I’ve been following Andrew Knighton’s blog, Andrew Knighton Writes, for a while now. He has been a very supportive blogger, always engaging and interested in what others think. He has particular interest in science fiction, fantasy and his beloved steampunk, but he is one of these people who appears to generally be interested in everything. I felt he was a great candidate for Recommended Reads and I’m very glad I decided to read his first published book.
Riding the Mainspring is an interesting collection of steampunk short stories. In each case, the author has taken a period of history or literary genre and re-imagined it infused with steam- or clockwork-based technologies instead of electricity. Each is a little intellectual exercise of “what if…?’. What if a the best gunslinger was a steam-driven robot? What if Industrial Revolution period Europe was destroyed by volcanoes?
There are 10 stories in all, a couple involving the same characters but most stand-alone, and all entertaining. My favourite two were Urban Drift, just for the setting of a city with ever-moving houses drifting along a network of streets; and Bullets, a tale of intrigue set in a world not dissimilar to that of the Inquisition – a struggle between religion, science and the ruling houses.
It’s clear that Knighton is a talented writer with a fertile imagination. Definitely one to watch. Recommended.
To buy Riding The Mainspring from Amazon.co.uk click here.
To buy Riding The Mainspring from Amazon.com click here.
Recommended reads are independently published books that I have bought and enjoyed. They are part of a commitment to ‘pay it forward’ to other independent authors by buying their work and promoting those that I have enjoyed, both here and on Amazon and Goodreads. I don’t accept submissions but instead focus on people who have helped or inspired me through their blogging or who actively support other writers, but I only recommend those books I have personally enjoyed. If you are an independent author I would encourage you to do the same and help pay it forward to the community. For more information please see my blog post here.
Suffolk Scribblings 
There is always a thoughtful and reasoned quality to your reviews which gives them significant weight in my opinion. On those grounds I am off to have a look at his Blog
Thank you, Peter. I always worry I haven’t said enough. It’s a difficult balance, recommending a book without giving too much away.
Please do visit Andrew’s blog. It’s a real treasure trove of advice on writing & creativity; as well as his beloved speculative fiction.
Thanks for the great write up Dylan – really glad you enjoyed the stories.