Books - H.G. Wells' Steampunk Re-imagining

I’ve got to tell you about a most delightful series, "The Victorian Trilogy", highly recommended for fans of classic sci-fi and steampunk alike. I waited impatiently for a year for "The Map of Chaos", which finally came out during the summer of 2015. These books use H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", "War of the Worlds" and "The Invisible Man" for inspiration, and are sublimely wry social satires from the Spanish author Felix J. Palma. The whimsical style isn't for everyone, but I love it. Here are some promo blurbs for the three books:

“Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, "The Map of Time" boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including "The Time Machine", from being wiped from existence. What happens if we change history? The author explores this question in the novel, weaving an historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting—a story full of love and adventure that transports readers to a haunting setting in Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.

“"The Map of the Sky" begins in 1898. New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry well-to-do Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he first accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the Martian invasion featured in H. G. Wells’s popular novel "The War of the Worlds". Meanwhile in London, Wells himself is unexpectedly made privy to certain objects, apparently of extraterrestrial origin, that were discovered decades earlier on an ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic. On that same expedition was an American crew member named Edgar Allan Poe, whose inexplicable experiences in the frozen wasteland would ultimately inspire him to create one of his most enduring works of literature. When eerie, alien-looking cylinders begin appearing in London, Wells is certain it is all part of some elaborate hoax. But soon, to his great horror, he realizes that a true invasion of Earth has indeed begun. As brave bands of citizens converge on a crumbling London to defend it against utter ruin, Emma and her suitor must confront the enigma that is their love, a bright spark of hope even against the darkening light of apocalypse.

“When the person he loves most dies in tragic circumstances, the mysterious protagonist of "The Map of Chaos" does all he can to speak to her one last time. A session with a renowned medium seems to offer the only solution, but the experience unleashes terrible forces that bring the world to the brink of disaster. Salvation can only be found in "The Map of Chaos", an obscure book that he is desperate to uncover. In his search, he is given invaluable help by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, and of course by H. G. Wells, whose "Invisible Man" seems to have escaped from the pages of his famous novel to sow terror among mankind. They alone can discover the means to save the world and to find the path that will reunite the lovers separated by death…”
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I couldn’t resist these books, having grown up with H.G. Wells novels and movies. And I’m glad I didn’t!

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