Steampunk is making a comeback - apparently

'Automata, clattering railway carriages, hansom cabs and 'pea soupers', gas lit streets and the doffing of caps, gruff policemen, mad scientists, arrogant industrialists, seances, pentagrams, addictions to laudanum and a few ravening zombies...'

Sound familiar? Well, how about this?

'Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by new inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, whilst ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen and journalists. But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side. For this is also a world where lycanthropy is a rampant disease that plagues the dirty whorehouses of Whitechapel, where poltergeist infestations create havoc in old country seats, where cadavers can rise from the dead and where nobody ever goes near the Natural History Museum.'

No, it's not the latest Ulysses Quicksilver Pax Britannia adventure - it is, in fact, an entirely different steampunk extravaganza entitled The Affinity Bridge from author George Mann.

According to one reviewer, 'Steampunk is making a comeback, and with this novel Mann is leading the charge.'

Well, as someone who has been leading the charge since February 2007 (having first envisaged the world of Pax Britannia nearly three years ago, back in October 2005) I for one can't wait to read it!