The Gearheart Gambit

About this book

In the smog-choked, industrial metropolis of Cogstead, forty-seven-year-old lexical engineer Julian Rook is a cynical manipulator surviving on bribes and the thrill of rewriting other people's lives. Recruited from bureaucratic exile by the Ministry of Cohesion, Julian is tasked with inventing "Thomas Gearheart," a fictional everyman whose mass-mailed letters are designed to pacify the lower classes ahead of harsh labor consolidations. But when an incisive schoolteacher named Clara Voss begins writing back, her unflinching honesty pierces Julian's carefully constructed defenses. Told entirely through a web of intercepted letters, private journals, Ministry memoranda, and underground telegrams, the narrative weaves a complex tale of blackmail, tube-hackers, and a desperate son seeking his estranged father. As Julian's fabricated persona takes on a life of its own, he must navigate the corrosive reality of the Ministry's true intentions and the dissolving boundaries of his own identity.

Book details

Genres:

Literary Fiction, Steampunk, Epistolary

Language:

en

Published:

2026-06-19

Content rating:

R