“[Baker’s] a fine prose stylist with a skeptical intelligence and a black sense of humor.” —The Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Baker's Company novels are a monumental achievement of imagination and whimsy.” —Starlog

Edward Alton-Bell Fairfax seems to be the perfect Victorian hero. The mysterious circumstances of his birth lead to his rise through public school and a career in the British navy before his recruitment by the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society, a secret fraternity pulling the strings of governments and individuals alike to bring about a scientifically-driven Utopia. Edward is trained as a spy for the Society, and joins a group of the GSS’s special agents on a journey through nineteenth-century Europe and the Middle East, armed with savoir faire, banter—and the GSS’s special gadgets. A James Bond for the Victorian era, Edward encounters self-propelled carriages, a galvanic underground train, flying machines, and unsavory characters.

And through all his adventures, he learns that the Society might be connected to an even more shadowy organization. . .