The Doomsday Vault

Harper’s alternate Victorian England is afflicted by a “clockwork plague” that renders most victims mindless zombies and transforms a rare few into geniuses responsible for a multitude of mechanical wonders. Impoverished noblewoman Alice Michaels has been spurned by high society since losing two family members to the plague; now, despite an unladylike knack for clockworks, she is trying to regain her respectability and marry advantageously. Her plans are disrupted when she and Gavin Ennock, a former airshipman with uncanny musical talent, catch the eye of the British government’s clandestine technology department, which draws them into events that threaten the safety of the realm. Harper takes steampunk’s whimsy too far into cliché and absurdity with clockwork automata more advanced than today’s computers. Such flaws are exacerbated by pedestrian prose, shallow and inconsistent characters, and a convoluted plot driven by absurd coincidence. (Nov.)