OH! I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED THIS FOR A BORING LITERATURE THESIS!!! I love SF novels and you are talking about a great sub-genre (steampunk) here! You could try The Difference Engine or The Anubis Gates some Philip K Dick would probably not go amiss...hmmm you could use it as a springboard into other parts of SF - some comic/steampunk/general laugh at SF with Toby Frost's Space Captain Smith series, some Peter F Hamilton if you like the sciency bits with good characters, if you want any more PM me laugh

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