« Frankenstein's Legions » John Whitbourn

Victor Frankenstein fashioned just one creature from the remnants of the dead, but the governments who have hijacked his discoveries see the advantage of resurrection on an industrial scale. What better way to fight their never–ending wars than with armies of obedient soldiers, recycled from the body parts left over from earlier battles? And how better to silence their own citizens who protest at ceaseless conflict and plundered graveyards? Set in the 1830s, Frankenstein’s Legions details an alternative history in which power over life and death is a reality, a science revived by a second and even more fanatical French Revolution. The republican regime, inspired by zeal and desperation, has swept over Europe, employing inexhaustible swarms of lazaran troops. The remaining independent nations, including England, are obliged to shed their scruples and likewise raise lazaran armies. Across this crazed and Gothic history stride Julius Frankenstein, soldier nephew of the notorious scientist; Charles Babbage inventor of the proto–computer Difference Engine; and the Honourable Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace, genius daughter of Lord Byron. Pulling their strings — they believe — are the puppetmasters Talleyrand, French statesman par excellence and now a renegade in English employ; and Sir Percy Blakeney, sometime Scarlet Pimpernel and current head of the British Secret Service. Meanwhile, the French have been unwise enough to revive their recently deceased Emperor. The intention was simply to pick the brain of history’s foremost military mind. However, the risen Emperor Napoleon is developing fresh ambitions of his own.