Recently returned from war, young Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax is grateful to be taken under the wing of the Gentleman’s Speculative Society. At the Society, Edward soon learns that a secret world flourishes beneath the surface of London’s society, a world of wondrous and terrible inventions and devices used to tip the balance of power in a long-running game of high-stakes intrigue. Through his intensive training Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, unwanted and lonely boy, becomes Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, Victorian super-assassin, fleeing across the Turkish countryside in steam-powered coaches and honing his fighting skills against clockwork opponents.
As Edward travels across Europe with a team of companions, all disguised as gentleman dandies on tour, he learns more about himself and the curious abilities he is gradually developing. He begins to wonder if there isn’t more going on than simple international intrigue, and if he and his companions are maybe part of a political and economic game stretching through the centuries. But, in the end, is it a game he can bring himself to play?
Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, the idealistic assassin. Perhaps the most dangerous man alive.
Praise for Kage Baker:
""Kage Baker is the greatest natural storyteller to enter the field since Poul Anderson.""
--Gardner Dozois
“Baker's Company novels are a monumental achievement of imagination and whimsy.”
--Starlog
""Anything Kage Baker publishes I will immediately rush out and read! I am never disappointed. The woman is a marvel. She can take on any voice, in any time, and make it sing high and low.""
-- Ellen Kushner
“Baker is a writer worth following into any fictional territory.”
--The San Francisco Chronicle
“[Baker’s] a fine prose stylist with a skeptical intelligence and a black sense of humor.”
--The Los Angeles Times Book Review
“One of the most consistently entertaining series . . . . The novels read like literary pastiches—echoes of Heinlein and Robert Louis Stevenson fill this one—and the narrative pace matches that of most thrillers.”
—Amazing Stories on The Life of the World to Come
“The Empress of Mars reminds me . . . of Robinson's Antarctica, both describe communities of smart, highly-trained, and occasionally insane people in a hostile environment cut off from the normal world. . . . Sly humor and vivid, memorable characters.”
--i09
“[Written with] with flair and enviable skill. . . . The Company novels have never received the accolades they deserve. Here's hoping that . . . more readers will discover Baker's astonishing saga, assured that their time and effort will be amply rewarded.”
--The San Francisco Chronicle on The Sons of Heaven
