This new steampunk adventure is a race around the world.
Tim Barnabas is a submariner from the Cuttlefish, a coal fired submarine. Clara Calland is the daughter of a scientist who carries a secret formula that threatens British Imperial power. After a daring chase across the globe, they have brought the secret to Westralia. Here, much of Australia is simply too hot to be habitable by day. People are nocturnal, living underground and working outside at night. To cross the deserts they use burrowing machines know as "steam moles." With the Cuttlefish out of action, her crew takes jobs on these submarine-like craft. Duke Malcolm, of the Imperial Security Service, transports Clara's rebel-father to a prison in Eastern Australia, hoping to bait her into attempting a rescue. Clara looks to Tim for help, only to find he has fled a racist incident into the desert. She takes a steam mole in search of him. The two head to Eastern Australia, where they discover an invading force with plans to take Westralia. Forced to survive in the desert, they encounter the intolerance meted out to the aboriginal people. Can they save Westralia from falling under British rule? And should they?"
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"Set in a sharply imagined alternate world." -Kirkus Reviews
"Delightful… Set in an Australia where it is too hot to go outside during the day, The Steam Mole is something of a love-letter to Freer's adopted country and a whacking good tale."-Otherwhere Gazette
"Dave Freer always delivers compelling, fast-moving, and addictive fantasy adventures. Write more, Dave." -Garth Nix, New York Times-bestselling author of the Abhorsen trilogy and the Keys to the Kingdom series
"David Freer is an imaginative author who tells great stories." -Rebecca Moesta, New York Times-bestselling coauthor of Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights"
About the Author
Dave Freer is an ichthyologist turned author. He lives on Flinders Island, between Australia and Tasmania, with his wife, Barbara; four dogs; four cats; and two sons, Paddy and James. His first book, The Forlorn, came out in 1999. He has coauthored novels with Eric Flint and with Mercedes Lackey, as well as written A Mankind Witch and Dragons Ring and various shorter works. Besides working as a fisheries scientist for the Western Cape shark fishery, he has worked as a commercial diver and as a relief chef at several luxury game lodges. His other interests are rock climbing, diving, fly-fishing, fly tying, wine tasting, and the smoking and salting of food. Visit him online at coalfiredcuttlefish.wordpress.com, at www.facebook.com/Freer.Dave, and on Twitter @davefreersf.
Dave Freer is a former Marine Biologist who specialized in fish (an Ichthyologist), proving that you can end up as an academic even if you did win a sports bursary (for rock-climbing) to take you through college. At seventeen was a conscripted Medic during the Angolan/South African conflict. Politically from a liberal anti-apartheid family this was quite an experience. He lived through it and came out as a 45 year old in a nineteen year old body, which may explain his frequent confusion. He is still deciding just what do when he grows up. His first postgraduate job was as Chief Scientific Officer for the Western Cape Commercial Shark fishery. As a biologist he's spent a lot of time working in water no sane person would go near, having encounters (both in small boats and in the water) with sharks, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, electric rays and a number of other toxic/lethal creatures. He has worked as a salvage diver, run two major fish farms (he's a very good plumber), as well as doing some steeplejack work. Additionally he has worked as the relief chef for a group of exclusive luxury game/ ecotourism/ whitewater-rafting lodges. He has an obsession with food, recreating traditional fare, something he uses in his books. He's a top mountaineer and rock-climber, opening many of his country's best rock routes. He's a fanatical spiny-lobster diver and flyfisherman and the author of a number of articles on both. If it is dangerous and a little crazy -- he's done it. Besides writing some amazingly boring but fundamental papers on shark age and growth and reproductive biology, he has authored or co-authored eight sf/fantasy novels, with number nine and ten in press, and further four contracted. He's also written a lot of shorter fiction, appearing in various collections. He lives on a wonderful remote Island off the coast of Tasmania, Australia, a ten hour ferry trip to anywhere, with 3 dogs to do his thinking, 3 cats to be waited on, two sons to lead him astray, and a wonderful wife to be patient with him and them, although it is a task that would tax a saint. Sometimes he wonders why he does this. Other times he just wonders. See his webpage if you really want more.
I reread Cuttlefish the first book in this series, then read two other new books by other top five favorite authors then read Steam Mole. WOW! I didn't think Dave Freer could top Cuttlefish, and then he did.
Clara and Tim are still enormous amounts of fun, and strong, well written characters. The plot points run on rails, and the supporting cast is divine.
This second in his "Cuttlefish" series of YA novels is every bit as good as the first, and reveals an author in complete mastery of the language and his medium. Freer's steampunk world is realistically drawn, with characters that are interesting and believable. Even his villains are three dimensional...the Duke who has to manage his idiot older brother, the King-Emperor, for example.
This is a great job, and I recommend the book highly.
