# The Bannon and Clare series by Lilith Saintcrow



## Werthead (Aug 13, 2012)

*Book 1: The Iron Wyrm Affair*



> Emma Bannon is a powerful sorceress in the employ of Victrix, Queen of England, vessel of the god-spirit Britannia and ruler of the Empire. Archibald Clare is a mentath, a human capable of staggering feats of logic and deduction. When other mentaths start turning up dead on the streets of Londinium, Bannon and Clare have to join forces and uncover the reasons for the deaths...and the nature of a conspiracy that threatens the nation.
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> The Iron Wyrm Affair is a curious hybrid of alternate history, fantasy and steampunk, with a dash of SF added to proceedings (mentaths essentially being mentats from Dune). The early part of the novel struggles as Lilith Saintcrow tries to find a way of simultaneously balancing these elements, introducing the characters and establishing the plot without it all falling into a mess. She succeeds mainly by adopting a, "Damn the torpedoes, fall steam ahead!" approach and trusting the reader to stay with her. This pays off about a third of the way into the book, when it starts to fulfil its billing as a glorious alterno-history romp through a Victorian England that never was.
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