Steampunk is apparently a big deal among fantasy readers. A genre that sets adventure in 'alternative histories', it's been a phenomenon in adult fiction and now James Roy brings it to children. Set in an Australia where the east has been colonised by the English and the west by the French, the main character, Ichabod, lives in a lighthouse in a small town with his unofficially adopted father-figure Major Ulysses Rutherford Marshall, or the Major. The Major is an inventor and mild eccentric with a dark past. It is a world of steam trains, convicts and the Major's wild inventions. The town's wealthiest man, Mr Bowman, owner of Bowman's railways and steamships, is up to something and Ichabod and his friend Clementine are going to find out what. Roy clearly enjoyed the invention and imagination that went into this tale - train buffs will enjoy his loving descriptions of engines and instruments. I found the novel overly long for the age group and a little directionless at times. The story reads like an introduction to an ongoing series and there's a lot of scene setting, but the characters are not fully fleshed out in most cases. However, as a series, it holds definite promise.

Eliza Metcalfe is AB&P's editorial assistant. C. 2003 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

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