Frankenstein Vigilante. The Steampunk series. #1: The Incorruptibles
THE INCORRUPTIBLES is Lawrence and Trengove's first new full-length novel in many years, the first of a series of FRANKENSTEIN VIGILANTE books. It's a steampunk adventure which, while it features many of the genre's tropes (coal-powered steam technology, forbidden Victorian fashions and sensual eroticism, for example) pushes steampunk fiction into original and startling territory.
The story is set in The Smoke, a dystopian city-state whose overlords keep the population firmly in their place with the help of corrupt law enforcement and unimaginably cruel mobsters the Silencios. The heroes are a crew of youthful vigilantes, the Incorruptibles, set on overthrowing the venal and oppressive ruling class. They’re led by Cerval Frankenstein, direct descendant of the original Doctor, and they have a fearsome secret weapon: Thorsten Laverack and his mighty steam-powered prosthetic arm. Prominent among the heroes are four powerful and very individual women.
THE INCORRUPTIBLES is an original, one-of-a-kind book, reflecting the kind of unique world portrayed in Ian Grainger’s cover image. Polluted, dark and dangerous, city-state The Smoke is surrounded by impenetrable jungle, the home of warring tribespeople, on the far fringes of which lies the Frankensteins’ ancestral estate. The book adds wild retro-futuristic inventions - giant rubber-powered aircraft, for example - to the lexicon of steampunk technology.
Written in a literate but graphic style, the story unfolds in roller-coaster scenes of violence, wild sex and laugh-out-loud humour. This novel may be Lawrence and Trengove's first in a while, but THE INCORRUPTIBLES reflects many of the outrageous perspectives of their other books. In turns exciting, horrifying, sexy and funny, THE INCORRUPTIBLES revolutionizes steampunk fiction and brings it to a new, wider audience. The second volume of FRANKENSTEIN VIGILANTE: THE STEAMPUNK SERIES will be published later this year.
The Story Behind This Book
Chris and I have written a lot of animation - movies and TV. We both love animé and I'm particularly intrigued by the wilder shores of steampunk. I had been playing around with an out-there 'Frankenstein FBI' premise: a law enforcement agency - the FBI - building its own super-agent but in the end we decided to take the idea into a much more original - even bizarre - parallel universe: the youth of a City State, The Smoke - led by a direct descendent of the original Frankenstein, attempt to overthrow a repressive criminal regime.