victorian fantasy/steampunk collection.
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